blown tweeters

[shadyJ]

It goes to 100 max volume and I did have it at 90 when the tweeters kicked the bucket......cant understand why they put max volume at 100 , BUT you are not to go there.......Doesn't make much sense to me AT ALL

You need to take time to learn. What is happening when you crank the volume is you push both the amplifier and speaker to performance extremes. When this happens, harmonic distortion goes way up. What harmonic distortion does is shift a lot of the spectral energy of the playback to higher frequencies. The response becomes badly non-linear in favor of treble, tweeter gets slammed with a disproportionate amount of energy. What you need is a speaker you do not have to crank so hard to get high output from. You also need to stay away from maximum gain on the volume knob, it won't make anything louder after a point, it just shifts energy from low frequencies to high frequencies via clipping and other distortion generators.

 

[crossedover]

I Keep my big boy pants on ,....CLOWN...If you don't have anything pertinent to add then I suggest you find a chat room for lonely people like yourself who are on here to simply rant

sometimes its hard to hear direct solutions. There are still a lot of questions about your listening habits ie source formats.

A few things that are for sure and have been mentioned

You should never turn your volume to its highest output, even if your not listening to MP3s, as stated you speakers and your ears were not designed for it. (115db spl at 10 feet away with 100 watts) play with this calculator

Replacing the speakers with another brand with in your budget and limited to Crutchfield; and continuing your listening habits will yield speaker damage. If your looking for insane sound levels consider this, way out of your stated parameters but meets your listening habits.

As for calling Klipsch, make sure you contact a technical service manager. Calling crutchfield for help is like asking for audio advice on a needle point forum.

 

[markw]

I Keep my big boy pants on ,....CLOWN...If you don't have anything pertinent to add then I suggest you find a chat room for lonely people like yourself who are on here to simply rant

Sorry you can't handle the truth.

We're here to help but if one refuses to listen and learn, you're just wasting our time.

Here's thread you might appreciate.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/i-know-nothing-about-animals-but-want-to-buy-a-unicorn.97001/#post-1106901

 

[Swerd]

It goes to 100 max volume and I did have it at 90 when the tweeters kicked the bucket......cant understand why they put max volume at 100 , BUT you are not to go there.......Doesn't make much sense to me AT ALL

The amount of power drawn by speakers isn't simple. It depends on the nature of the music being played as well as the power capacity of the amplifier. In your case, the receiver you are using is powerful enough to run those speakers without going into clipping. This can damage speakers and/or amplifiers, if the owner isn't careful.

TLS Guy pointed out that Klipsch, a well known speaker maker, isn't the same company that it once was years ago in the 70s and earlier. That name has been sold and resold several times. Now Audiovox owns the name, and they do have a reputation of running older respected names into the ground by substituting cheaper manufacturing methods and parts into older designs.

Your RF82II speakers are a 2-way design with two 8" woofers and one horn-loaded tweeter. Importantly, the crossover frequency between the woofers and tweeter is 1400 Hz. This is very low for a tweeter (more typically tweeters can go as 2000 to 3000 Hz), and requires a ruggedly built and expensive dome tweeter, or a compression tweeter. In earlier versions, Klipsch did use one of those two types of tweeters. Since Audiovox bought the name, these speakers have been plagued with tweeter failures. This suggests strongly that they have substituted a cheaper dome tweeter, but still use the 1400 Hz crossover frequency. That tweeter might be alright if crossed at higher frequencies, but when exposed to such low frequencies (for a tweeter) at high power, will rapidly fail. Using a more powerful amplifier will not solve this problem.

Sorry for the bad news, but I think you should send those speakers back before its too late.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Deal with it, kid. It was the truth. Sorry you can't handle it.

BS, Mark. Both of you Marks seem to not know what you're talking about. A low crossover point is causing the tweeters to blow? Unlikely. If you've ever asked for a demo at a Best Buy store you'd know how silly this premise is. Sales people are blaring these speakers at high db levels all the time. If they blew out tweeters at the slightest provocation tales would probably be all over the internet quickly. My pair of RF62iis has been played rather loudly in an HT system for nearly three months, and the tweeters certainly aren't blown. I even had some fun listening to Olympus Has Fallen, a dumb movie, but I wanted to see how the system sounded with fake Hollywood explosions and such, and the tweeters survived just fine. If Dr. Mark was right I'd have titanium shards everywhere.

