Replacing drivers.

Philip Hamm · 06-12-2003, 01:54 PM

If you click the little green house above this post and scroll down you can see my bedroom home theater. Here's a picture:

Ha ha already out of date, the DVD player is a Proscan 8680Z DIVX machine now.

In my living room I've got a stereo only system that I use for "dinner music" and very casual, distinctly uncritical listening. That system has a pair of Wharfedale Modus 1.6 tower speakers. I've decided that since the bedroom theater gets used 30 times as much as the dinner music system, I'm going to move the Wharfedale speakers up to the bedroom. They're not any great speakers or anything, but they are surely much better than the Sonys in the bedroom now.

I was thinking of replacing the drivers in the Pioneer center channel speaker you see in this picture with some higher quality drivers from Parts Express. The center cost me $12 years ago "refurbished" (though I don't think it was really "refurbished" at all). It has a 4" woofer and a small 1.5" paper tweeter. I was thinking an upgrade could make it a lot better (though I have very little to complain about now - it's a good enough sounding speaker for what I'm using it for) for just $20-30.

Any suggestions?

Chris Tsutsui · 06-12-2003, 04:35 PM

What you may have to do, is gut out the existing crossover. Then (with help) choose 2 parts express drivers that will fit in the enclosure, and then make a very simple crossover to suit the new center.

So basically you will be re-using the cabinet and speaker terminal.

It is doubtful you'll get a good center channel by just replacing the drivers. The crossover needs to match the drivers as well.

Philip Hamm · 06-12-2003, 06:14 PM

That's pretty much the plan. I'm sure the "crossover" consists of nothing but a capacitor. The drivers are almost unbelievably cheap though, remember the speaker cost $12.

I mean take a look at this thing:

That's a 16 ohm tweeter and a 5 ohm (?) midbass.

Rob Formica · 06-12-2003, 11:51 PM

I would tend to just hunt down a used Wharfedale bookself with similar components as your Modus 1.6... It's just my opinion as i find the center channel is so critical when watching movies or listening to multichannel music... especially timber matching for those "pans" . You can also hunt down the parts for your mains on Ebay, and then build a matching custom center if you have the itch to build...

I have been phantom-ing mine as i found it sounded better than a mis-matched unit.

just my 2 cents...
Rob

Pete Mazz · 06-13-2003, 05:49 AM

Yea, with a fixed (I assume) listening position, why bother with a center channel at all?

Pete

**HTF Ads**

Philip Hamm · 06-13-2003, 07:17 AM

I like having a center in the bedroom, particularly for news in the morning or something like that. Setting up a phantom is a very interesting proposition.

I'm not looking for anything fantastic here, and I don't care if pans don't sound even. I'm just thinking that maybe for a very low cost investment of a couple drivers I can get better dialog. The Wharfedales have a bit of a midrange hole I don't know how well a phantom's going to work.

Dave Milne · 06-13-2003, 10:46 AM

Quote:

So basically you will be re-using the cabinet and speaker terminal.

Why would you even want to reuse that cabinet with it's holes in the baffle. That pseudo-vented/open back design is probably tuned to something like 150Hz.

You'd be better off building your own cabinet.

Philip Hamm · 06-13-2003, 11:38 AM

Quote:

Why would you even want to reuse that cabinet with it's holes in the baffle.

Because it looks neat and fits nicely on top of my TV. I don't want to and can't do the woodworking.

Quote:

That pseudo-vented/open back design is probably tuned to something like 150Hz.

Which is a problem because.....

Why should my center go down further, The center's already set to small and probably crossed over at at least 100-120Hz anyway (I have to check that).

I guess the answer is I should just be happy with this speaker and forget about updating the drivers. I'm not sure if that's because everyone here is a perfectionist or because I really, genuinely can not achieve an improvement by replacing my drivers.

Dave Milne · 06-13-2003, 12:13 PM

Sorry Philip if I sounded elitist. I take woodworking for granted; to me that's the easiest part of DIY speakers. Click on the "DIY speakers" at the top of this website for a look.

You can indeed improve the sound of your speaker with new drivers, but it will take some work. Without doing some design/modeling first, there's a chance that you will end up with something that sounds worse, even though you installed better drivers.

Perhaps you can post the dimensions of the cabinet (including the size of the holes and the thickness of the baffle) and the value of that orange crossover capacitor, and we can try to provide some guidance. If you can, also include the frequency of your receiver's crossover and the power it sends to the center channel.

Philip Hamm · 06-13-2003, 12:21 PM

I'll see what I can come up with.....