Polk LSI15 Problem

Anth619

Hi,
I just acquired a pair of LSI15 speakers. There are some issues with them though. First off both the midrange speakers on the left speaker have zero sound coming from them. The tweeter and woofer seem to be working fine. I removed the midrange speakers and hooked them up to a multi-meter and the are giving me a reading of around 5 ohms (i have a really cheap multi-meter) so I'm pretty sure that the speakers are good. I also took a look at the crossover and couldn't see anything burnt or anything obviously wrong. The other problem is that both midrange speakers on the right speaker have very low audio output but sound kinda "gargled." And again the tweeter and woofer seem to function properly and nothing obvious on crossover.

Any advice or recommendation will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Anthony

mantis

Remove the jumpers and connect each set of binding posts to an amp and play music separately. See if you get any sound out of the mid range woofers. I know you said the tweeter is working.
Then also test the bottom binding post and make sure the woofer sounds right. I also know you said they work.
The only way the mid range speakers wouldn't play is if there is damage to the crossover. There is absolutely something wrong with both sets of crossovers in both speakers. I think someone drove them into distortion and damaged them. Probably using under powered amps or a receiver.
I'd contact polk and see if they have replacement crossovers for both speakers, swap them about and your problem will most likely go away. Hopefully the 4 mid range drivers are still good. If not they will also need to be replaced. The LSI 15 is a nice speaker and I think is worth repairing as needed.
Good luck and report back your findings.

VR3

So the LSi15 crossover, the top post are just for the tweeter (I know, weird)

The bottom post is for the woofer and midrange.

The midrange drivers are wired in series, so chances are your "low output" speaker has a disconnected driver, blown driver, blown resistor, etc

There is also a good chance you have a blown resistor/component in your other crossover if the woofer is getting sound but not your midrange drivers.

If all of the drivers check out, I definitely think the culprit would be your crossovers/wiring. Speakers are fairly simple.

nooshinjohn

Something I haven't seen asked is do you have jumpers even connecting the upper and lower binding posts together?

Anth619

Hi,
Thank you guys for the replies. Yes there were jumpers connected. I took the jumpers off and connected them separately. The tweeters sound good as well as the woofers. As before both the midranges on the right speaker still sound "gargled." The one this I did notice is that the midranges on the left speaker seemed to attempt to put out sound and if i kinda tapped the top of the speaker it seems to want to output sound but super "gargled" as well something like I would expect from a loose connection.