Has anyone ever tested an individual driver?
Headmanbrewing
Posts: 27
in Speakers
I have one driver that will buzz at a certain point during 2 or 3 songs that pop up when I have ITunes playing. I tried to find a tone generator and discovered
http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_perceptualsinesweep.php
but it won't reproduce the buzz that I am hearing. Has anyone ever tried to do something similar and what did you use? Did you remove/unplug the tweeter to test the woofer, and then reverse the process to test the tweeter?
http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_perceptualsinesweep.php
but it won't reproduce the buzz that I am hearing. Has anyone ever tried to do something similar and what did you use? Did you remove/unplug the tweeter to test the woofer, and then reverse the process to test the tweeter?
Comments
-
Yes, remove them and plug them in directly. Just play the music that was causing the buzz and see what happens. Good luck!Living Room 2.2: Usher BE-718 "tiny dancers"; Dual DIY Dayton audio RSS210HF-4 Subs with Dayton SPA-250 amps; Arcam SA30; Musical Fidelity A308; Sony UBP-x1000es
Game Room 5.1.4: Denon AVR-X4200w; Sony UBP-x700; Definitive Technology Power Monitor 900 mains, CLR-3000 center, StudioMonitor 350 surrounds, ProMonitor 800 atmos x4; Sub - Monoprice Monolith 15in THX Ultra
Bedroom 2.1 Harmon Kardon HK3490; Bluesounds Node N130; Polk RT25i; ACI Titan Subwoofer -
I'll give it a shot, thanks!
-
And of course by plug them in I mean touch the speaker wire to the bare connections on each speaker, one speaker at a time. And be careful not to touch the speaker wire together whilst you have the amplifier on!Living Room 2.2: Usher BE-718 "tiny dancers"; Dual DIY Dayton audio RSS210HF-4 Subs with Dayton SPA-250 amps; Arcam SA30; Musical Fidelity A308; Sony UBP-x1000es
Game Room 5.1.4: Denon AVR-X4200w; Sony UBP-x700; Definitive Technology Power Monitor 900 mains, CLR-3000 center, StudioMonitor 350 surrounds, ProMonitor 800 atmos x4; Sub - Monoprice Monolith 15in THX Ultra
Bedroom 2.1 Harmon Kardon HK3490; Bluesounds Node N130; Polk RT25i; ACI Titan Subwoofer -
What speakers, what power?
Do NOT connect a tweeter directly unless the volume is very low.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
They are (primarily) my old RT series speakers. RT10 mains, RT8 wide fronts, CS245 center, R10 (bookshelf) rears, no sub. Onkyo TX-SR608, 100w/channel.
My thought was to remove the woofer from each cabinet, test the tweeter through the cabinet connections, then unplug the tweeter without removing it and reconnect the woofer to test. Saves me a little time in removing every single speaker from the cabinet. -
Good ideaSDA SRS 2.3TL's
Silk Audio MS-90-BT integrated tube amp
Yaqin MS-20L integrated tube amp
SDA 2B TL's -
You might want to check that all the screws securing the drivers to the cabinet are tight before anything else.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
F1nut, that was the first thing I checked. Over the last year or so, I have had to reglue the spiders on a couple of the woofers. I thought that maybe I had left something loose or out of place, but it didn't turn out to be that easy.
-
Has it occurred to you that you might be over driving your speakers?Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
I wouldn't think that too much power is the issue. The RT8's are rated for up to 125w and I'm pretty sure the RT10's are higher than that. The regluing that I did was on one of my original RT8's that I bought new in '95ish and on one RT10 that I bought from a local guy, and the glue failing over time seems to be a semi common problem with this particular line of speakers.
-
Over driving occurs much more often with too little power. That said, I was not aware of the glue failure issue.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Speaking of over driving (kind of a new question), does a speaker's ability to handle power decrease over time? For instance, the aforementioned RT8 was tested at the factory to be able to handle up to 125w. If it was retested now, after 20 years of use, would it still have the same rating or would it be lower due to the long time use?
-
You probably already know this but don't forget about other stuff around your speakers. Glasses, pictures, and also the grill. If you are testing one speaker at a time you might remove the grill and not think about it causing the noise.Polk S10, S8, S4
Polk RT8
Polk Monitor 7s
Working on getting SDAs -
Thanks for the reminder!
-
Headmanbrewing wrote: »Speaking of over driving (kind of a new question), does a speaker's ability to handle power decrease over time? For instance, the aforementioned RT8 was tested at the factory to be able to handle up to 125w. If it was retested now, after 20 years of use, would it still have the same rating or would it be lower due to the long time use?
As speakers age, depending on their construction and use (abuse) over their lifetime, they can fail when earlier in their lifespan they may have survived. Glues get brittle, surrounds crack/crumble, paper and plastics lose their flexibility, voice coils that been over-heated can short or completely unwind....not to mention fingers and screwdrivers going where they're not supposed to, cabs being mishandled/dropped and whatever else 20-30-40 years can bring.
someone asked, how long does it takes to break in a speaker? A well known (at the time) speaker designer/manufacturer answered, 'speakers are continually breaking in thru-out their lifetime. Most noticeably occurs in the first few minutes of use for tweeters and certainly by the time 100 hours of 'normal' use has passed for woofers.
However they continue to 'break in' until they eventually fail.
To answer your question directly- I wouldn't worry about it really. Enjoy them as you would any speaker. If you hear distortion, pops and cracks, turn it down. If a speaker does fail, usually it can be repaired and brought back to 'like new'.
If you have really crazy parties and like to throw things out of second story windows you can always buy another set.
Carver TX-11b - Carver 4000t - Carver TFM45 x2 - Polk SDA SRS 2 (094 tweets) - RSL CG 8^2 (Howard's XO upgrade + driver upgrade = 350w rms and amazeball toanz)
