uhh.. tweeter distortion on my forte??

[bdc]

Some sounds from the tweeter on one of my Forte sounds a bit... distorted. I really didn't notice it, but I ran a songs through a frequency limiting type filter, at 6000hz-20,000khz only and noticed odd sounds, from one Forte only. My left channel sounds fine, however my right side has an annoying distortion (but I can't hear it playing music normally!) I've switched the channels on the receiver and the problem comes up on only the one speaker. It's rather odd, it sounded like the midrange driver was coming on intermittently, since it sounds slightly lower in frequency than what the tweeter would handle, but a quick inspection by ear revealed the sounds to be coming from the tweeter. The sound comes up on high frequency noises (especially after the singers says something with an S) and is a tad louder (and lower) than the rest of the tweeters output, it almost sounds like a scratching. I cannot hear it while playing music normally but it is bugging me knowing something isn't working right. The tweeter sounds fine on a normal frequency sweep.

Would a simple diaphragm change fix this? Or is it something a bit more serious? Could it possibly be the crossover leaking lower frequency sounds into the tweeter, if that's even possible.

[lynnm]

I suggest that you make sure that the connections on that tweeter and at the xover are solid before doing anything else.

[J.4knee]

Yep I agree check your connections on your xover and tweeter. As for your tweeter filter leaking Mid frequencies...I would suspect your mid range would play them too, unless you had an odd change in impedance down to that/those frequency/ies through the filter, but if that were true I would expect you would here it when ever that/those frequency/ies was/were present and you said you do not notice ant under "normal" conditions. A diaphragm yeah if it was damaged it could distort; to me your description a little odd but that could just be me. I would expect a damaged diaphragm to offer distortion consistently.

[bdc]

Let me try to make it slightly clearer. When I play music normally, I cannot hear this distortion at all. However, if I run the music through a filter and only pass 6000hz-20khz to the speaker, I can hear distortion from the tweeter. As for the crossover leaking midrange, you can scratch that off, I wasn't thinking when I wrote that. If I only output 6000hz+ to the speaker, there would be no lower frequencies anyway.

[J.4knee]

EDIT Nevermind I just re-read and saw you tested both speakers through your high pass filter

[lynnm]

If the tweeter sounds good when you play music but distorts slightly only when you run the music through a filter then I suspect that you are quite simply overdriving that tweeter.

Why are you filtering the music anyway ? Are you using some sort of electronic xover between the amp (s) and the speakers ?

The fact that the other tweeter does not audibly distort under the same conditions does not necessarily mean that the tweeter you are concerned about is faulty. If my suspicions are correct you are very likely overstressing both tweeters with your filtering arrangement and subjecting them to too much power. Sometimes when tweeters and midranges are pushed too hard they will audibly distort before giving up the ghost .... other times they simply die without ceremony.