New speakers sound muffled

[tim_rule]

Hey,

A while back I posted a few details of my 5.2 system...well now I have them all set up there seems to be a problem - the front left and right sound muffled (acoustic guitar tracks especially inaudiable). They are also quieter than the other "identical" speakers in the system.

Now I built these two speakers in a different batch to the other three, because the box is of different dimensions to house the sub, but the design is identical.

Because *both* speakers are exhibiting the same problem, and both were built at the same time, I think I might have the woofer/tweeter wires switched.

It is an MTM configuration but I was careful to make sure the woofers were wired in parallel...so fingers crossed that I have them connected to the wrong XO terminal.


But before I grab the screw driver and have a look, can anyone else make a suggestion as to what might be making them sick?

(I thought of an XO error but its unlikely that two would have the same error, and then end up in the two front L/R speakes. Wiring error I hope is the cause)

Thanks, Tim.

[navin]

reverse the tweeter wires and see.

[tim_rule]

Originally posted by navin
reverse the tweeter wires and see.

Hi, I don't think thats it, I actually tried that with 2 of the other 3 speakers when I was building them to see if there was much difference in the sound - there was not much change.

I have a 3rd order high pass and a 2nd order low pass (though it has an extra inductor so perhaps it is 3rd order - its a LEAP design from madisound).

Cheers, Tim.

[navin]

are all 5 channels MTM?

[tim_rule]

Originally posted by navin
are all 5 channels MTM?

Yep. two times 4 inch woofer and 27mm tweeter. Both of these are quite wide range, it think its over 4KHz for the woofer and down to 1KHz for the tweeter so it is possible that they would make some reasonable noise even if they were getting the wrong part of the audio spectrum.

XO is at around 3KHz.

I just tried turning the bass and treble down on the amp to simulate the muffled sound on the good speakers, and it did kinda simulate the muffled sound from the suspect speakers.


Tim.

[mcp]

Hi Tim

Could be internally the cross over is reversed. High frq going to 4" and low frq to tweeter. Might want to open it up and have a look inside.

Cheers

[wintermute]

Originally posted by mcp
Hi Tim

Could be internally the cross over is reversed. High frq going to 4" and low frq to tweeter. Might want to open it up and have a look inside.

Cheers

Yep that'd do it

I was going to ask whether maybe you wired the two mids out of phase, but I think mcp has the more likely answer. (actually just noticed that this is what you suspected in the first place).

You can check the phase using a 1.5V battery just connect what you think is positive and negative on your speaker binding posts to +ve and -ve on the battery, if the cones move outward then the phase is correct if they move inward it's reversed. If one moves in and one out then the two mids are out of phase with each other.

Regards,

Tony.