LSic sounds boxy/ congested

brijenjas

I just bought a used LSiC to go with my soon (hopefully) to be purchase LSi15's.

I only had time to hook it up last night and see if it worked, it does work but sounded awfully boxy/ congested, like a tv speaker actually.:(

From all the reviews I read it should sound a lot better than that.

I didn't have time to test further last night and I'm not at home at the moment.
I'm wondering if maybe the tweeter is not working.

Or could something else be causing this boxy sound?

How would I test the tweeter, I do have a multimeter and have no problem
taking the speaker apart.

Thanks
Brian

AsSiMiLaTeD

You should just be able to pull the front cover off and listen to each driver individually and see if it's working.

tcrossma

What are you using for an amp/receiver? Do you have enough juice?

brijenjas

Polkmaniac wrote: »

You should just be able to pull the front cover off and listen to each driver individually and see if it's working.

Yea, I'll try that when I get home, guy at work told me to use a paper towel tube around the tweeter to check, it will isolate the sound from the other drivers.

I guess I should KISS (keep it simple stupid) huh?

Thanks

brijenjas

tcrossma wrote: »

What are you using for an amp/receiver? Do you have enough juice?

Emotiva LMC/LPA 1, 225w@4ohms, plenty of power.

ShinAce

I always check tweeters with my hand.

Your hand alone is a great screen against treble. Get within arm length of the speaker and listen with the tweeter clear and then your hand cupped over it.

McLoki

Also due to the crossover design, the speaker on the left side crosses over lower than the speaker on the right side. Due to that, it is supposed to work alot less if you have it crossed over to a subwoofer at 80hz.

(just saving the panic induced question later...)

Michael

BTW - mine sounds very open, Check your AVR settings as well. (set to small or large, crossed over to a sub at what (you do have a sub right?) also make sure distance and volume settings are correct.

brijenjas

Ok, so there is no sound from the tweeter, jumpers are ok, pulled the tweeter out to see if the connections came loose, they were ok.

Checked the resistance across the tweeter, I get 3.4 to 3.6 ohms. Does any body know if this is within specs?

Going to pull the binding posts cup and take a look at the connections and crossover next, unless someone can tell me that the above resistance readings are off.

Thanks

brijenjas

McLoki wrote: »

Also due to the crossover design, the speaker on the left side crosses over lower than the speaker on the right side. Due to that, it is supposed to work alot less if you have it crossed over to a subwoofer at 80hz.

(just saving the panic induced question later...)

Michael

BTW - mine sounds very open, Check your AVR settings as well. (set to small or large, crossed over to a sub at what (you do have a sub right?) also make sure distance and volume settings are correct.

Thanks for the heads up McLoki, I saw many threads about the cascading crossover, during my lsic problem search.

Center is set to small crossed at 80HZ.

brijenjas

I'm pretty sure I found the problem.

After pulling the cup and crossover out, I saw something in the acoustical stuffing.

Pulled it free, it seemed like it was melted into it, it's a resistor that has come/melted/fell off of the crossover pcb.

How do I determine the resistor value in case I need to replace it?
I measured it at about 1.5 ohms?


Can anyone tell me if it matters which direction I put the ends when I solder this resistor back on?

I looked for a schematic in the sticky at the top of this forum but couldn't find one for the LSic, any one know where I could find it?

McLoki

If it was another speaker in the LSi series I could tell you (assuming it is the resistor in the tweeter circut)

LSi7 = a 2.5 ohm, +- 5%, 5w resistor
LSi9 = a 3.0 ohm, +- 5%, 5w resistor
LSi15 = a 2.0 ohm, +- 5%, 5w resistor

I would guess the LSiC to be the same as the LSi9, but a call to polk customer service should answer that for you and would be well worth the time to call.

Customer Service:
polkcs@polkaudio.com
9am - 6pm, M-F, EST (USA)
800-377-7655 toll free phone
410-764-5470 fax


Good luck,

Michael

brijenjas

After doing a search, I found that the resistor direction doesn't matter.

I checked the value of the resistor across the board from where this one mounts and it had the same value, so I assumed it was ok.

