Have I crocked my SBL tweeters?

How old are the x-overs Mike; assuming you are running passive?

Mine were shot at 13 years old, causing similar symptoms to those you describe.

John.

I feel your pain!! SBL is not a speaker one can bring to the local dealer for a checkup, with all those semi-glued gaskets and spikes. You have to find an excuse to invite your local Naim dealer to your house.

Double- and triple-check that its the speakers/x-overs, not something upstream in your system (maybe ask your dealer to bring some substitutes to narrow down the problem).  I was getting a lot of weird things when my NAP-250 were reaching onto recap.

Please update us on your progress, I am really worried about my own aging SBLs,

J.N. posted:

How old are the x-overs Mike; assuming you are running passive?

Mine were shot at 13 years old, causing similar symptoms to those you describe.

John.

Hola amigo

I'm guessing they are at around that vintage... Its odd that I've only noticed it within 24 hours of playing LOUD ( alcohol may have been involved...)

I don't currently have any Naim amplification - the 300 / 252 had to go last year when my tax bill was a lot larger than anticipated... I'm using a Musical Fidelity M6si which is pretty capable. 

Still have CDX2.2 and Prefix...

The paranoia genie is out of the bottle now - you're going to have to get the SBLs checked out...

Xovers 170xxx vintage so 2001

A few years ago, when my SBL tweeters went 'tizzy', i found the easiest way to check that they really had a problem was to play piano sonata music, and if the problem was really with the tweeters, the higher pitched percussion sound of a piano seems to produce the dreaded tizz with ease. This can easily be checked while listening up close to each tweeter in turn while the volume is moderately low. 

Apparently, worn or damaged tweeters may make all manner of unwelcome noises, but i remember my 17 year old tweeters producing an unpleasant sound which was rather distracting, and prevented any musical enjoyment. After my SBL tweeters were replaced the music returned marvellously. 

Debs

Have been listening to Debussy for exactly that reason.. Slightly shrill at HF...  :-(

The last time my speakers sounded tizzy, it was the 200 which had developed a fault and needed a new board. The distortion was especially apparent with piano music and high pitched female voices. Perhaps check your SBLs with another amp?

Does the distortion appear on both tweeters? If not perhaps swap speaker cables between the channels on the amp to rule out that it's the amp. (As always make sure to turn off the amp before swapping the cables.)

Re-torque the main driver screws, just to be sure, before doing anything that will cost. I had this symptom though not on SBLs.

I agree with Yeti, check for loose mechanical bits before doing anything drastic, all that loud playing causes vibration and that can loosen things.

The ScanSpeak D2008s in my SP2s are 30 years old and still work fine, so they can have a long life.

Interesting observation...

I noticed some time ago that having mains cables near NACA5 will affect the sound - making the top end sound "fuzzy". As some may recall I've recently had issues with cable routing and while I'm getting some 6m NACA runs, I currently have 14m runs which I noted have fallen into contact with the mains cabling.

I've separated it using loo rolls and various bits of cardboard etc and it does seem to have sweetened the sound somewhat - need to have a proper listen, but I thought I'd share.

I know that Naim no longer carry spares for XOs so I spoke last night to a guy who could repair them if needed.

His view was that it was more likely I've damaged the drivers... There are no splits on the mid cones and they pass the "ooze" test when gently pressed in...

I've swapped over every component bar speakers and XOs so only thing remaining is to see if I borrow a pair of XOs for an evening to A/B...

Re-reading Debs comment above, its worth mentioning that I can hear degraded female vocals but some high notes sound fine. Bowie is another singer whose vocal on occasions sound ragged when they shouldn't be. Listening to kd lang, she usually sounds *sublime* but something ain't right.

I'm starting to think I've frizzed my tweeters, given it all started after I played stuff LOUD.

Alcohol may have been involved..

One of the three sets of DBL tweeters (identical to the SBL ones) I blew after playing some Roger Waters too loud (smashing glass sound tipped them over the edge). For the next day everything sounded ragged and untidy as the voice coils started to unwind and seize and then stopped working completely shortly thereafter. If you can do an impedance sweep, or maybe run some test-tones you will be able to pick it up. 

Blimey you must have had that flipping loud!!!!

I posted this elsewhere, reprinting here for info... I'm going to get some Scanspeaks that aren't paired - they cost around 1/3rd of the "paired" ones from Naim. 

The Naim price is >£200 EACH, they say they're tested ( "a lot don't come up to spec") and matched but even so.... 

Been listening to eg. R4 at low volume and also Beatles Mono (vinyl.) The former does sound slightly muffled on one speaker; notable when I remove the HF feed to the tweeter that one isn't as loud as the other. Playing the Beatles last night some screachy sound was heard at medium volume so it reall does look like a tweeter issue...

Maybe best to get matched pair- in the context of your system might be worth the outlay of $.

i mean how often are you going to change your tweeters? If it were me I'd go for the proper fix.

david

The version of the tweeters that Naim uses are without ferrofluid. Coupled with a relatively low cross-over point the tweeters are quite vulnerable, especially at 'realistic' volumes.If your SBLs are not close to perfectly set up, they will sound quite bass-shy and the tendency is to turn up the wick to fill in the lower end. And this is when the tweeters pop. Finding the right speaker-to-floor interface can have a very large impact on the lower end extension and punch, without having to inject more tweeter killing voltage. I have had great success with both Mana and Sonority in that respect, both of which add considerably to the LF extension and pitch accuracy as compared to spikes-on-suspended floor. The Chips give maybe 25% of the benefits a really good floor interface allows, at least on a suspended floor, and as such are quite cost effective, but are still not inexpensive. 

Thanks DavidF / Ron. 

I don't feel I can justify spending >£400 on tweeters when I can get sequentially numbered ones for around £110. Given they're almost certainly assembled automatically, I can't see there'd be much variation in specs between them.

The speakers are on granite slabs (actually a chopping board from Sainsbury's, a major supermarket in the UK) on marble tiled flooring; the bass is as good as its *ever* been, if not the best so I think I've set them up well...

But one of the tweeters is quieter than the other...

Tarquin Maynard-Portly posted:

I posted this elsewhere, reprinting here for info... I'm going to get some Scanspeaks that aren't paired - they cost around 1/3rd of the "paired" ones from Naim. 

 

If I was in your shoes Mr Maynard-Portly I'd be doing exactly the same. Your ears will tell you if you've gotten away with it but, chances are, you won't notice the difference.

... and lifted from another forum:  

As far as them being matched goes, I'd just point out that, in the first place the typical output of a cartridge on the two channels is almost never matched. It can be as much as 5% different, then the phonostage, ditto, then the preamp channels, then the poweramp channels, then the two different room positions of your speakers, by the time you hear it, its anything but matched

...and remember, cheaper tweeters will give more scope for future alcohol-fueled equipment thrashing sessions 

Worth pointing out that SBLs were made thirty years ago and Scanspeak have almost certainly refined their speaker-making processes in that time.

I went for non-matched ones for my NBLs and could hear nothing "uneven", but there was a pleasing improvement in HF performance from before the tweeter fried. Not surprising really given they were 15+yrs old and had many thousands of hours on them. 

Well muchachos I've ordered a pair.

Cost a lot less than the one advertised by Naim. I'm too much of a duffer to attempt to solder myself but I've spoken to a hifi repair man who will do it for me.