New RD0-198 do not seat right
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Drahthaar
Posts: 48
Just got 6 new RD0-198 tweeters for my 2.3TL's and none of them seat well. I can actually rock them from side to side where one side is flush with the cabinet and the other is not, makes me think the gaskets would not be sealing if the speakers are not seating equally . I also noticed after trying to tighten them down it looks like the plastic was indenting or deforming around the screw. Has any one else had this problem and if so what is the fix
Comments
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The inherent nature of plastic mold injection lends itself to many variables of defects.
My RD-0194 housings suffered from the same fate as yours. Uneven post-mold cooling or improper plastics/chemicals ratio is the culprit.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists. -
Sorry, typing on a phone syndrome.
Call the manufacturer. From my experience, trying to fully seat the plastic frames required too much stress/torque from the screws that affected the driver diaphragm and causing resonances.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists. -
Thanks xschop I'll give them a call. Has anyone tired to shave or sand the sides down to make them fit?
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Just got 6 new RD0-198 tweeters for my 2.3TL's and none of them seat well. I can actually rock them from side to side where one side is flush with the cabinet and the other is not, makes me think the gaskets would not be sealing if the speakers are not seating equally . I also noticed after trying to tighten them down it looks like the plastic was indenting or deforming around the screw. Has any one else had this problem and if so what is the fix
This is well known. The plastic bezel is a bit different than the original and do not seat the same. If yours are too proud file a little plastic off the edges.
Do not call the manufacturer because they aren't changing a thing after all these years.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 would go with seals thick enough and supportive enough to allow a reasonable seal without any undue stress of higher than needed torque on the plastic. The seal needs to be the same thickness throughout the entire area of bezel's coverage. Torquing the screws down too much can actually cause the voice coil to rub within the magnet gap due to distorting it out of alignment. The RDOs plastic doesn't seem to be as rigid as the original tweeters but this might be due to the age of the older units.HT Optoma HD25 LV on 80" DIY Screen, Anthem MRX 300 Receiver, Pioneer Elite BDP 51FD Polk CS350LS, Polk SDA1C, Polk FX300, Polk RT55, Dual EBS Adire Shiva 320watt tuned to 17hz, ICs-DIY Twisted Prs, Speaker-Raymond Cable
2 Channel Thorens TD 318 Grado ZF1, SACD/CD Marantz 8260, Soundstream/Krell DAC1, Audio Mirror PP1, Odyssey Stratos, ADS L-1290, ICs-DIY Twisted , Speaker-Raymond Cable -
Sorry, typing on a phone syndrome.
Call the manufacturer. From my experience, trying to fully seat the plastic frames required too much stress/torque from the screws that affected the driver diaphragm and causing resonances.
I'm struggling to understand how the screws in the corners could possibly affect the driver diaphragm. In fact, it's impossible.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 -
Jesse, I think it has to do with the shoulders of the hole not bottoming out at the same time as the rim of the bezel edge. I have seen others that over torqued them claiming that it caused issues. I can't find the thread that covered this, but it was within the last few months. I don't see the cause and affect myself, unless someone was messing with the actual bezel mount to magnet structure screws. Maybe Xschop will recall the discussion as he might have been in on that thread.HT Optoma HD25 LV on 80" DIY Screen, Anthem MRX 300 Receiver, Pioneer Elite BDP 51FD Polk CS350LS, Polk SDA1C, Polk FX300, Polk RT55, Dual EBS Adire Shiva 320watt tuned to 17hz, ICs-DIY Twisted Prs, Speaker-Raymond Cable
2 Channel Thorens TD 318 Grado ZF1, SACD/CD Marantz 8260, Soundstream/Krell DAC1, Audio Mirror PP1, Odyssey Stratos, ADS L-1290, ICs-DIY Twisted , Speaker-Raymond Cable -
Thanks F1nut and Dennis for the advice. I'm already experimenting with new seals, using Armicel and the original gasket, then tightening each corner of the tweeter equally. If this doesn't work well I might have to take F1nuts advice and file the bezel down. I sure will hate doing that to new speakers!
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You can, if not wise enough, over tighten the corner screws causing cracks at the corners, but that would have no effect on the driver diaphragm. The entire motor structure is attached and supported separately by the 4 screws near the center.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 -
You've got it, adjust the seals or adjust the bezel surfaces a tad. Either approach works.HT Optoma HD25 LV on 80" DIY Screen, Anthem MRX 300 Receiver, Pioneer Elite BDP 51FD Polk CS350LS, Polk SDA1C, Polk FX300, Polk RT55, Dual EBS Adire Shiva 320watt tuned to 17hz, ICs-DIY Twisted Prs, Speaker-Raymond Cable
2 Channel Thorens TD 318 Grado ZF1, SACD/CD Marantz 8260, Soundstream/Krell DAC1, Audio Mirror PP1, Odyssey Stratos, ADS L-1290, ICs-DIY Twisted , Speaker-Raymond Cable -
Dennis is right, one side of the bezel bottoms out and the other side does not. This created a dimpling effect around the screws. I did not hear any issues with the tweeters but maybe I caught mine early enough and didn't keep torqueing them down to hard
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Yes, you will get dimples at the corner screws.
