Volume difference on new to me Monitor 5Bs

DrJay

Hi Gents,

Today I bought a pair of near mint 1986 Monitor 5 Bs They sounded great at the sellers house, but when I got them home it turns out that one speaker plays substantially louder at any volume setting than the other. I have swapped them from side to side, cleaned the fuse and holder, as well as the input wire terminals on the "weaker" speaker but nothing changed.
My amp does not have a balance control, but if it did I think that if I adjusted the balance heavily toward the "weaker" speaker it would sound OK. I am not noticing any distortion, just lower sound output from both woofer and tweeter. I didn't look at the balance control on the sellers receiver when I auditioned them, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had adjusted it to equalize them.
I thought I could check for crossover problems by just swapping in the assembly from the good speaker but it looks like swapping them would involve cutting and splicing wires and I would like to avoid that.
Any Ideas as to what to do next to fix the problem would be greatly appreciated.

Best,

Jay

DrJay

Thanks for all the input Gents. Based on the comments above I hooked up a known to be good tweet I had on hand and the speaker sounded great. The problem is the tweeter and a very generous forum member is sending me a replacement.
Thanks again for the help! I hope that someday I can be the helper instead of the helpee.
Jay

FestYboy

Before jumping inside, I'd check the total DC resistance between the two, you might get lucky and find an inappropriate driver was installed at one point.

F1nut

Bet the problem is your tweeter. You'd be surprised at how little sound comes out of that speaker when the tweeter isn't working.

Toolfan66

I’m with Jesse, it’s the tweeter..

westmassguy

Could be improper driver or defective tweeter as mentioned, or hidden corrosion behind the fuse block.

headrott

Put your ear right up to each tweeter and driver (at a relatively low volume level) and see if you can hear a difference in volume and/or frequency output between the tweeters and drivers.

That said, the reason for one of the tweeters (and/or drivers) not working can be anything from the fuse holder, crossover board caps/resistor (I don't remember if the 5B's (or 10A/B's, which I actually own) have a poly switch?), the tweeter(s)/driver(s) themselves, (your amp??) and possibly 5 other reasons.

Start with diagnosing if it's the the tweeter/driver themselves, and then move to the crossovers, and finally your amp (stereo setup i.e. speaker wires, amp, pre-amp, CD player, TT, etc.). Let us know what you find out.