BTW, do we know that it's the tweeters that have blown? I haven't seen a root cause analysis here. It might be, but I think it's far more likely that it's the crossover, what little there is of it on the tweeter. Of course, I'm just guessing, but bad capacitors these days are the bane of the electronics industry.

Both of you Marks should restrain your emotional assertions until the facts are known. The Klipsch speakers are, in my opinion as an owner, very cheaply made. Getting two tower speakers for $600 shipped means probably nothing inside cost more than $20, if that, and reliability is the first thing that suffers. The RF82iis that are the topic of this discussion, are currently selling for $400 each shipped.

Fit and finish are surprisingly good on my pair, I expected worse, and it also wouldn't surprise me if they got a bad batch of tweeters on their hands. The point is, we don't know anything, and blaming this incident on a design defect like a low crossover point is just nonsense without more data. In fact, the data from KEW and me seems to point the other way.

We also don't know what the OP did. What does "full volume" mean? We don't have the facts there either. I am going to keep a close eye on our pair, because if they failed early it wouldn't exactly surprise me at this price point, but I think you both need to be more data driven and less emotional.

 

[Seth=L]

@Irvrobinson

It appears he's taking the receiver to beyond it's operating range and basically flat-lining the speakers. The distortions at those levels is not tweeter friendly territory. As I previously said, he's going to have the same problem if he buys just about any other speaker and continues to "crank" them like he's been doing. 9 times out of 10 when something breaks or isn't working properly, it's user error.

It seems to have started to become the normal response here to immediately make assumptions based on incomplete data. I guess it's just easier to blame audiovox and give the OP advise that's just going to end up costing them more money and/or waste their time. He came here to get help and I don't see the best effort from Audioholics compared to what it used to be.

Veteran forum members also act surprised when they see what they perceive to be the same questions over and over again. I don't see how this is a surprise.

 

[Swerd]

BS…

The woofer to tweeter crossover in the RF-62 was 1800 Hz. This is for an older version, not the RF-62 ii, but its the only spec sheet I could find.

http://images.klipsch.com/RF62_635042119194540000.pdf

Compare to the RF82 http://images.klipsch.com/RF82II_635042119237310000.pdf

The difference between 1400 and 1800 Hz could be a critical difference.

Is the tweeter the same in the RF-62 and RF-82? Was it the same when they were originally designed? Is it the same as presently manufactured? We don't know for sure. But the suspicious number of blown tweeters strongly suggests a number of reasons for their failure.

• Substitution of a less robust tweeter that fails when fed low frequencies at high power
  
• Use of bad capacitors in the crossover
• Poor quality control

Any of these might be true, and all of them suggest that the present manufacturer has gone too far in cutting costs.

 

[KEW]

Swerd, where are you finding number on blown tweeters? I Googled "RF-82ii blown tweeter" and only had a couple of incidents.

 

[Swerd]

Swerd, where are you finding number on blown tweeters? I Googled "RF-82ii blown tweeter" and only had a couple of incidents.

I'm only going on 'hearsay'. I didn't check that. You should be one of those picky editors for a scientific journal .

 

[Irvrobinson]

I'm only going on 'hearsay'.

The first fact mentioned in this thread.

 

[slipperybidness]

@Irvrobinson

9 times out of 10 when something breaks or isn't working properly, it's user error.

Agreed! Maybe 8 out of 10, but more often than not, this is the case.

It even happens to me from time to time, and I "usually" know what I'm doing.

 

[KEW]

I'm only going on 'hearsay'. I didn't check that. You should be one of those picky editors for a scientific journal .

I can get pretty picky, but I certainly do my own share of spreading hearsay.

I think Nick needs to visit Walter to see what loud and clear is like ... and what it costs!

 

[Swerd]

The first fact mentioned in this thread.

The first fact mentioned in this thread was the original post:

"I have a new denon avr-x4100 receiver and a new pair of klipsch rf-82ii speakers and an svs sb-2000 sub..one of the tweeters blew the 2nd day I had them"​

The second fact was that nicknewbie got the run-around from customer service. As a result, he asked us.

The consensus is that "in his hands, those RF-82 speakers seem to be unusually fragile. Return them for something else." We can debate about why or why not these speakers failed, but the fact that they did fail while he drove them with that Denon AVR-X4100 suggests that he might be better off with different speakers.

