Common Ground question

Vinaceus

To drive SDA speakers one requires amplification that is common
ground. My question is how can you tell? I can tell you who doesn't
use common ground. SONY. How about Yamaha? I'm afraid to hook
up my 2.3's.

I am so frustrated with Polk for this design. I have gone through
three sets of SDA's and now need new drivers yet again. How much
to replace the tweeters in my 2.3's? How much for the mid's? I love
these speakers so much and yet it seems they have never loved me back.

hoosier21

What model Sony are you talking about? Seems hard to believe Sony has/had a mono block design.

What do you mean you have been through three set of SDA's, the drivers?

What are you doing to them?

The mids and tweeters are about 50.00 each delivered

HBombToo

Un plug your amp.

Using a VOM set it to measure resistance and if it shows a short(0) then it is a common grould amp.

HBomb

thehaens@cox.net

HBomb is referring to running a volt meter across the negative speaker terminals and checking for (0) resistance across the posts. Or something close to zero, your meter may be slightly out of tolerance.

I have a Sony receiver, and it is def. common ground.......HMMM

Scott

F1nut

Sounds to me a case of too little power rather than one of common ground issues.

heiney9

Non-Common ground is not very common, especially for most entry-level to mid-level gear. I'm thinking you have other issues. More info is needed. In the future you should easily be able to contact the manufacturer of said amp and they should know for certain. What other amplifiers did you have trouble with? What model is you Sony amp? Perhaps some of the early ES seperates were dual-mono design, not sure though.

I posted this question to the DIYAUDIO forum and this is what info they had...it may or may not be of any benefit

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65855&highlight=

H9

BobMcG

F1nut wrote:

Sounds to me a case of too little power rather than one of common ground issues.

+1 on that thought and welcome to the Forums.

1) Over-driving with under-power sounds quite possible.
2) Shouldn't have a common ground problem with a Yamaha amp.

Vinaceus

Keep in mind this story is over the course of 15 years or so. The Sony in question was a 909ES receiver. Nothing but problems
from the thing since the day I bought it. NEW I might add and back then
it was quite a bit for my budget.

Picked up a Hafler XL600 later which I ran through the receiver and had the same problem blowing
tweeters mostly. I never played stupid kept the volume control low, never
past the 1/4 mark.

Speakers never sounded good. Never.

I sold my first set of 2.3TL's because of this.


Bought a set of Dahlquist DQ-10's next. Sounded great, no stupid volume
shananigans...for a while.


Left DQ-10 fries. Sony 909ES meets horrible end.


Feel guilty and buy 2nd pair of 2.3TL's and six tweeters later curse my
fate again and again. God listens this time and my house that I rented
burns to the ground taking my 2.3's with it. Did I mention I didn't have
renters insurance?


Three years later somehow I find a third set of 2.3's not TL's and manage to buy them. Save money for another six months and buy a Yamaha RX-V992 receiver and
guess what? Blown tweeters! Don't know if they were that way when I bought
them or what but I am now at the end of my rope, broke and have a set of
2.3's neglected and I after THREE sets have never found my dream that I
have persued since the first time I heard these babies on the floor of Tri Cities Electronics.


I don't even know if it's fate having it's way with me or what. At $50 a pop
it'll take me forever to hear what I've been yearning to hear for so long.


Sorry for the sporatic violin story but dang! All I've ever wanted was a pair
of SDA's to sound like I remember.

BobMcG

Damn, that does suck. Your luck that is.

You might need to run a flux capacitor between your recvr and speakers from now on.

F1nut

All receivers, by nature, are common ground. You rule that out and you can rule out the speakers, so what does that leave?

reeltrouble1

If Distortion is caused by clipping of the frequency wave
And clipping occurs when when the P/S cannnot push enough current
And a lack of required current causes the driver to heat up
And excessive heat causes the driver to fail
Then the distorting unit needs to be replaced.

RT1

Been a while since logic class but something like that.

schwarcw

F1nut wrote:

All receivers, by nature, are common ground. You rule that out and you can rule out the speakers, so what does that leave?

Bad Luck! You can find used SL2000 tweeters in the Flea Market from time to time. They usually go for about $20 each. The replacement RD-0194s are much better but you may want to consider some used one before you invest in new ones. Good luck! and welcome to the Forum!

F1nut

Odd, two posts and bam, gone! Oh, the trolls I've known.

JCL

I thought that using the wrong type of amp with SDA's would damage the amp.

BobMcG

JCL wrote:

I thought that using the wrong type of amp with SDA's would damage the amp.

Correct. Running a NCG amp can damage the amp. There is the potential for driver damage too.

Vin was blowing drivers left and right which sounds like a problem of them being overdriven by a clipping amp.

madmax

Sure is hard to blow a tweeter unless you use stupidly overdriven distorted signals. Even then, the polyfuse should be shutting down most of the time. Are you sure they blew? Maybe you were not waiting for the fuse to reset?
madmax

warren

I drove my 2.3's with a Sony STR-DE985 for a year or so , had no problems except for some clipping, got a Carver amp.and a pre amp, now evervthing is great. Get seprates.