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David (World) Reitter David (World) Reitter is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

Looks like I'll have to find replacement tweeters for some M-Audio
monitors that I foolishly picked up without testing them properly.

The tweeter in question is a 4 ohm, 10Wmax driver from "Weltronics
Corp", for which I can't find specs anywhere.

Would it be wise to replace it with a, saw 30W RMS tweeter, or is this
likely going to be a less sensitive one? I don't know what the
sensitivity of the broken tweeter is. (And frankly this is the first
time I'm looking to mess with speakers.)
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Richard Crowley Richard Crowley is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

"David (World) Reitter" wrote...
Looks like I'll have to find replacement tweeters for some M-Audio
monitors that I foolishly picked up without testing them properly.

The tweeter in question is a 4 ohm, 10Wmax driver from "Weltronics
Corp", for which I can't find specs anywhere.


Commercial speaker systems don't typically use off-the-shelf commodity
speaker drivers. They tend to use custom (or semi-custom) OEM parts.
So I would be surprised if you could find the driver available from a 3rd
party source.

Would it be wise to replace it with a, saw 30W RMS tweeter, or is this
likely going to be a less sensitive one? I don't know what the
sensitivity of the broken tweeter is. (And frankly this is the first
time I'm looking to mess with speakers.)


Replacing it with anything but the original driver will most likely make
significant changes to how the speakers sound, And will crater their
resale value as well.

So have you contacted M-Audio about buying OEM replacements?
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David (World) Reitter David (World) Reitter is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

Thanks, Richard and Dick for your advice. I've e-mailed M-Audio and
hope they have a replacement for me.

On Mar 29, 1:07*pm, Dick Pierce wrote:
The best choice by far is toreplacethe tweeters with
the sametweeter. The system was designed around specific
components with their individual properties,


Point well taken.

Further, you don't know why the tweeters don't work or
what caused them to fail. It might have been a once-
only occurrance where someone accidently sent a very loud
transient through the system, or an amplifier failed,
or any such thing.


I measured resistance and couldn't get any current to go through it.
It should be around 4 ohm, I guess.

However, this morning the tweeter in question magically started
working. I had given it a fair amount of abuse with a vacuum cleaner
last night (the middle bit of the membrane was pushed in when I bought
it - Wikipedia tells me this is a dust cap?). I don't what made it
work suddenly. Resistance of that driver is now showing at a little
over 4 ohm.

Perhaps there's something about speakers that I should know..?

I'm probably trying to get new tweeters anyways, as these speakers
still sound very dull unless I boost high frequencies at the source,
and the high freqs seem louder on one speaker than on the other.
Would such degradation be typical?

What model speakers are they? How old are they? Perhaps
more information might help some of us help you better.


These are M-Audio Studiophile DX4 active monitors.

- D
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David (World) Reitter David (World) Reitter is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

On Mar 29, 2:36*pm, Dick Pierce wrote:

Even if you got it working, it's likely you'll need new
tweeters: if my guess is correct, it WILL fail again, and
poking in thetweeterdone is likely to have done other damage
as well.


I have inquired with M-Audio and it turns out they no longer stock
parts for these speakers.
So I'm back to my original quest for reasonable replacement tweeters.

I should probably mention that these monitors don't serve any kind of
studio purpose - I just wanted better speakers for my desk, and near-
field monitors seemed like a good idea. That should make things
easier.

What I do know about them is shown below.
The tweeters themselves say they're 10Wmax (is this RMS?), and I was
looking for 1-inch dome tweeters with a good near-linear frequency
response from 1400Hz or so. I'm just not sure what else to look for,
especially since I don't know much about the original drivers.

- David


---

HF driver: 1" mylar cone with OptImage dispersion-controlled wave
guide
LF driver: 4" coated paper cone
Dynamic power: 18 watts/channel
Dynamic range: 95dB
Crossover frequency: 2.8Khz
Signal-to-noise ratio: 90dB (typical, A-weighted)
SPL: 101.5dB
Input impedance: 20k ohms balanced, 10K ohms unbalanced
Input connectors: RCA
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Richard Crowley Richard Crowley is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

"David (World) Reitter" wrote...
I have inquired with M-Audio and it turns out they no longer stock
parts for these speakers.
So I'm back to my original quest for reasonable replacement tweeters.

I should probably mention that these monitors don't serve any kind of
studio purpose - I just wanted better speakers for my desk, and near-
field monitors seemed like a good idea. That should make things
easier.

What I do know about them is shown below.
The tweeters themselves say they're 10Wmax (is this RMS?), and I was
looking for 1-inch dome tweeters with a good near-linear frequency
response from 1400Hz or so. I'm just not sure what else to look for,
especially since I don't know much about the original drivers.

HF driver: 1" mylar cone with OptImage dispersion-controlled wave


Since this is an *active* speaker it means that the exact parameters of
the tweeter have less influence on things like crossover performance,
etc. OTOH, you probably won't find the magic "OptImage dispersion-
controlled waveguide" though. IMHO, the physical size and the low-
end response (at least down to the crossover frequency) would be the
prime considerations.

You should research 3rd party sources of OEM drivers and eBay, etc.




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Audio Empire Audio Empire is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:36:25 -0700, David (World) Reitter wrote
(in article
):

On Mar 29, 2:36*pm, Dick Pierce wrote:

Even if you got it working, it's likely you'll need new
tweeters: if my guess is correct, it WILL fail again, and
poking in thetweeterdone is likely to have done other damage
as well.


I have inquired with M-Audio and it turns out they no longer stock
parts for these speakers.
So I'm back to my original quest for reasonable replacement tweeters.

