RTi6's in need of repair or...?

Gurm42

So I picked up a pair of RTi6's cheap. They weren't obviously blown, and I didn't get a chance to listen to them but they were... cheap. Anyway, now that I've had a chance to check them out, they sound quite tinny and hollow. Definitely not what I was expecting. What am I looking for here? The cones seem to move fine, but they just sound lousy. Is this a blown crossover? They both sound bad, I suspect they were abused more than I was led to believe, but I'll never get my money back at this point (and it wasn't enough to chase someone over). But it might be a fun project to pop them open and try to fix them. Ideas on where to start?

mlistens03

Pull the XO, and look for damaged components on the board.
Also try and gently push on the speaker cones, I usually put a thumb next to the dust cap, opposite each other. If they easily move without making any noise, you are good. If they require a good amount of force, and make grinding sounds, you need new drivers.
If everything is good, then check for speakers wired out of phase.
Other than that, I got nothing.
Welcome to Club Polk.

rooftop59

There are two sets of binding posts in the back of each speaker. They should be connected by a little gold bar (black to black, red to red). If nothing is connecting them, get some speaker wire and use that to connect them.

krazypolk

rooftop59 wrote: »

There are two sets of binding posts in the back of each speaker. They should be connected by a little gold bar (black to black, red to red). If nothing is connecting them, get some speaker wire and use that to connect them.

This might be a better illustration of what @rooftop59 is trying to convey.

Gurm42

They are bound, that's the first thing I checked. But I can pull the caps offs and make sure that the connections to the binding clips are good.

rooftop59

Next check the internal wiring. I once had an older pair of polks that had a wire loose after shipping. Simple fix.

rooftop59

Also replace the gold straps with decent wire. That was the purpose of the lsiM pic

K_M

IS there sound coming out of the woofers?

Gurm42

I'm going to figure that out tonight. Perhaps not - it's possible something about the bi-wiring is screwed up, so step 1 is to remove the gold plates and install bridge wires.

verb

mlistens03 wrote: »

Pull the XO, and look for damaged components on the board.
Also try and gently push on the speaker cones, I usually put a thumb next to the dust cap, opposite each other. If they easily move without making any noise, you are good. If they require a good amount of force, and make grinding sounds, you need new drivers.
If everything is good, then check for speakers wired out of phase.
Other than that, I got nothing.
Welcome to Club Polk.

Good advice here Micah! I need to perform that test on my SRS's tomorrow, just to be sure before I hook em up!

mlistens03

verb wrote: »

mlistens03 wrote: »

Pull the XO, and look for damaged components on the board.
Also try and gently push on the speaker cones, I usually put a thumb next to the dust cap, opposite each other. If they easily move without making any noise, you are good. If they require a good amount of force, and make grinding sounds, you need new drivers.
If everything is good, then check for speakers wired out of phase.
Other than that, I got nothing.
Welcome to Club Polk.

Good advice here Micah! I need to perform that test on my SRS's tomorrow, just to be sure before I hook em up!

Thanks!

Gurm42

So it's NOT the woofer/midrange drivers. Those are moving just fine, and the bass is coming through with no issues - I spent a little time today setting up a test rig, so that I could a/b my RTi4's and the RTi6's. There's a distinct lack of clarity, so either the tweeters are shot (harder to physically test them, there's nothing to move) or it's the crossovers or wiring. I'm going to pull the crossovers out and the tweeters off tomorrow.

rooftop59

Gurm42 wrote: »

So it's NOT the woofer/midrange drivers. Those are moving just fine, and the bass is coming through with no issues - I spent a little time today setting up a test rig, so that I could a/b my RTi4's and the RTi6's. There's a distinct lack of clarity, so either the tweeters are shot (harder to physically test them, there's nothing to move) or it's the crossovers or wiring. I'm going to pull the crossovers out and the tweeters off tomorrow.

Pull the tweeters and test them individually. After you make sure that they are connected internally of course...

Gurm42

rooftop59 wrote: »

Pull the tweeters and test them individually. After you make sure that they are connected internally of course...

Yeah that's my plan. I find it a little unusual that BOTH speakers are exhibiting this problem, I figure the previous owner either blasted them far too loud or had them wired incorrectly such that whatever happened, happened to both.

Next step is to pull crossover schematics.

Gurm42

Ok. Swapped the tweeters into a pair of RTi4's (they're the same part) and they sound fine. I'm debating how to test the midrange drivers, not sure the RTi4 crossovers will handle them...

mlistens03

Gurm42 wrote: »

Ok. Swapped the tweeters into a pair of RTi4's (they're the same part) and they sound fine. I'm debating how to test the midrange drivers, not sure the RTi4 crossovers will handle them...

I think your issue is the crossover. You can certainly plug in the drivers to the RTi4 crossover though. I wouldn’t do it for long, but just quickly check it and see what happens.

Gurm42

mlistens03 wrote: »

Gurm42 wrote: »

Ok. Swapped the tweeters into a pair of RTi4's (they're the same part) and they sound fine. I'm debating how to test the midrange drivers, not sure the RTi4 crossovers will handle them...

I think your issue is the crossover. You can certainly plug in the drivers to the RTi4 crossover though. I wouldn’t do it for long, but just quickly check it and see what happens.