I've installed a few dozen of these without any performance effects.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 -
Make gaskets from Armacell.Post edited by motorhead43026 on2 channel: Anthem 225 Integrated amp; Parasound Ztuner; TechnicsTT SL1350; Vincent PHO-8 phono pre; Marantz CD6005 spinner; Polk SDA2BTL's; LAT International speaker cables, ZU Mission IC's and power cables all into a PS Audio Dectet Power center.
Other; M10 series II, M7C's, Hafler XL600 amp, RB-980BX, Parasound HCA-1500 amp , P5 preamp, all in storage. All vintage Polk have had crossover rebuilds and tweeter upgrades.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
It is imperative that we recognize that an opinion is not a fact.
Imagine making politics your entire personality. -
I also noticed the SL3000's bezels have a better bracing than the RDO-198's. That probably keeps the bezel from deforming
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One of mine would not stop resonating until I loosened the 4 attachment screws. I recall not having a feeler gauge thick enough to measure the run-out of the bezel.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
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I have thought about the mounting issue that someone posted about on here a month or so back and recalled what their issue was. They had a cabinet cutout for a tweeter that wouldn't clear the connection tabs and pressing the connection tabs against the cabinet cutout cause the diaphragm to distort its shape and cause an issue with distortion in that tweeter. It rubbed on the outer groove of the magnet, I suppose. Not related to outer screw torque. Just wanted to clear up my poor memory of the situation. DGHT Optoma HD25 LV on 80" DIY Screen, Anthem MRX 300 Receiver, Pioneer Elite BDP 51FD Polk CS350LS, Polk SDA1C, Polk FX300, Polk RT55, Dual EBS Adire Shiva 320watt tuned to 17hz, ICs-DIY Twisted Prs, Speaker-Raymond Cable
2 Channel Thorens TD 318 Grado ZF1, SACD/CD Marantz 8260, Soundstream/Krell DAC1, Audio Mirror PP1, Odyssey Stratos, ADS L-1290, ICs-DIY Twisted , Speaker-Raymond Cable -
Bravo Dennis, I had forgotten about that as well and IIRC it was with the RD0194. Loosening the corner screws as xschop did would probably relieve the pressure.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 also noticed the SL3000's bezels have a better bracing than the RDO-198's. That probably keeps the bezel from deforming
Yes. That, and the collar around the screw holes. On my 198's, the only part of the bezel that touches the gasket/baffle is the 1/8" lip around the outside edge. On the 3000's, there is much better contact, therefore more stability. I wonder if the new design is to make them more compatible across a larger range of cabinets? -
I pulled these out of storage to check what issue I had with them so
I will expound. The 4 screws holding magnet, once loosened, ameliorated the resonance that was not present while on bench, but reared its ugly head once bezel was mounted to baffle. The 4 corner bezel/frame screw holes have a design flaw that is missing 0.060" thru-wall depth. This is what causes the dimpling/deformation of it's frame whilst torquing screws. Some thin plastic washers would solve this issue.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists. -
Strange that no one else has experienced this resonance.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 -
In all fairness, these were second hand, but the plastic is also warped where it does not sit flat/flush when disassembled and placed on a flat surface.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
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In all fairness, these were second hand, but the plastic is also warped where it does not sit flat/flush when disassembled and placed on a flat surface.
Interesting, I wonder if it suffered some sort of heat damage or whether it was simply defective?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 -
Maybe QC can answer that. Awhile back I modded a set of SL1000 plates to accept the RD0194 magnet and diaphragm.... Tell Polk to bring back the shiny plates already.... Double the thickness while you're at it...Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
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"Polk, bring back the shiney (sic) plates already." There.....done.
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Thinking about what I did with doubling the gaskets (Armacell and original gaskets). Basically I'm "floating" the tweeter on the gaskets. Is that a bad thing?
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I don't think a tweeters it makes a difference. A MW or passive that would be an issue.2 channel: Anthem 225 Integrated amp; Parasound Ztuner; TechnicsTT SL1350; Vincent PHO-8 phono pre; Marantz CD6005 spinner; Polk SDA2BTL's; LAT International speaker cables, ZU Mission IC's and power cables all into a PS Audio Dectet Power center.
Other; M10 series II, M7C's, Hafler XL600 amp, RB-980BX, Parasound HCA-1500 amp , P5 preamp, all in storage. All vintage Polk have had crossover rebuilds and tweeter upgrades.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
It is imperative that we recognize that an opinion is not a fact.
Imagine making politics your entire personality. -
Diffraction is the difference if you're OCD.
I assumed that the roll-over edge of the bezel was to blend as close as possible to the baffle plane.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists. -
Diffraction is the difference if you're OCD.
I assumed that the roll-over edge of the bezel was to blend as close as possible to the baffle plane.
Well there could be just a tad of OCD. But your exactly right with the roll over edge being a flush as possible -
This is the 3mm thick EVA foam I made a plate adapter gasket from. It comes in 5mm thick also...
Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists. -
FYI, my 194’s were not quite fitting either and so, owning a plastic mold/ injection molding company, I measured the frame and found both the size of the rectangular frame was too big and that the screw bosses were short of the perimeter by 1.3mm. Since plastic is not by nature good at being kept under stress, I looked at a good way to fix. Turns out that a #10 washer is the right thickness and armacell seals really well. I glued a washer to each boss and made a gasket with the armacell. No stress and good seal. DoneMain System
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