RTiA1 - rattle during bass in one of the speakers?

BjornB17

I just got a new pair of RTiA1's this morning Amazon and I'm really liking them, however, one of the speakers have a metallic vibration/rattle at lower frequencies (below about 80 Hz). I can't pinpoint where from the speaker it is coming from. I may take it apart tomorrow, but there is nothing loose inside when I shake it and the other one (and my RTi4's) doesn't suffer from this.

They otherwise sound great. What do you think it could be? An issue with the woofer, or something else?

F1nut

Check that the mounting screws are tight. Another possible cause could be wires hitting the basket.

BjornB17

F1nut wrote: »

Check that the mounting screws are tight. Another possible cause could be wires hitting the basket.

Good thought, I'll look for that.

la2vegas

While you're at it, check the crossovers. Sometimes the components were not adequately secured with the applied hot glue, causing them to resonate under certain frequencies.

BjornB17

I took the one speaker apart and tested the driver outside of the enclosure and checked for loose parts. Pretty simple speaker, so it was easy to narrow it down to a rattling port on the front. Not port chuffing, but port vibration. I took the port tube out and didn't see anything wrong with it although the glue holding it together seemed a bit soft and so it was sagging a touch. I might swap the port out with the other speaker to see if the problem follows the port.

BjornB17

Update, YES, the rattling followed the port into the other speaker. Weird, it is such a simple component.

BjornB17

Upon further inspection I did find that the one bookshelf with the defective port also had a malformed grill and a weird concave curvature on the cabinet, I guess I got a dud. So I ordered a second pair for exchange on Amazon but one of the speakers had a screeching staticy tweeter - I was able to swap out one tweeter from the original pair. So now between two pairs ordered I have 2 working speakers I do like them MUCH more than my RTi4's (which I also like). They are just a little bit better in every way, especially aesthetics which is important to me.