Which component is toast?

kevinC
kevinC Posts: 2
edited July 2005 in Troubleshooting
Pulled my 20 year old 5B's out, hooked up, found no tweeter operation on one speaker. I've been reading the Vintage forum but I am still unsure whether I have a tweeter or crossover problem, (mind you, I didn't know what a crossover was 2 days ago!) I pulled the dead tweeter and directly hooked it to the live speaker wire to find the tweeter does work. Decided to pull the good tweeter of the other speaker to install the bad, to see if the maybe bad tweeter works in the good tweeter slot. While I was fiddling with the wire, the good tweeter stopped working, and I hadn't touched it, just the wire hook ups in the back. Now, I have 2 speakers who's tweeters don't work. Since both tweeters work directly from the wire but not when installed, am I now into 2 fried crossovers, and did I just fry the one who's tweeter just stopped working?
Post edited by kevinC on

Comments

  • F1nut
    F1nut Posts: 50,561
    edited July 2005
    You have either a fuse or a polyswitch to protect the tweeters from damage, I can't remember which one your model has, so look on the binding post plate for a fuse. If there isn't one, then you have a polyswitch on the crossover. If you find a fuse, check if it's still good and if so, clean the contacts as they oxidize over the years. If there is no fuse, then the polyswitches may have gone bad. If you can solder, then you can install new ones which are available from Polk.
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."


    President of Club Polk

  • kevinC
    kevinC Posts: 2
    edited July 2005
    F1, you're on target, thanks. Cleaning the fuse and fuse clip has one tweeter up and running. The other fuse is blown! I appreciate your experience, insight, and help.