TSI-500/CS-20 tweeter issues

fattmann

TL;DR version: Tweeters on my right TSI-500 and my CS-20 seem to not be working. Thoughts on ways to confirm before calling Polk? All impedance are near 4.7ohms on all entire Polk TSI system. Details below.

For a long time I ran my 500s off of a Sony 2ch amp, running from the pre-outs from my Yamaha 765, and my sub off another external amp. The amp I was running the sub on died recently, so I decided to go back to my old setup. The "old setup" is running the 500s off my receiver and using half of the Sony to run the sub (I ran it like that for about 4yrs before getting my Yamaha.)

This Yamaha has never had the left and right speaker outputs connected, always ran the external amp. Once I hooked the subwoofer up, I got no sound out of the sub/Sony at all. Through troubleshooting the sub situation, I noticed a low hiss instead of the familiar higher pitched white noise from the Yamaha test tone. After switching the inputs around I found that the rights tower's tweeter works on all LCR channels, where as on the left tower and center I could not get any sound from the tweeters. The woofers all work fine and sound great.

I metered all the speakers in my setup and they are as follows. All readings were held for ~20s to stabilize readings:
Left TSI-500: (Terminals unlinked) Bottom Terminals- 4.7ohms, Top Terminals- No reading. Linked: 4.7ohms
Right TSI-500: (Terminals unlinked) Bottom Terminals- 4.7ohms, Top Terminals- No reading. Linked: 4.7ohms
Center CS-20: 4.9ohm
Rear left TSI-100: 4.9ohms, Rear right TSI-100: 4.7ohms.

The thing that tripped me up is that all readings are very close to each other. I was expecting a blown tweeter to throw off impedance. I was surprised to find all my TSI products to be below 6ohms... I expected a little bit below 8 but 4.7 seemed low, but the consistency reassured me. Also on the towers, I was unable to get a reading from the top terminals, which I'm pretty sure are the tweeter terminals. The jumpers, or "links" on the towers are 4" lengths of 12awg instead of the stock brass jumpers.

At first I thought my old Sony amp could have fried them, since I'm now not getting any sound out of the sub, but I never had the center hooked up to the Sony. I know things happen, I'm not bitter at all, just trying to get to the bottom of it. I know I haven't had these for more than 5yrs, so I plan on calling Polk about warranty work. Thought I would ask your guys' opinions beforehand. I'm not opposed to opening up the towers if I have to, but figured I would wait to chat with Polk on warranty first.

I do appreciate any input. Sorry for the long post, I try to be as thorough as possible.

rpf65

You can't measure the complete circuitry resistance to trouble shoot. You have to check each of the speakers independantly for continuity checks. A bad circuit path will throw those readings off.

Before I would start tearing apart speakers, I would start with the working tower, remove the jumper, and test each terminal independantly. If they both work, and they should, using the same wire, hooked to the same speaker out, check the next tower as the first. Repeat with your center.

Your just trying to eliminate the AVR and wire. If things don't work, then it's time to remove speakers and ohm each non-working speaker. Could even be a loose wire connection to the speaker or board, so look before removing.

fattmann

I have tested the terminals independently, but I have not tried just hooking the tweeters terminals up. Since I couldn't get an impedance I didn't know what the rating was and wasn't sure if it was cool to just hook the tweeter side up. If it's cool to do that, remove the jumper and plug my banana plugs directly into the tweeter terminals, I will probably try that later tonight.

Thanks for the reply.

Also forgot to ask in the original post- how does Polks warranty work work? Do they have you ship the whole thing out, send you parts, refer to certified repair place?

rpf65

Never had to use it, but hear Polk CS is great. Call them.