Anyone have any experience or ideas with my SF Extrema, I have a challenge with one of the mid/bass drivers which at high volume levels has a small amount of distortion. The driver seems to do bass well looks in good shape, so wondered if it might be a capacitor (hopefully) I've eliminated the amp/pre-amp etc and the tweeter. So I know the culprit any more advice much appreciated
Also thinking of giving them a 'service' so to speak, perhaps replace the rear radiators as one seems to have a little more resistance when lightly pressing than the other, possibly recap the mid with suitable caps is they are out of spec etc
Also thinking of giving them a 'service' so to speak, perhaps replace the rear radiators as one seems to have a little more resistance when lightly pressing than the other, possibly recap the mid with suitable caps is they are out of spec etc
Not removed anything as yet, I wanted to see what the gasket situation might be before realising they are not useable at all. I guess I need to commit and take it to bits....
Well, firstly, the Sonus Faber Extrema are passive speakers, some seem to have passive radiators while others seem to don't have them. What happens if a ported (and PR speakers are that too) speaker is given frequencies below the tuning frequency is that the active driver is running 'free'. That leads to excessive excursion and the voice coil - more often than not - hits the back pole plate, damaging the voice coil. Be it the input power too high, pushing the frequencies below the fb by loudness, dsp or room equalizion or 'bass extension app', it leads all to the same result. The chances that's the reason for the distortion is about 99,4%, the chance the capacitors are to blame are at 0,5%.
You might be right but I hope not. Reading the review of the speakers they can take reasonable power and whilst I do 'drive' them reasonably hard from time to time, I don't think I have mistreated them. No dsp on them and they have 'tuned passive radiators as shown in the diagram above
'Reasonable power' means they can take a lot of it - in their usable range. And I can confirm, they can do a surprisingly good spl. However, while they can take >120W there easily, below the fb they can't take 15W. It doesn't matter if you used a dsp, equalizer, the bass knob, room equaliziation or just using the turntable or CD without the subsonic filter. A ported speaker used above room listening levels needs a high pass filter, period.
I'm not convinced it's the capacitor but it should be easy to check. Lift one of the legs of the capacitor to take that branch out of the circuit. There's little enough difference that while it may not sound the same, you should still be able to tell if your problem remains..
There's a possiblity that due to age the VC might be out of alignment/shape which causes it to rub ever so slightly on the poll
piece. Try using 1 finger, push the cone in. Do it all around the cone you might feel or hear a little rubbing of the VC.
piece. Try using 1 finger, push the cone in. Do it all around the cone you might feel or hear a little rubbing of the VC.
