Bozak B-200Y
A two-inch aluminum tweeter, damped in a bed of foam rubber, that Bozak built into nearly every speaker it sold.
Overview
The B-200Y is the treble half of Bozak's component approach. It is a 2-inch tweeter designed as a building block, not a standalone product, to be paired with the company's B-199A bass driver and B-209B midrange in systems ranging from a modest two-way all the way up to the Concert Grand. Bozak's own advertising in Audio (March 1969, p.19) presented the lineup as an orchestra, with the B-199A bass speaker, B-209B midrange speaker, and B-200Y treble speaker pair as complementary components. That is marketing language, sure, but it shows how thoroughly the driver was tied into the company's system-building concept.
The construction is what collectors still talk about. Bozak's aluminum diaphragm measures just .002 inch thick, with a central aluminum dome providing dual radiation. The whole assembly is nested in a bed of foam rubber that damps the peaks and resonances typical of other tweeters. Bozak claimed no other tweeter had such complete damping. Per the company's literature, the result was velvet-smooth treble with no hint of shrillness. Whether that holds up on a bench is another matter, since no independent measurement data survives in the archive. The design rationale is unusual and the parts are distinctive.
The B-200Y also appeared in the B-207B two-way coaxial, which mounted a B-199A bass speaker and a B-200Y treble speaker on a single frame. It was a compact starting point for buyers who planned to grow their system later. Bozak's step-up literature from the period laid out the progression: begin with a bass driver and a B-200Y treble pair, add a second bass and another tweeter pair, then a midrange and crossover network, and eventually build to a fourteen-speaker array. The tweeter was the constant across every stage.
For anyone chasing a pair today, the practical notes matter more than the marketing. The foam-rubber damping is the weak point. Foam of that vintage has had decades to deteriorate, and a B-200Y with crumbling surround material will not perform as designed. The aluminum diaphragm is thin enough to be easily deformed by careless handling, and the drivers were sold as pairs, so mismatched singles are common. That was a used price six decades ago, not a market forecast, but it hints at how these were regarded - as service parts and spares rather than collector trophies.
The B-200Y has no documented production run, no original list price, and no surviving independent review. The archive's fact sheet for this model is effectively empty, and everything above comes from Bozak's own advertising and the period classifieds.
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.
Related Models
- Bozak 14
- Bozak 30
- Bozak 31
- Bozak 4000A
- Bozak B-1000
- Braun AUDIO-1 (1965)
- Braun AUDIO-250 (1965)
- Magnavox Component Systems (1972)
- Acoustic Research AR (1967-1976)
- Acoustic Research 11