f/x500's stuck in dipole mode?

brewersfan73

I set them up as my front speakers last night to test them since I didn't get a chance to listen before I purchased. I have the sinking feeling that the right one is not functioning correctly, but I don't know because I've never had bipole/dipole speakers before. I initially set them up both in bipole mode since I was testing them as "main" speakers. The left one sounded much louder than the right one, and yes, I checked all of my connections, checked that the L/R balance was in the middle, and tried a couple different music sources.

I then tried switching them both to dipole, and the left one (the louder one) definitely sounded different (and softer), whereas the right one didn't really sound different. I have a couple of questions:

1. I'm assuming that when I flip the bipole/dipole switch, I should hear a noticeable difference, right?
2. If the answer to #1 is "yes", then I will assume my switch doesn't work. If the switch isn't working, how do I go about repairing it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

danger boy

when switching from dipole to bi pole or vice versa.. the sound should be the same for volume.

the level should not change.. by switching back and forth between.. what that does is makes the speakers give off a different sound field pattern. not a volume level.

if you switch and hear a difference in volume. then you have a speaker problem. sounds like one of the tweeters may be bad..

brewersfan73

Won't it seem like a volume change when I switch to dipole due to the drivers being out-of-phase and the dead spot that is created if I'm directly facing the point between the two speaker facings? Does that make sense?

dave shepard

The tweeter is out of phase, not the mids. I would place my ear close to the tweeters then the mid drivers and see if any of those are not working.

Dave

brewersfan73

I never should have doubted danger boy. I tested out the speakers a little bit more today, but this time with the volume a little bit louder. This time, I definitely heard a sound field difference in the right speaker (the one where I thought the switch might not be working). So that one is working correctly.

I did determine the problem in the left speaker. When I switched it to dipole, one of the tweeters cuts out for a couple of seconds, resulting in a sound loss (which I mistakenly interpretted as the changing sound field between bipole and dipole). Luckily, the tweeter kicks back in pretty quickly and it sounds fine. I'm feeling much better about my purchase, and can't wait to mate these up with my RT800's, a CS400, and a PSW100 in a 5.1 setup in the coming weeks.

Thank you all for your help.