Wws Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 After redoing my Chorus IIs with Bob Crites crossovers and installing a pair of his Ti tweeter diaphragms, both great products by the way, I immediately noticed a brightening of the sound which was to be expected with fresh caps, but I also noticed on a few songs a harsh unpleasantness. I at first suspected the Ti diaphragms as they were the biggest design deviation made, and after some reading on line I found other references to crunchy and harshness with Ti to fuel my concerns. Two songs in particular were downright difficult to listen to, Aerosmith's; "Somebody" and The Rolling Stones's; "Respectable". Long story short, upon further investigation I discovered that the unpleasantness was not coming from the tweeters, but the squawkers. I had read somewhere in my investigations that even a slightly lose squawker could add harshness, so I tightened all of the screws and found maybe half were up to half a turn loose. This did the trick and removed all of the harshness that I had been hearing before. Now as to my subject, I really credit those two harsh to begin with songs for pushing my system to the limit and uncovering that I had a problem. Does anyone else have songs that they consider to be a good troubleshooting tool? I can suggest two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 I use jazz saxophone recordings that are pretty recent and highly dynamic recordings to test, as well as a solo piano CD by Dave Grusin to test for analog input channel fidelity if someone is using analog outputs from their disc player. For general balance, I use a test CD that has various artists' tracks, including "James Newton Howard & Friends" by Sheffield Lab. BTW: What kind of amplifier, preamp and input device are you using when you heard "harsh unpleasantness"? Welcome to the forum...your first post. I remember my reticence in posting the first time here. I also remember my reticence in making posts since then: the last time was yesterday. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wws Posted October 27, 2013 Author Share Posted October 27, 2013 I could see where certain sax would be good to uncover harshness. My system currently is a restored and modded Magnavox console 8802 amplifier, with an integrated volume attenuator added, it is a 6v6 push pull type, which has a very clear and pleasant sound. This is only my first post as Wws, I was Schmidlapper on here pre forum change over. I lost my old user id because of the requirement to set a new password after change, and I had a no longer valid email listed as my default, so couldn't finish the password change process. It really was just easier to create a new one, regardless I didn't post that frequently. I learn the most by listening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 la voices mystery Bulgarian state womens chior... you'll find out right away if your mids and tweets are healthy or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustang guy Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 There is a piano song on the Disney projector tuning CD that hits certain notes repetitively that causes all kinds of havoc. I never thought of tightening the horn screws. I will give that a shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 (edited) This recording can also work particularly well at troubleshooting squawker and tweeter hardware problems. Synthesized from white noise (out of all things), the amount of energy centered squarely in the mid range and lower treble region is pretty intense. If the drivers are good to go, then it will playback smooth as butter....even at 3-4 volts. If anything is loose or leaking however, it'll sound awfully tough on the ears and cause a good bit of noise to emanate from around the horn assemblies. Makes for a good diagnostic tool in addition to an interesting piece to simply listen to: Edited November 8, 2013 by Quiet_Hollow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Bjork & Vince Mendoza's collaboration "Overture" is also another one that seems to bring out the faults of a system. It was listening to this track at full-tilt that lead me to discover that the K-77 tweeters in my La Scala required some looking after. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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