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Speaker and amp balance question?????

I just recieved my tweeters back from being matched and I am pleased with the results. What I noticed when I installed the tweeters and played music was that they sounded different so I switched the tweeters from one speaker to the other to find that my tweeters were fine and that the difference in sound was due to something else. In a diagnostic I switches the speaker cables left to right channel and right to left channelon my amp and upon listening I realised that both the channels in my anp(Pass X250) and my speakers crossovers were slightly different from each other and I was able to get the two speakers to sound extremely close to each other by switching the speakers themselves right to left and left to right. I am getting pretty balanced sound but my question is that is it normal for the speakers to be off by a noticable difference(when an inch from the speaker's tweeter). Before one channel was cleaner and one speakers tweeter was cleaner.. In both my amp and my speakers there is one side cleaner than the other so I put the cleaner speaker with the less clean channel of the amp and the less clean speaker with the cleaner side of the amp and the sound is pretty balanced. Are differences to this degree normal?They are subtle and not very noticable if at all noticable from the listening position.In fact you could not hear the differences two feet from the speakers but it was there. If my amp were identical channels the sound would be off and if my speakers were identical sounding I would have a less balanced sounding system. Does this make sense?
mitchb

Showing 3 responses by shadorne

shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
I suspect you have an intermittent problem either with your amp or your speaker....most likely one of the tweeters themselves because they are mechanical and can certainly fail for a variety of reasons (and after all that is what you just got back).

The fact that you are observing differences when you move things around but that you cannot easily conclude where it is coming from is also indicative of a mechanical, heat related or volume level related intermittent failure.

Suggestion: Eliminate what you can, change amp completely (borrow a friends if necessary) and see if it goes away. Try speakers side by side and compare them fed with a MONO signal at various levels (and after enough time for things to heat up to normal operating temperatures.

I see you already suspect the x-over but do not rule out a driver problem...if it is giving a nasty load to your amp then it could cause clipping or IMD distortion and this could show up in tweeter distortion first.
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Please disregard my previous post. I see from your posted system that you have modified the original crossover of the Hales T-5's and have changed the original aluminium tweeter to a Seas Excel Millenium soft dome fabric tweeter.

Your x-over design and fit with the Seas Tweeters might be the problem. It might not show up immediately .....but after a time and driven at high levels the tweeter may get damaged or wear out prematurely if not correctly matched
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Do you have the volume turned up with no source music playing when making your test?

If so, you will be hearing the noise floor of your system.

It seems quite possible and accceptable that you could have slightly different noise floor levels/signals in one channel versus the other at these kind of extremes (listening at 2" distance with volume turned up). At this extreme, you might be hearing something that is actually 95 db lower than regular amplified music at the amp output and and therefore something which is quite normal in any system and you should ignore.

Once your speakers start playing music at reasonable SPL levels, then your noise floor will jump from ultra low levels of the CD player/amplifier to around 60 db below the rest of the music....So you won't even hear this tiny signal!

Why is this? Typicaly even the best high end speaker/amp combinations, playing at reasonable sound levels, have all kinds of IM, harmonic and other room borne distortions that raise the general noise floor to around 60 db ....unfortunately this is a limitation of mechanical vibrating transducer systems in a room....and you just have to live with it until they invent something better.
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