Tweeter replacement recommendations


I am building an inexpensive system to place in my office. I have a Rotel rcd-971, probably getting an older (80s) Denon receiver(tuner needed), and a friend has a used pair of Paradigm Titans. It will only see low volume use.

The tweeter in one of the Titans has retired. I want to replace both tweeters. Modifying the enclosure some, is no problem.

I am thinking, since this is a place of business, the more relaxed sound of a fabric dome tweeter may be the best choice. I want to keep the cost and modifications to a minimum. The Titans have a 17mm metal dome tweeter crossed at 2.3khz, efficiency is 86db. I have browsed Partsexpress.com and found many tweeters. I like the cost and numbers for the Vifa TC 1" fabric dome, but the Morel 1 1/8" looks interesting as well.

Any ideas, pointers, or recommendations are greatly appreciated.
distortion

Showing 2 responses by clueless

I agree with Sean. Call and ask Mad and PE. You basically want to get something that is close to what you are taking out and/or study up so you can make appropriate changes which can be challenging. The existing tweeter was likely matched with a pad (to level match the sound volume) and crossover (control roll-off)to match it to the woofer. Nothing sounds worse than asking a tweeter to go lower than it wants to.

Did you read the primers on speaker and crossover design at partsexpress? My recollection is that they are fairly good. They spell out the basic issues.

Also if you ask at a diy speaker board like the Madisound forum or diyaudio.com you might get someone with experience right on point. This can't be the first of these tweeters have been replaced.

Sometimes (most) you cannot trust the mnf. numbers.

I remain,
Its good to have a large flat freq range but there are other things you need to check too. For example, a driver will have it's own inpedance that reacts with the filter. The two component filter you have is made to work with your old tweeter's electrical characteristics.

If you look at this 2nd Order High Pass Butterworth Filter which seems to be what you describe (a cap in series with the driver and a coil accross the driver), you see in hte formula that the tweeter's inductance is part of the formula. The values of the passive components are tied to a particular tweeter's inductance at the xover point.

In any event, it has been quite a while since I did much with 2 way speakers and I ain't no expert. The point is that there a few other issues too. The forums above are good places.

Good luck
I remain,