Augsburger Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 About six months ago I got swept up in the Insignia decent speaker for cheap craze and purchased a pair really cheap at Worst Buys with the intention of trying my hand at the Danny Richie Mods. My plan was to replace the mediocre speaker pair in my office with some nice looking and killer sounding moded speakers..........rrriiiiiight! http://www.gr-research.com/insignia.shtm Bottom line, they sound awful, worse than stock. I checked every resistor connection, inductor, and how I ran the connections. Out of desperation I sent the crossovers to Danny who hooked them up and ran a sweep. He found no problems, but they sound awful. I have fifteen hours of painful burn in and there is absolutely no improvement. I hate to throw good money after bad at this point, but at this point we are talking ego. I will not let this debacle end in defeat. Is there anyone out there who knows crossover designs who can take a look at the coaxial driver, inductors, and resistors I am using and find a solution? I will compensate you for your time. Thanks all. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 I can probably help. Do you have a way to take measurements? A measurement microphone and a sound card at minimum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 can I make a friendly wager? I bet, though am not sure, that the tweeter should be reverse polarity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 I can probably help. Do you have a way to take measurements? A measurement microphone and a sound card at minimum. Unfortunately, I have neither but I do have a soldering iron, a screwdriver and a ton of frustration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 can I make a friendly wager? I bet, though am not sure, that the tweeter should be reverse polarity. Your on! If you mean switching positive and negative connections, I tried that for both the woofer and tweeter with negligible benefits. I even tried voodoo but that didn't help either. So I am defaulting to someone smarter, which in this case is anyone reading this post. :'( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 lol. I mean switch the tweeter but not the woofer. I think they need to be wired out of phase. This sort of topology is normal, given the type of crossover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spritzer Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 Phase issues would also be my guess. Try swapping at the drivers and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 Phase issues would also be my guess. Try swapping at the drivers and see what happens. copy-cat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 Phase issues would also be my guess. Try swapping at the drivers and see what happens. Not sure what you mean by this, but I did switch just the tweater connects, then just the woofer then the tweeter and woofer I tried every combo on my Excel matrix that I created to make sure I tried every variation that I could think of, then I waited for the full moon and a glass of Port, same result....... I have a pair speakers I am working with so I kept one speaker as is for A/B'ing with no improvement in the B'ing pair and they still sound equally awful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 can I get a picture and schematic of the crossover? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 I think the resistor value is too high or the inductor is a bit too robust and not the best choice or I can't read a schematic and messed up the wiring but Danny would have caught that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spritzer Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 Not sure what you mean by this, but I did switch just the tweater connects, then just the woofer then the tweeter and woofer I tried every combo on my Excel matrix that I created to make sure I tried every variation that I could think of, then I waited for the full moon and a glass of Port, same result....... I have a pair speakers I am working with so I kept one speaker as is for A/B'ing with no improvement in the B'ing pair and they still sound equally awful. I meant swapping the + and - inputs at the speaker since they are most often push in connectors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 I did that as well one of the first and easiest was to switch speaker terminal connetor from amp. I am trying to post a scan of the schematics as well as a picture of the cross over but having a little trouble. I will try image shack for the CO How do I post a PDF of the schematic? Thanks for your ideas and patcience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 Dohhh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 22, 2008 Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 hm, tough to follow from the pics. It does look at the negative for the tweeter is not wired properly though, as it's going to the cap, where it should be just connected to the coil. I'm assuming you unwound the stock coil per the instructions? I'd just wire up one driver and use a sweep tone to listen to it. Then disconnect the driver and isolate the second and try the sweep tone. If a specific frequnency range sound bad, note that. It's possible you've already fried the driver too I suppose. Do you have any idea who made the coaxial driver and if there's a datasheet somewhere? I suppose you have no way of comparing to the original driver since you've unwound one of the coils ... what do you mean by sounds "bad", by the way... If you've had someone verify that the crossover is okay, then really you only have a few options. Incorrect wiring or a bad driver ... or bad ears I suppose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Chalk Posted January 22, 2008 Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 ... what do you mean by sounds "bad", by the way...Yeah, I second the question. What, exactly, is the problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 If I can find a CD on online source for a sweep tone I will try that. I doubt that the driver is fried because the speakers sound identically "bad". My experience with a fried driver in the past has been that they sound raspy and most of the music is missing. The woofer and tweeter reproduce the whole range it is just that the music is muted. What I mean by that is veiled, no bass to speak of sounds as if the driver is trying to play through a pillow. No prat, no texture, basically sounds like a cheap boombox. Before the mods the speaker played well at small room listening levels with my test Charlize amp at nine o'clock, after the mods, I had to crank the Charlize to two o'clock to get the same sound level. Insignia is Manufactured in China so the true source of the driver is a mystery. Given that, a data sheet from the manufacturer is a dead end. Danny Richey ran a sweep and posted the chart on the hyperlink above, it's Greek to me though. Bad ears is an option but bad attitude is probably more accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 22, 2008 Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 so, from what I can gather they sound like $40 speakers from Best Buy. j/k, I'll try and help as much as I can... I see that there are a few incarnations of these crossovers out there as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 LOL... actually much worse, it would be a huge step up to sound like $40 BB speakers. Thanks for any help or suggestions, I am willing to try anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted January 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Anyone willing to take a look at my wiring job to see if I screwed up? This temporary DIY failure is killing my ego. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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