Hi everyone,
I think my heading says it all really.
Basically I bought some rather expensive floor standing speakers about 3 years ago (expensive to me at least!) and was never able to live with them, so they just sat in a spare room doing nothing.
Having recently moved house I thought I'd give them another go and if still not to my liking I would 'move em on'. They always sounded sharp/shrill in the treble and were no different this time around. But this time I did notice that on some material like female vocals they actually sounded distorted and scratchy. The same tracks on my regular (smaller) speakers sound fine - even at higher volume levels. Please don't miss-understand, I'm not a volume jockey or anything like that.
Now I'm thinking I may have duff or damaged tweeters in the speakers - even from when I first bought them, - they were ex-demo.
So I was just wondering if there is any way I could test the tweeters to determine if they are indeed faulty or not.
Would anyone have any ideas on this?
Regards
Roy.
I think my heading says it all really.
Basically I bought some rather expensive floor standing speakers about 3 years ago (expensive to me at least!) and was never able to live with them, so they just sat in a spare room doing nothing.
Having recently moved house I thought I'd give them another go and if still not to my liking I would 'move em on'. They always sounded sharp/shrill in the treble and were no different this time around. But this time I did notice that on some material like female vocals they actually sounded distorted and scratchy. The same tracks on my regular (smaller) speakers sound fine - even at higher volume levels. Please don't miss-understand, I'm not a volume jockey or anything like that.
Now I'm thinking I may have duff or damaged tweeters in the speakers - even from when I first bought them, - they were ex-demo.
So I was just wondering if there is any way I could test the tweeters to determine if they are indeed faulty or not.
Would anyone have any ideas on this?
Regards
Roy.
I find the best way to test loudspeakers is to play an all-too-familiar disc that I have heard countless times on countless systems.
For a man of my age and decrepitude it might be the first "Dire Straits" recording. Or Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin piano. Lot of people like Diana Krall doing her splendid jazzy version of "Temptation".
You can hear the rotten notes if there is a problem.
Amongst audio generators easily hooked up from your PC to your HiFi via a headphone to RCA phono lead is the splendid Sweepgen:
Audio Tools - from David Taylor, Edinburgh
This might give you an idea at what frequency problems are occuring.
Tweeters generally operate above 3kHz.
What can go wrong? Bass voicecoils can rub in the magnetic gap. Sometimes turning the speaker upside down can fix this. You can push the bass coil in and feel the rubbing.
Tweeters sometimes plain overheat and similarly rub and sound distorted.
Because you have two of everything in a stereo pair, you can swap drivers and see if the problem is attached to a particular driver. Can often be a loose wire or a poor solder joint in the crossover. Often a fault you can see with close inspection.
You really ought to tell us what speakers you have. It's easier to guess the problem. We diy people can fix and build most stuff. Often better than the original. DIY-Loudspeakers
Oh, and FWIW, an overly bright tweeter is easily adjusted. That showroom "Boom and Tizz" sound is plain annoying when you have to live with speakers.
For a man of my age and decrepitude it might be the first "Dire Straits" recording. Or Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin piano. Lot of people like Diana Krall doing her splendid jazzy version of "Temptation".
You can hear the rotten notes if there is a problem.
Amongst audio generators easily hooked up from your PC to your HiFi via a headphone to RCA phono lead is the splendid Sweepgen:
Audio Tools - from David Taylor, Edinburgh
This might give you an idea at what frequency problems are occuring.
Tweeters generally operate above 3kHz.
What can go wrong? Bass voicecoils can rub in the magnetic gap. Sometimes turning the speaker upside down can fix this. You can push the bass coil in and feel the rubbing.
Tweeters sometimes plain overheat and similarly rub and sound distorted.
Because you have two of everything in a stereo pair, you can swap drivers and see if the problem is attached to a particular driver. Can often be a loose wire or a poor solder joint in the crossover. Often a fault you can see with close inspection.
