These units were actually repaired before I did the UHER Elite Series car speakers.  Again these are from the late 1970s…maybe the early 1980s.  At the time, the Peerless K040MRF and the doped version, were thought to be some of the best sealed midrange units on the market.  I built a pair of speakers using them, Dalesford 12 inch bass units and Celestion HF1300 tweeters.  Unhappy with those eventually, I built new speakers into the original cabinets which were now ported.  I used Volt bass units and Celestion HF2000 tweeters, keeping the midrange units.

Over the last few years I began to think my hearing was going as the midrange on my music system just wasn’t right.  Once I checked the midrange speakers however, I realised the foam surrounds had deteriorated badly.

The picture on the right is a faulty speaker.  Damage to the foam is not obvious but when I touched it with my finger, it went straight through.

Fortunately, there is a company that provides replacement foam surrounds specifically designed for the Peerless K040MRF speakers.  They are from a company called Audiofriends…the link to the right parts is here.  There are other companies providing foam surrounds that may fit…but these are the correct ones, you have been warned.

Most of the alternatives have the foam stick out from the speaker, which is wrong for the Peerless.

The repair was relatively straightforward, although like the UHER speakers, it was time consuming.  I followed the instructions from Audiofriends: there is a YouTube video here and a folder of specific images here.

To the right is a picture of the finished article.  It looks like it should and sounds just like it did when new.

NOTE: Peerless produced a midrange speaker designated 821615 (now also discontinued) which was supposed to be a drop in replacement.  I’ve never tried one…but remember that both speakers were available in 8 and 4 ohm impedances.

Here is a picture I found on the internet with the K040MRF and 821615 next to each other.  You can see the similarity and the newer technology of the 821615.