Strange "muffled" effect from front left channel.

M

machjava

Audiophyte
Hey guys,

Essentially what is happening is every maybe 2 months or so, I'll be watching a movie or playing a game and I will notice that my left channel sounds muffled, or lacks treble. I can then replicate it by spinning around in a game to test it's accuracy with a constant noise, usually showing that it is indeed muffled. Same with highlighting music in the left or right channel and comparing.

I decided to swap wires from the normal sounding right channel to the left, while listening to music with defined treble patterns, and sure enough the speaker still sounded muffled. If I take the grills off of the speaker and put my ear to it, I hear/see sound and movement from the three woofers, but a very faint representation of the treble from the tweeter it seems.

I know it's a long story, but here is where it gets weird. As I hook up everything back to normal, and sit down , starting the music again, the left channel has all of it's treble back. In disbelief I went up with my ear to both speakers, and they sound identical now. I was ready to order a new one, but this caused me to hesitate.

Any advice as to what this is would help, really dreading taking apart the speaker as I have never done it. Not sure if the repair process for Pioneer products is okay either, but the speaker was purchase earlier this year. Thanks!

Receiver: Pioneer VSX-822
Speakers Front Left/Right: Pioneer SP-FS52-LR
Center: SP-C22
Surround Left/Right: SP-FS51-LR
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Hey guys,

Essentially what is happening is every maybe 2 months or so, I'll be watching a movie or playing a game and I will notice that my left channel sounds muffled, or lacks treble. I can then replicate it by spinning around in a game to test it's accuracy with a constant noise, usually showing that it is indeed muffled. Same with highlighting music in the left or right channel and comparing.

I decided to swap wires from the normal sounding right channel to the left, while listening to music with defined treble patterns, and sure enough the speaker still sounded muffled. If I take the grills off of the speaker and put my ear to it, I hear/see sound and movement from the three woofers, but a very faint representation of the treble from the tweeter it seems.

I know it's a long story, but here is where it gets weird. As I hook up everything back to normal, and sit down , starting the music again, the left channel has all of it's treble back. In disbelief I went up with my ear to both speakers, and they sound identical now. I was ready to order a new one, but this caused me to hesitate.

Any advice as to what this is would help, really dreading taking apart the speaker as I have never done it. Not sure if the repair process for Pioneer products is okay either, but the speaker was purchase earlier this year. Thanks!

Receiver: Pioneer VSX-822
Speakers Front Left/Right: Pioneer SP-FS52-LR
Center: SP-C22
Surround Left/Right: SP-FS51-LR
There is a bad connection in either the high pass section of the crossover, the tweeter connection or a bad voice coil in the tweeter.
 
WaynePflughaupt

WaynePflughaupt

Audioholic Samurai

Sounds like a problem with the speaker’s tweeter or the high pass side of the crossover. I’ve never seen a tweeter fail intermittently, so I’m going with the crossover. Maybe there’s a cold solder joint that’s making and breaking connection.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Sounds like a problem with the speaker’s tweeter or the high pass side of the crossover. I’ve never seen a tweeter fail intermittently, so I’m going with the crossover. Maybe there’s a cold solder joint that’s making and breaking connection.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
I have. Tweeters get intermittent due to the resin insulation not being properly removed from the VC wires at the solder to the terminal. These leads to a dry joint failure over time because there is very little copper for the solder to bond with and it becomes intermittent.
 
M

machjava

Audiophyte
So assuming I'm not capable of resolving it myself and pioneer's warranty process looks pretty miserable (on the surface), would I be better off just buying another speaker? I can see it costing more to repair than it's worth potentially, but I could be wrong. Thank you for the responses!
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
So assuming I'm not capable of resolving it myself and pioneer's warranty process looks pretty miserable (on the surface), would I be better off just buying another speaker? I can see it costing more to repair than it's worth potentially, but I could be wrong. Thank you for the responses!
Why aren't you capable of resolving this yourself? Loudspeaker electronics are pretty simple. You need to remove the crossover and tweeter for inspection and analysis with a multi meter.
 
M

machjava

Audiophyte
Why aren't you capable of resolving this yourself? Loudspeaker electronics are pretty simple. You need to remove the crossover and tweeter for inspection and analysis with a multi meter.

Maybe capable was the wrong word. I meant I don't want to risk messing it up further, and I also need to get a multi meter. I can try taking the plate off of the back where the wire terminals are, and post a photo. Not sure if the problem is one that can be seen visually, but I figure it's worth a shot.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Maybe capable was the wrong word. I meant I don't want to risk messing it up further, and I also need to get a multi meter. I can try taking the plate off of the back where the wire terminals are, and post a photo. Not sure if the problem is one that can be seen visually, but I figure it's worth a shot.
Effectively you have a useless speaker. Now you have an opportunity to learn.

Get yourself a multi meter. Then remove the crossover and tweeter and I will talk you through how to fix this speaker. Until then I don't want to hear another word about it!
 
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