A little hot glue and some molten metal later and we're back in business.:D

Tweeter is now working.

Thanks for the help guys.

MKZ

I like the ckt board holder and lens. looks nice.

tcrossma

MKZ wrote: »

I like the ckt board holder and lens. looks nice.

Where can you buy one of those things? I've looked around locally but haven't found any. I'm not even sure what they're called exactly, but I need one

brijenjas

tcrossma wrote: »

Where can you buy one of those things? I've looked around locally but haven't found any. I'm not even sure what they're called exactly, but I need one

Helping hands, very handy tool,(especially for us blind guys:)) my wife also uses it for her beading projects.

Got it from Parts Express;
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=360-670&FTR=helping%20hands&CFID=28178917&CFTOKEN=55835101

Face

I believe Rat Shack sells something similar also.

McLoki

So, you remember how many ohms the resistor was? My bet was going to be on 3 but I could be wrong.....

Michael

brijenjas

McLoki wrote: »

So, you remember how many ohms the resistor was? My bet was going to be on 3 but I could be wrong.....

Michael

1.4 for each resistor, I couldn't tell for sure but it looked like 1 resistor was on the + side of the tweeter circuit and one on the - side.

The vifa tweeter resistance was actually 3 ohms, same as the vifa dual concentric at parts experess, my meter was .5 off

dpowell

Hope you got a great deal on the speaker considering you had to repair it. Glad it's working again.

zingo

Nice job on the fix! Sorry you had to do it, but I always enjoy a since of accomplishment myself.

brijenjas

dpowell wrote: »

Hope you got a great deal on the speaker considering you had to repair it. Glad it's working again.

Sure did... under 200 shipped:D

Thanks

dpowell

nice! enjoy!

Howies1

Hey Guys,just got my system hooked up.Outside I have 4 atrium 55's.They sound distorted on moderate volumes.Im having the person who hooked up the system come back to troubleshoot,any theories?

Also,I told this person I wanted everything hooked up HDMI.I noticed he used standard red and white audio cables to hook up the receiver to the cd and the dvd players.Isnt hdmi supposed to be used as an alternative?Im a newbie,sorry if this sound like a silly question.

could these two things be related?

I have a Marantz 7002 receiver,lsi c,lsi 15's if this helps.

McLoki

Howies - cant answer all your questions and you should start your own thread for them so they get the visibility they need rather than dropping to the end of one. (since most who were following it knew it was resolved so may not check back.)

Anyway - I am assuming you have two different systems or are the atriums hooked up to a zone 2 on your reciever and the LSi's to zone 1?

I am not sure on the atrium speakers. My first guess (if my guess above was correct) is that when running a full LSi load from your reciever (something you will hear more about with other posts, use the time while waiting to thicken your skin - remember its not personal) if you are trying to run 4 atrium speakers as well, your AVR may just be running out of steam. It could be a number of other things, but that is my first thought.

For the red white cables - if he used cables of the quality that comes free with your equipment (pretty thin) you got screwed and he should come back.

For the CD player it may be acceptable to use 2 analog cables to connect your CD player to your AVR. The biggest difference between analog (red/white cables) and digital (HDMi, optical or digital coax) connections is where the decoding of the digital signal takes place. It will work with either setup but if you are using the cables that came free with the cd player, a digital connection of some sort will almost always sound better.

For the DVD player - it should be hooked up via HDMi to the AVR (if there is an HDMi port on the back of the DVD player and AVR.). If not, it should be hooked up via HDMi from the DVD player to the TV and Optical or digital coax from the DVD player to the AVR. The sound should always go from your DVD player to your AVR via a digital connection. (HDMi preferred, 2nd choice (if no HDMi ports) would be optical or digital coax.)

If there is no HDMi port on your TV or DVD player, the next best connection you should make is with component cables. (3 RCA cables (colors are usually red, green, blue)) This will give you a picture almost as clear as HDMi, but does not carry sound and will not allow your DVD player to upconvert.

If you did not understand any of these answeres, feel free to ask again in your new thread... You can just quote my answer in your new thread to keep everything together if you would like.

Good luck in the search and welcome to Club Polk.

Michael