 

[Irvrobinson]

The first fact mentioned in this thread was the original post:

"I have a new denon avr-x4100 receiver and a new pair of klipsch rf-82ii speakers and an svs sb-2000 sub..one of the tweeters blew the 2nd day I had them"​

Not true. We don't know that it was the tweeters that blew. All we know is that there's no sound coming out of them. It could be a crossover issue.

 

[Swerd]

Not true. We don't know that it was the tweeters that blew. All we know is that there's no sound coming out of them. It could be a crossover issue.

In my limited experience as a DIY speaker builder, I have seen or heard of tweeters failing due to exposure to low frequencies. But I've never heard of crossover components that initially work, but soon fail when exposed to high volumes. This could happen, but I believe failure of a tweeter voice coil assembly is the most likely suspect.

 

[markw]

BS, Mark. Both of you Marks seem to not know what you're talking about. A low crossover point is causing the tweeters the blow? Unlikely. If you've ever asked for a demo at a Best Buy store you'd know how silly this premise is. Sales people are blaring these speakers at high db levels all the time. If they blew out tweeters at the slightest provocation tales would probably be all over the internet quickly. My pair of RF62iis has been played rather loudly in an HT system for nearly three months, and the tweeters certainly aren't blown. I even had some fun listening to Olympus Has Fallen, a dumb movie, but I wanted to see how the system sounded with fake Hollywood explosions and such, and the tweeters survived just fine. If Dr. Mark was right I'd have titanium shards everywhere.

BTW, do we know that it's the tweeters that have blown? I haven't seen a root cause analysis here. It might be, but I think it's far more likely that it's the crossover, what little there is of it on the tweeter. Of course, I'm just guessing, but bad capacitors these days are the bane of the electronics industry.

Both of you Marks should restrain your emotional assertions until the facts are known. The Klipsch speakers are, in my opinion as an owner, very cheaply made. Getting two tower speakers for $600 shipped means probably nothing inside cost more than $20, if that, and reliability is the first thing that suffers. The RF82iis that are the topic of this discussion, are currently selling for $400 each shipped.

Fit and finish are surprisingly good on my pair, I expected worse, and it also wouldn't surprise me if they got a bad batch of tweeters on their hands. The point is, we don't know anything, and blaming this incident on a design defect like a low crossover point is just nonsense without more data. In fact, the data from KEW and me seems to point the other way.

We also don't know what the OP did. What does "full volume" mean? We don't have the facts there either. I am going to keep a close eye on our pair, because if they failed early it wouldn't exactly surprise me at this price point, but I think you both need to be more data driven and less emotional.

Sorry, Irv.

This kid's ignorance of this hobby is staggering and, in spite of all the good advice thrown his way, he seems bound and determined to keep it that way,

You know what they say: Ignorance can be cured with education but, well, you know the rest.

 

[nicknewbie]

Sorry you can't handle the truth.

We're here to help but if one refuses to listen and learn, you're just wasting our time.

Here's thread you might appreciate.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/i-know-nothing-about-animals-but-want-to-buy-a-unicorn.97001/#post-1106901

just cemented my assumption of who and what you are,....:"PURE CLOWN", A LONELY ONE AT THAT.dont message me anymore, I don't want to hear from you find a lonely hearts chat room is my advice to you clownboy

 

[Seth=L]

I've only ever accidentally blown tweeters in a speaker once. I had my Infinity IL10 bookshelf speakers that were very well made and used decent quality parts. They got suddenly hit with the full power of a cheap kenwood amplifier because I hooked something up incorrectly and in a fraction of a second the tweeters were cooked. I bought new tweeters and have been using the speakers for nearly 10 years after the fact and they still work great. I don't crank them to the maximum output because it's unnecessary.

 

[Seth=L]

just cemented my assumption of who and what you are,....:"PURE CLOWN", A LONELY ONE AT THAT.dont message me anymore, I don't want to hear from you find a lonely hearts chat room is my advice to you clownboy

"Evil begets evil Mr. President. Shooting it will simply make it stronger."

 

[markw]

just cemented my assumption of who and what you are,....:"PURE CLOWN", A LONELY ONE AT THAT.dont message me anymore, I don't want to hear from you find a lonely hearts chat room is my advice to you clownboy

Sorry, kid. I didn't message you. This a public forum, open to anyone, even dolts like you who don't know sage advice when several people offer it.