Quartets with issues

[Jer_Hy]

Just got my first pair of Klipsch quartets of craigslist and unfortunately feeling like I paid full price (575) for something worth much less. these have crites titanium diaphragms, and while checking them out at a low volume they sounded good and looked well maintained. when I brought them home and hooked them up in my space I noticed one sounded a bit brighter than the other, so i opened them up and found a k76k in one and a k84k in the other...I also noticed the diaphragm on the k84 was quite crushed.

 

next thing i noticed was they are full of white cloud-like foam in addition to greenish 1 1/2" thick foam...

 

and the final and most troubling thing I've discovered is when I give them some power (around 90 db on my meter from 3 or 4 feet) one of the quartets tweeters will distort. I swapped the amp channels and the tweeters. It's definitely coming from the one quartet regardless of which tweeter is in it. the other quartet handles the power just fine, so I'm thinking it s crossover issue.

 

so my questions are: 

does anyone know if this white foam belongs here? 

 

Has anyone experienced this sort of crossover malfunction, seems like bass frequencies go right to the tweeter at higher power?

 

does anyone have a spare K7K6

[CECAA850]

Klipsch never used polyfill to the best of my knowledge.  Welcome to the forum!

[jason str]

Replace the capacitors or replace the crossovers if you find it easier.

 

I agree with the above statement, polyfill was not used.

 

Hopefully somebody here has an extra tweet, if not try ebay.

[Alexander]

Like the others have said re cap the xcovers be it by yourself or a pro. The k76k's are not too hard to come by but k75k's would also work if needed but they are a bit hotter than the k76k so you would need to replace them as a pair.

As for the white polyfill, I would remove it and listen to them for a while leaving the factory foam in by itself. The polyfill can make the bass have less punch and sound a bit lazy so try it both ways.

[jason str]

Remove the polyfill (white stuff) and don't put it back.

[Alexander]

check out Bob Crites site if you haven't already done so, here is a link to his xover repair kits  

 

https://critesspeakers.com/crossover_repair_kits.html

[Jer_Hy]

thanks for all the info! what a great introduction to the forum. 

 

 polyfill gone on the one fully working speaker

 

next up sourcing a tweeter/s and taking care of the crossover. I talked to Bob Crites today and he recommended new crossovers, it's a bit steep for me at $270  considering I wasn't looking for an upgrade, just a repair i didnt even think would be needed...getting the kit appears to be just getting caps, which he mentioned were difficult to put on the quartet board because the replacements are a bit larger. Anyone have any experience with that soldering job? I'd decent but by no means an assassin with a soldering iron.

 

@Alexander I was wondering about widening my search to other models of tweeter that would fit, but is the K75 going to work well with the crossover for a K76? a bit unclear on that.

 

signing off with a sad pic of the crumpled Ti Diaphragm

[Alexander]

39 minutes ago, Jer_Hy said:

thanks for all the info! what a great introduction to the forum. 

 

 polyfill gone on the one fully working speaker......

 

@Alexander I was wondering about widening my search to other models of tweeter that would fit, but is the K75 going to work well with the crossover for a K76? a bit unclear on that.

 

The k76k has a slightly smaller magnet otherwise the k75k & k79k have the same behavior as far as the xover goes - but as mentioned the bigger brother tweets are hotter and may not be to your liking. But they will fit. The oem xover is a little harder to re cap than say a forte I/II  because of the layout of components but I would not consider Crites "new" xover to be anything major over the stock unit re capped. After all Crites are nothing more than a copy of the original xover design with a bit better inductors and autotransformer.  It is much easier to change them out as a unit than fussing with the soldering iron though.

 

 

[jason str]

I would try and locate another K-76-K and replace the diaphragms ( from Bob Crites ) as a set to assure even response.

 

If you feel confidant in soldering just buy the capacitors. 

 

 

[001]

Welcome to the forum & congrats on the quartets.  My suggestion would be to first replace that tweet diaphram with new ones, maybe bob will sell you just 1?  It was definitely installed poorly & the person damaged it pretty bad.  Or just locate stock ones & see how you like them, some people prefer them over the titanium ones & the stock ones sound very good.

 

Regarding the x-overs, I would consider buying a different brand of capacitor that isn't 2-3 times as big as the stock ones, they should fit on the stock boards very well without any major changes.  There are many good entry level caps that only cost a few bucks a piece or mid level one for a few bucks more,  the fact is that the stock caps are VERY cheap & getting old, they can & do go bad.  New poly caps are a huge improvement over the stock one & are close to the same size physically, so since you said you are ok with soldering, this really is a basic job that sounds like you can do youself.  Check out places like parts express & get the 1% dayton caps or solen for a couple bucks each, the bigger bass cap can stay electrolytic & are very cheap.  Your main issue seems to be with the mid/tweet caps.  If you don't want to do it yourself I would be willing to help but don't want to step on other members toes that do x-overs so just check around.

 

For $15-$20 you can replace the cheap stock caps & likely fix the problem you are having & it will be a nice "upgrade" over whats in there now.  Best of luck!

[Alexander]

Here is the schematic to your Quartets

 

 

[Jer_Hy]

Thanks all, my plan after taking all this in is to find a k-76-k and one more Titanium diaphragm, I see a pair on ebay for around 120 but maybe I'll get lucky and find a single, can't hurt to have a spare or at least be able to compare the original diaphragm to the titanium one. 

5 hours ago, EpicKlipschFan said:

Regarding the x-overs, I would consider buying a different brand of capacitor that isn't 2-3 times as big as the stock ones, they should fit on the stock boards very well without any major changes.

I was wondering about this since the repair kit doesn't have many parts. I could order something that would work about as well and not worry about mashing them around on the panel. I see 4 caps on the schematic 2x 2uf, 1x 1uf,  and 1x 80uf. I'll look at the brands you mentioned, thanks again.

[Alexander]

I had used Solen's for my first few re cap projects but the Dayton are usually smaller than most brands in size for a given value. Depending on how patient you are you should find k76k's for a bit less. They were also used in a few other models beside the Quartet's btw.

[001]

13 hours ago, Jer_Hy said:

Thanks all, my plan after taking all this in is to find a k-76-k and one more Titanium diaphragm, I see a pair on ebay for around 120 but maybe I'll get lucky and find a single, can't hurt to have a spare or at least be able to compare the original diaphragm to the titanium one. 

I was wondering about this since the repair kit doesn't have many parts. I could order something that would work about as well and not worry about mashing them around on the panel. I see 4 caps on the schematic 2x 2uf, 1x 1uf,  and 1x 80uf. I'll look at the brands you mentioned, thanks again.

 

the 2uf & 1uf are the mid/tweet caps & big value 80uf can stay electrolytic, a poly 80uf would be huge & expensive & is not needed.  

[wuzzzer]

Bob will sell a single titanium tweeter diaphragm.  $27 plus $8 priority mail shipping.

[moray james]

before you purchase just one new tweeter diaphragm from Bob it would be a good idea to inspect the remaining tweeter diaphragm that you have for possible damage as well. Personally I would purchase and install a fresh pair of diaphragms to insure that they match and then keep the remaining unit as a backup diaphragm. Your call though do what you think is best.

 

Probably also a good idea to have a good look at the two crossovers to see if they have sustained any damage. It takes a very large peak to destroy a tweeter like the one in your photos. Just a suggestion.

[JohnA]