[imickey503]

A while back, I ordered a 10 of these Soft domes from Ebay.



The only thing I did not do was get FerroFluid. I'm fine with that. I will leave it up to the guys who know what they are doing. I guess I could test it out one day since have 12 Dynaudio Volvo Tweeters all burnt out. I checked at the voice coil leads. Nada! I'll experiment with it later.

So, I built two two of them a while back. I was about to build one today till I found them. Put them in a plastic VUSE box, and thanks to my little 3 year old Niece, I found them! LOL.


So I got the Solder Iron out, and got to work. (Will have new photos soon as I am going to replace the rest)

The only thing I don't like about these is that as you can see, the coil leads go Under the diaphragm. (picks to come in next post PROMISE!)
I was able to get it so that it would not interfere with operation, but I really like how Dynaudio did it with the wires coming from the top and through the diaphragm where they put some rubber type adhesive to hold the leads there so that they don't make any noise while in operation.

So after I put it inside the stock Volvo plastic housings that hold the tweeter there with the circuit board, (I need to put some glue on the Copper leads so they don't break in the future)

If anyone knows how what XO I am dealing with (6 dB, 12dB or what that adds up to, let me know! )

I tinned and flux just the ends of the leads, and then put a dap of new solder on the board that has the crossover on it. IMO, the crossover slope needs to be a bit more aggressive for the new domes. Anyways... I got it all done, and then, tested them out. Boy, they sound great and open! I have not really broke them in yet... (more on that later) But I finished it and did a quick test..

I tested them at low power with just the EQ set to high on my home test bench, and they sounded great a while back.

So today, I sent some power through them. THEY SOUNDED FANTASTIC! I pushed close to 20 dynamic music watts through them no problems with the X/O built in back of the board. Are they as good as the Dynaudio Stock tweeters, YES.. THEY WORK! LOL!

Of course, the Dynaudio Tweeters are better. Mainly in the low Fs, so the don't seem to mind being crossed over so low. However, they are still crossed a bit low from the Volvo Factory system. (Might be why they are blown) but in high frequency content, the new replacement diaphragms are CHAMPS!


So, then I took it out to the car... Well. You might ask why I did this today? Well! I was in my van, and noticed the left and right REALLY did not sound right. See.. If you look at my thread, I have a LOT of tweeters. LOTS OF THEM. One side has 6, and the other side has 6 of them. But they are crossed over different.

The sails are set up more as ambience, They still need to be crossed over a bit higher or have a steeper cutoff. I will wait for a full active 24DB active unit one day when I upgrade the sails

So it did not sound right in my Van. So low and behold, the damn thing is not working. Amazing how bad one side can sound with a blown tweeter. So that is what got me started on this project.


Anyways, I tore apart the dash again, and also found out that Midbass was not working. Why? The damn dash was touching midbass surround. So, fixed that for now. But, for the time being, I pulled all but the tweeter I just fixed on the left driver side channel, and stated testing.

When I did the fix, I noticed that the voice coil on these new ones are longer. THe Dynaudio ones are I think inside the gap more. These are underhung so to speak. So it seems some of the coil is on both sides of the gap. So far, no problems. They sound only a Miniscule different as in output. However, this works out great as the tweeter is closer to me, so I don't have to use an Lpad to tone it done to match the right side.

Initial testing with Audio Control app on my chromebook, and I was able to see that this thing must have a 6db Xover. I did a quick burn in with some pink and white noise. I also did some Frequency testing. After I burned it in for a bit, I then tried some music. It sounded FANTASTIC!

At about ~10-14 Watts Music power, head unit cranked to about 60 before distortion hits with music, it was clean clean. I think panned over to the other side, and to my surprise, it voice matched VERY WELL! Did it sound harsher the the other one ? Just a bit. These new rebuilt units like to have a slight higher F's when playing way low in their band. I adjusted the crossover to see how much I could boost to the break up frequency, and during operation with music and after tuning? No problems! CLEAN! And LOUD!

After testing them for the last 5 hours? They are DOING GREAT! I am really impressed! They are VERY open sounding and are GREAT!

Now.. I fixed the other stuff and and did some SQ listening. I used the Bowers and WIlkins TEst track of Chris and his guitar, and MY LORD! It sounds like it use to!
In fact, I have to say it sounds better oddly? But it does!

I am listening to "More then Words from Exteme Pornografffiitt" Amazing GUys!


I am going to do the rest of the sets. I might make some mods and see if I can make some Improvements. But MY GAWD its good! Only thing I need now is an AMT tweeter to be used as a "Super Tweeter" to give that last bit of "Airiness" in the cabin and soundstate. I want to get the Mini ones so I can fact them towards me from the very furthest points in the dash if it does to well from the 8 khz to 20 Khz. My system has NO PROBLEM making these frequencies. But I am getting Comb Distortion, so as I move my head, the frequnecys seem to cancel each other out or drop out from side to side.

