Broken bipole/dipole switches on RT f/x surrounds

McCelery

I recently bought some RT f/x speakers that ended up having more problems than the seller indicated: one destroyed woofer and two tweeters (one on each speaker) that were not making any sound. I replaced the 5 1/4" woofers by boring the holes a bit and installing spares I had from some old R15s, so that problem is solved. I then removed all the tweeters to test each on separately and found them all the be perfectly operational, leading me to believe the issue is in the switch on the back of the speaker. The action for both switches is very loose and does not give positive bipole or dipole settings on either. It's the connection that goes to the "weak side" tweeter (the side without the woofer) that's giving no signal.

What's the best way to attack this? Is there a switch replacement I can get or is this a common issue with older f/x speakers that has a simple fix I'm not seeing? Any help would be greatly appreciated, since I obviously bought these expressly for their dual tweeter configuration. Thanks!

quadzilla

I'm thinking contact Polk and get a new set of switches. If you're handy with a soldering iron, this is about an hour job, tops. Or depending on where you live, someone may be willing to help you out with this. If you're around the D/FW area, I would.

McCelery

Hey quad, thanks for the tip. I was just in Plano 2 weeks ago on work, I could have used the help!! I will contact Polk and see if they can sell some switches for less than I paid for the actual speakers. Old part, so wish me luck. It's a pretty simple switch, so I might try some good old Radioshacking, as well. I have my share of soldering iron scars from my RC hobby days, so it should be pretty easy.

It might become one of those terminal "TBD" projects, as they already sound way better than my old R15 surrounds even with just one tweeter working.