I should probably mention that these monitors don't serve any kind of
studio purpose - I just wanted better speakers for my desk, and near-
field monitors seemed like a good idea. That should make things
easier.

What I do know about them is shown below.
The tweeters themselves say they're 10Wmax (is this RMS?), and I was
looking for 1-inch dome tweeters with a good near-linear frequency
response from 1400Hz or so. I'm just not sure what else to look for,
especially since I don't know much about the original drivers.

- David


---

HF driver: 1" mylar cone with OptImage dispersion-controlled wave
guide
LF driver: 4" coated paper cone
Dynamic power: 18 watts/channel
Dynamic range: 95dB
Crossover frequency: 2.8Khz
Signal-to-noise ratio: 90dB (typical, A-weighted)
SPL: 101.5dB
Input impedance: 20k ohms balanced, 10K ohms unbalanced
Input connectors: RCA


I'm not sure how to advise you. I've done what you need to do, but it was
many years ago when one could just order a tweeter from one of the now
long-defunct mail-order houses such as Allied, Lafayette, Radio Shack or
Olson Electronics. In those days they came with a control called a "T"-pad
which was a tweeter volume control that one mounted on the back of the
cabinet. That way, "one size" pretty much fit all. Most of these tweeters
were real efficient and could be made to work with anything from a Karlson
Horn to a pair of AR 3s by adjusting their output via the T-pad. While I'm
sure that T-pads can still be had, I'm not sure that today's tweeters are
designed to be that universal any more.

There are places to buy drivers on the internet, and some, like Parts
Express:

http://www.parts-express.com/speaker...FQaiagodqwlGAw

Offer a tech support line. I don't know what KIND of support they offer, But
that would be my first stop were I in your shoes. Call 'em, ask 'em if they
know anything about your speakers and can provide a replacement. If not there
may be some way that they could recommend something that will work, anyway.

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Peter Larsen[_3_] Peter Larsen[_3_] is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

David (World) Reitter wrote:

On Mar 29, 2:36 pm, Dick Pierce wrote:


Even if you got it working, it's likely you'll need new
tweeters: if my guess is correct, it WILL fail again, and
poking in thetweeterdone is likely to have done other damage
as well.


I have inquired with M-Audio and it turns out they no longer stock
parts for these speakers.


That's the flip side of the Spirit of Just In Time production, nobody stocks
spareparts anymore.

So I'm back to my original quest for reasonable replacement tweeters.


Realistically you need to take the box apart, remove the defective speaker,
measure it physically and start searching in on line catalogues from Monacor
(is available) and Seas (if available). Traditionally the Peerless brand
tried hard at maintaining neat frequency response of all their units, they
probably still do, but I don't know if they are all oem suppliers now or a
catalogue is findable. Scan Speak brand (same company now) traditionally
tried less hard at frequency response and harder on other parameter leaving
frequency response fixes to the cross-over designer.

I should probably mention that these monitors don't serve any kind of
studio purpose - I just wanted better speakers for my desk, and near-
field monitors seemed like a good idea. That should make things
easier.


Yes:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/search_dir....9f&sw=esi+near

What I do know about them is shown below.
The tweeters themselves say they're 10Wmax (is this RMS?)


Treble loudspeaker unit powerhandling specs are determined by what looks
good in a catalogue unless in the form of "x watts for y seconds". 2 digits
tend to be watts marketing rather than watts rms and rms is kinda useless
considering the crest factor of treble only audio.

, and I was
looking for 1-inch dome tweeters with a good near-linear frequency
response from 1400Hz or so. I'm just not sure what else to look for,
especially since I don't know much about the original drivers.


On my skill level I'd look for a Monacor that fits and replace both tweeters
and if need be adjust drive level to the units amplifier. On your skill
level you should get an ESI nEAR 04 or 05 classic (the new 05's and 08's are
better, just turn down the treble a bit and the tonal balance gets right,
they do seem to offer adjustment in steps) pair and sell or discard your
defective boxes to someone who may want them for spareparts or to have a
third one for center use or a foldback loudspeaker near the conductor when
recording.

- David


Kind regards

Peter Larsen




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David Reitter David Reitter is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

As a follow-up to this thread, to summarize for people with a similar
problem.

I ended up replacing the broken tweeters in my M-Audio Studiophile DX4
with "Vifa BC25SC06-04 1" Textile Dome", which the good people at
Parts-Express.com helped me find. The have a good frequency response
in relation to the crossover frequency, and are relatively sensitive.
And, of course, the impedance is right (4 Ohms) and they fit in
physically (about 3 inch outer diameter). The OEM tweeters are no
longer available from M-Audio.

With these tweeters, the speakers sounded quite a bit too brilliant,
and I ended up using a software equalizer to get an approximate idea
of how much damping was needed (about 1-1.5 dB). From this, I picked
out the right configuration for a T-Pad (attenuator) (0.5 Ohms serial,
28 Ohms parallel speaker side, 10W each for 1.15dB attenuation). The
closest resistors I could find at my local RadioShack were 2x1Ohms and
50+100Ohms, for each speaker. (There are plenty of T-Pad calculators
available on the Web.)

The results sound pretty good and are certainly acceptable for my
purposes: good, near-field speakers, not for mastering.

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Peter Larsen[_3_] Peter Larsen[_3_] is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

David Reitter wrote:

As a follow-up to this thread, to summarize for people with a similar
problem.


Thank you very much!

Kind regards

Peter Larsen



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Richard Crowley Richard Crowley is offline
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Default replacing 10W tweeters with higher RMS

"Peter Larsen" wrote ...
David Reitter wrote:
As a follow-up to this thread, to summarize for people with a similar
problem.


Thank you very much!


Indeed. Very valuable info for those facing similar situations.


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