Celestion Ditton 44 sounding muddy

[jeffrey88]

Hey DIYA,

I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with my pair of Celestion Ditton 44's. When I play them, the high frequencies sound good, bass sounds good but the midrange just seems to be very muddy. I don't know what the problem is. I tried switching out the midrange driver with a different one and I end up with the same problem, muddy midrange.

The drivers seem to be OK, pushing the cone in and out shows no signs of voice coil rubbing so I don't think they are distorting.. but I couldn't be 100% sure. They just don't seem amazing like I had thought them out to be, and this tells me something is wrong.

I'm wondering, could it be the crossover? Like I say, drivers seem to be good but it's just the sound coming out seems muddy.. it's not distorted, just not clear sounding.

Any help is appreciated.

[system7]

Have a look at your crossover behind the bass unit. Celestion went a bit cheapish on the Mark 2 Ditton 44 and fitted blue non-polar electrolyitics.



Those go rather poor and dry out after 20 years. Either fit polypropylenes or plain replace.

[jeffrey88]

Originally Posted by system7

Have a look at your crossover behind the bass unit. Celestion went a bit cheapish on the Mark 2 Ditton 44 and fitted blue non-polar electrolyitics.

Those go rather poor and dry out after 20 years. Either fit polypropylenes or plain replace.

Thanks for the quick reply.

I've never done a crossover replacement before - what kind of tools should I have, soldering gun?

[system7]

An Antec soldering gun with stand and wet sponge, some lead free solder and a solder sucker (You heat the old solder then suck it up with the solder sucker) are kinda the minimum here. Might cost you £30.

You can get them at Maplin. It's a good investment for fixing all sorts of stuff. Capacitors are trickier to find, because Audio Grade Polypropylene are often quite huge and expensive. You'll have to figure out your options here. Non-Polars might be more realistic.

Oh, woops, you are in Canada. Radio Shack? LOL

[jeffrey88]

Yeah lol radio shack might be my best option.

I did use to work in an electronics retail store with a car audio installation shop in the back, I know they at least have a soldering gun. I wonder if they have the rest of the tools.

Do you have any sort of guides or information about how to properly replace the capacitors with correct ones?

[jeffrey88]

Here's a picture of what the crossover looks like:



They are Mark 1 ditton 44's, actually.

[system7]

Hmm, that looks like the considerably better Mark 1 crossover with longer lasting polyester caps. A simple reheating/reflow of the solder and recrimping/soldering the speaker connectors might suffice.

The whole trick is to use a hot gun and get in and out fast, before you overheat the components. Maybe 5-10 seconds. LOL

As for correct values, you just use the same as the originals really. 4uF and 6uF is not too big. I would guess 72mF is actually 72uF, which ARE big in polypropylene.

[jeffrey88]

Oh wait, actually I don't think that picture is accurate.

This is a picture I just took of the crossover, that was a picture I found:

[system7]

That actually looks very clean. But N.P. on a capacitor is saying Non-Polar Electrolytic to me. I thought those black units were polyester, because KEF used them too. I was wrong. Replace immediately!

[jeffrey88]

Originally Posted by system7

That actually looks very clean. But N.P. on a capacitor is saying Non-Polar Electrolytic to me. I thought those black units were polyester, because KEF used them too. I was wrong. Replace immediately!

Good to hear! Sounds like this is the problem then, hey?

Well, I scored these speakers for very cheap so I'm not at a loss in any way. Sounds more like a fun project to me! After I've done this, then I can feel confident doing this with other loudspeakers.

Thanks system7!