You really ought to tell us what speakers you have. It's easier to guess the problem. We diy people can fix and build most stuff. Often better than the original. DIY-Loudspeakers
Oh, and FWIW, an overly bright tweeter is easily adjusted. That showroom "Boom and Tizz" sound is plain annoying when you have to live with speakers.
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Yes. That's the way.
I've posted several times how successful you can be with your laptop's mic and REW honourware. No kidding.
You can use your laptop mic - diyAudio
B.
Hi all and Happy New Year!
Ok, My speakers are Von Schweikert VR22's. These are trapezoidal in shape (looking from the top), covered all over with black cloth and 'Topped and Toe'ed' with high gloss piano black end pieces - Great looking and great bass but with a very sharp piercing treble.
The only way into the speakers would be to 'peel down' the covering from the top to reveal the two drive units which I think are a 1 inch tweeter and 8 inch mid/woofer both from Scanspeak.
One of my all time favorite singers is Karen Carpenter and the problem shows up very clearly when playing 'We've Only Just Begun', In the chorus -
I've looked at the various suggested software tools on offer, I dont have a mic at all - and I must say I was rather overwhelmed by them except for the Sweeptool, which I tried running sweeps around the 3khz mark, all sounded OK to me but not sure what I was listening for.
So I'm really not sure where to go from here ???
Regards to all
Roy
Ok, My speakers are Von Schweikert VR22's. These are trapezoidal in shape (looking from the top), covered all over with black cloth and 'Topped and Toe'ed' with high gloss piano black end pieces - Great looking and great bass but with a very sharp piercing treble.
The only way into the speakers would be to 'peel down' the covering from the top to reveal the two drive units which I think are a 1 inch tweeter and 8 inch mid/woofer both from Scanspeak.
One of my all time favorite singers is Karen Carpenter and the problem shows up very clearly when playing 'We've Only Just Begun', In the chorus -
- when she gets to the word 'way' she's putting a lot of power into her voice, and the 'Vons' sound like they could make your ears bleed!
I've looked at the various suggested software tools on offer, I dont have a mic at all - and I must say I was rather overwhelmed by them except for the Sweeptool, which I tried running sweeps around the 3khz mark, all sounded OK to me but not sure what I was listening for.
So I'm really not sure where to go from here ???
Regards to all
Roy
Perhaps you could take a moment to explain why you don't want to test with REW and your laptop mic? (But are willing to ask for a collective hours of attention from others on the forum?)
B.
bentoronto,
Perhaps 'you' could take a moment to realise that 'you' do not speak for the members of this forum and IMO remarks like those you have written serve no useful purpose but to cause friction here.
If you think I am wasting of your hours then please feel free to spend no more time in this thread.
I am at present looking into REW but my knowledge on speaker testing is virtually non existent, - hence my original post.
So as someone once said - "I may be some time!"
Regards to all
Roy.
Perhaps 'you' could take a moment to realise that 'you' do not speak for the members of this forum and IMO remarks like those you have written serve no useful purpose but to cause friction here.
If you think I am wasting of your hours then please feel free to spend no more time in this thread.
I am at present looking into REW but my knowledge on speaker testing is virtually non existent, - hence my original post.
So as someone once said - "I may be some time!"
Regards to all
Roy.
No, I don't speak for everyone but I do have a modest grasp of arithmetic and a long membership here. On the other hand, you seem to know all about friction among members.
There have been more than 304 views of this thread. At 10 minutes average per view or reply, that would be collectively over 50 hours "invested" in your problem with no discernible benefit... and counting.
Very self-effacing of you to claim your grasp of testing is "non existent" esp. since you've been a member here for 12 years. That was true for all of us at one point in our lives. But are you claiming not to understand the "theory" of sticking a mic in front of a tweeter?
Sorry to speak so plainly about the situation and to irritate you. But this sort of vague verbal symptom thread shows up all the time at DIYaudio. Are you sure your laptop has no mic or that you don't have any that can be used in various devices* around your home? Why don't you look at the link I provided earlier to laptop mic testing and then try REW.
B.
* Anybody have a clever way to use a cellphone mic? Or some kind of crude testing with a smartphone app?
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