They won't actually FIT into the housing, of course, but I could certainly dangle them out the front of the RTi4, make sure it sounds ok, and then ... I guess I'm rebuilding the crossovers. Fun Saturday project, I guess. Found a walkthrough on here, and I'm handy with a soldering iron! (It looks like they run about $25 apiece to replace, may as well order the nicer caps, more fun that way anyhow!)

mlistens03

Gurm42 wrote: »

mlistens03 wrote: »

Gurm42 wrote: »

Ok. Swapped the tweeters into a pair of RTi4's (they're the same part) and they sound fine. I'm debating how to test the midrange drivers, not sure the RTi4 crossovers will handle them...

I think your issue is the crossover. You can certainly plug in the drivers to the RTi4 crossover though. I wouldn’t do it for long, but just quickly check it and see what happens.

They won't actually FIT into the housing, of course, but I could certainly dangle them out the front of the RTi4, make sure it sounds ok, and then ... I guess I'm rebuilding the crossovers. Fun Saturday project, I guess. Found a walkthrough on here, and I'm handy with a soldering iron! (It looks like they run about $25 apiece to replace, may as well order the nicer caps, more fun that way anyhow!)

Yep, you got it. Just set the woofer outside the cabinet, plug in, test, repeat.
Good luck!

rooftop59

mlistens03 wrote: »

Gurm42 wrote: »

Ok. Swapped the tweeters into a pair of RTi4's (they're the same part) and they sound fine. I'm debating how to test the midrange drivers, not sure the RTi4 crossovers will handle them...

I think your issue is the crossover. You can certainly plug in the drivers to the RTi4 crossover though. I wouldn’t do it for long, but just quickly check it and see what happens.

Its not going to damage them at all, it just wouldn't sound great in that enclosure. Perfectly safe for even extended testing...

mlistens03

rooftop59 wrote: »

mlistens03 wrote: »

Gurm42 wrote: »

Ok. Swapped the tweeters into a pair of RTi4's (they're the same part) and they sound fine. I'm debating how to test the midrange drivers, not sure the RTi4 crossovers will handle them...

I think your issue is the crossover. You can certainly plug in the drivers to the RTi4 crossover though. I wouldn’t do it for long, but just quickly check it and see what happens.

Its not going to damage them at all, it just wouldn't sound great in that enclosure. Perfectly safe for even extended testing...

Thought so, but better safe then sorry...

Gurm42

Won't sound great in the enclosure... won't fit either. But thanks for verifying that it won't hurt the crossover or the driver, I'll be sure to try them out tonight and if it's definitely the crossovers, I'll be reporting back here on next steps (rebuild seems more likely than replace).

mlistens03

Gurm42 wrote: »

Won't sound great in the enclosure... won't fit either. But thanks for verifying that it won't hurt the crossover or the driver, I'll be sure to try them out tonight and if it's definitely the crossovers, I'll be reporting back here on next steps (rebuild seems more likely than replace).

good luck!

mlistens03 wrote: »

rooftop59 wrote: »

mlistens03 wrote: »

Gurm42 wrote: »

Ok. Swapped the tweeters into a pair of RTi4's (they're the same part) and they sound fine. I'm debating how to test the midrange drivers, not sure the RTi4 crossovers will handle them...

I think your issue is the crossover. You can certainly plug in the drivers to the RTi4 crossover though. I wouldn’t do it for long, but just quickly check it and see what happens.

Its not going to damage them at all, it just wouldn't sound great in that enclosure. Perfectly safe for even extended testing...

Thought so, but better safe then sorry...

What I meant by this was that I told him for a short period of time because I wasn't sure if it was OK. I was being safe so I didn't accidentally tell him to do something that would ruin his speakers.
You are totally cool to play them like that as long as you like, so don't worry about it.

Gurm42

Aaaaaaaaaaaand we have a winner. Hanging the RTi6 drivers out the front of the RTi4 resulted in less impressive sound than the RTi4, but the proper mix of sounds. (I assume that the less-than-stellar performance was because the crossover in the RTi4 is intended to drive the 5" driver, not the 6.5" which has 50% more surface area to move).

So it looks like the crossovers are shot, ostensibly someone wired these incorrectly. What blows out crossovers? Out of phase wiring, or just pushing too much juice?

Anyway, looks like the next step is pulling them out and rebuilding them one piece at a time. Luckily, someone posted a step-by-step in a different forum here, using better parts... so when I'm done they should sound rather better.

rooftop59

We’re they plugged in correctly in the 6s? Are the wires in the 6s connected to both the crossover and the speaker?

Imho the reason they don’t sound as good dangling out of the 4s has little to do with the crossover and more to do with the fact that those drivers were meant to operate in a cabinet with a certain volume and tuning, and now they are in open space with no reinforcement or tuning. More like an infinite baffle configuration but they are not made to be IB speakers...

Gurm42

Yeah all the wires are hooked up to both speaker and crossover, so I'm assuming SOMETHING in the crossover is shot. I'm just starting to learn about crossover tech, so no idea which component is blown or how it got that way on both sides...

pitdogg2

Look at the XO for hot spots around the resistors. Take a good picture of both XO's and post maybe we'll see something.