Anyways, Pics of what I did should be up tomorrow, and glue that I used etc. and how I did it and any mods.

This should help the Budget crowd out there to get great sound. So that's why I am sharing. I know it seems hokey, but it works!

As my own reference? I use a Pair of Panasonic headphones for reference to see if it sounds the same or as good or better. And to my ears? the Quality and clarity is all there.

Any real upgrades are going to be pushing the crossover sloped higher. Some songs with TONS of boosted content in some close to the Fs of the tweeters can get a bit broken up or noisey at peak volumes. But I don't to a TON of listening at those levels to those kinds of songs. I will wait to do that for my system in my other car that will be a show car style build.

Pics and video to come up on next post!

Again, thanks to all of you for your help!

 

[Petererc]

Where’s the next post? Pics? I am using the tweeters and am happy with them. What I have been doing is removing the factory xover, and soldering wire to the leads. A little bit of epoxy to hold wire from moving

 

[imickey503]

I have been a ****. let me upload that. I forgot to take pics of the diaphragms.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1218907112425717760

Image bellow is the Tweeter where the reason it failed was the Magnet part actually came apart. There are 3 parts to the Dynaudio Volvo Tweeters. The Epoxy it seems gave up the ghost early. When I pulled the Tweeter diaphragm off, the magnet was not in the middle. It was rubbing on the tweeter Voice coil. In fact Pinching it. This is the top part being shown from the bottom to where it attaches to the tweeter magnet inside.

As you can see, there is NO ferro Fluid left. But the Metal Filings are all there. I also noticed that on the other tweeters, all of it tends to stick to one side, and then.. It shorts out the tweeter is my guess. This is the bottom part of the magnet. It also is held in by I think just magnetic force. I did not see any epoxy like stuff on the bottom.

You can see the new tweeter Diaphragm in the background on top of the magnet. If you look closely, you can see the off center magnet. It is touching I think the pole piece. The brown area is what's left of the ferrofluid on the voice coils. Its like Thick Muck. I measure the ohms, and there is no continuity. But when I unraveled one, the weird thing is? IT WAS ALL ONE SINGLE STRAND OF WIRE. Nothing was broken. Or Burnt. It seems the lacquer is holding together? I don't know.

Here you can see the Leads are different. One exits from the Top of the tweeter (Studio one) The replacement tweeter diaphragm exits from the bottom. This has posed no problems in the rebuild. There is is enough clearance where it does not touch the moving part of the diaphragm. There a slightly different shape IMO. THe new unit is not see though. The old Dynaudio one you can see light thru. Also, See the dust? This is why you REALLY have to be like a CLEAN MOLLY if you want to do this.

This is what the new Diaphragms look like up close. Sorry a bit out of focus. But you can see the GUNK in the Magnet structure. Also the new diaphragms have a longer voice coil. Also, you can see that the leads exit out of the bottom instead of the top of the Dynaudio unit. I think it is on a Kapton Former instead of Aluminum.

You can see the voice coil of the new one better in this photo. Also, notice the magnet inside shifted. That's a big space on one side.

 

[imickey503]

Amazingly, they old unit and the new one sound just about the same. But the Dynadio unit is still a BIT better IMO. I have burned them in and they sound great.

What I did do with the other unit is that I cleaned and removed as much of the Ferrofluid as I could. Cleaned up all that GUNK out of there the best I could. The other Dynaudio tweeter is going to fail soon. They just seem to go out. Even on low power.

There is no sign of the tweeter being overpowered. It just gives up the ghost. Still not sure why.

I have about 10 more I am going to do this too. What I am going to look for is some tweeter cups that match these so I can do a flush mount soon in another install so I don't have to use the Volvo mounts.

Other then that, it was easy. I sued the Craft payable glue I got a great deal on. And it worked perfect.

I have done 3 tweeters so far. And they sure have that Open sound to them.

 

[Petererc]

good work man, just glanced ove and gotta sit down later and comprehend the work you have done. I did catch the tweeter cup. The tweeter itself once all the plastic housing in gone fits snug inside of pvc, I cant remember if I used 1.5 or 1.25" will measure later and get pack to you. I gotta look but I may have some more dead tweets unless I tossed them. LKQ is my friend and you are making me feel the need to go pilfer some more dyn's.

 

[Petererc]

It is 1.5” pvc fitting, cut a 45 bend in half, cut down the socket so tweet just fit. Fiberglassed a back on the pipe to make the pod. Used lamp nipple to attach to sail panel. Also used a piece of ensolite between pod and sail as a gasket but not needed. Worked out pretty good for a budget set of great tweeters.