Can a speaker falling off the wall kill the tweeter?

kuntasensei

Last night, apparently my RTi28 that is in the left surround position decided to fall off the wall, from a height of about 6 feet. This morning, I discovered it on the carpet with the speaker wire hanging out of the wall. When I picked the RTi28 up, the tweeter assembly had popped out of the plastic bracket on the front, so I opened it up with a hex key and popped it back into place. It didn't sound like anything else was rattling inside, so I put it back on the wall, made sure it was secure, and went to work.

Today when I got home, I cranked it up to make sure everything was okay. I ran through the noise tones from my receiver to make sure all was well... except when I get to the tone for the left surround, the tone of the noise doesn't seem to have as much treble as the other 4 RTi28's that I have. There's still SOME highs coming from the tweeter, because passing my hand in front of the tweeter makes those highs go away (meaning it must be working at least partially). I did the same with my other 4 RTi28's and there are definitely more highs coming from them than the speaker that fell. I tried the 5-channel pans on Avia and there is a noticeable tonal difference now.

So tonight, I opened the speaker up again to make sure I hooked the tweeter back up or put it in right. When I opened the grill, the magnet part of the tweeter came off in my hand, exposing the back side of the silk/polymer dome. I looked at the magnet and the small metal part in the middle (with the little piece of foam on it) is touching the side of the other piece of metal surrounding it. Isn't this where the metal ring around the tweeter dome sits to move back and forth? Does this mean the tweeter is shot, or could it be something else?

disneyjoe7

Sorry yes I think your tweeter is DOA...


>When I opened the grill, the magnet part of the tweeter came off in my hand, exposing the back side of the silk/polymer dome.<

Shizelbs

Tough break man. Sorry to hear about that. I am always afraid of that happening to mine.

kuntasensei

Well, the magnet part coming off wasn't what concerned me, since you just twist it to get it off of the tweeter assembly. What concerns me is that the center part is shifted against the outer metal part of the magnet. I would think that keeps the little ring on the dome's back side from going into that groove, pretty much keeping the tweeter from working. Is there a way to realign that so that it will work again, or is it just broken?

I confirmed that it is a bad tweeter by swapping the tweeter and grill assembly from my rear surround with the dead one in the left surround. Now the left surround sounds perfect and the rear surround sounds like crap. At least this way I can turn off EX/ES processing and still watch movies until I can get a replacement tweeter for the rear center. I guess I'll be calling Polk in the morning to see what I need to do.

kuntasensei

Update: I called Polk and ordered a new tweeter. I still wish I knew how my RTi28 could just FALL off of the damn keyhole mount. The 30 lb. drywall anchor it was on is still in place and firm, and the speaker had been hanging there for over a year without being touched, so I have no idea what happened. I guess I'll chalk it up to a random act of God that cost me $50!