modified my speakers! Sound so much better! (1 Viewer)

[Ricky_K]

http://www.geocities.com/foreverfai/teacmod.html
Yup, recently got the Teac HTIB from costco for $280. This HTIB includes
4 - sats with 1 inch tweeter and 4 inch fiber cone
1 - center with 2x 3 inch fiber cone and 1 inch tweeter
1 - 100 watt RMS 7 inch subwoofer
1 - Teac AG-D8900 500watt DD/DTS receiver
The Teac receiver IMO is alone worth the $280. It has S-video ins/out, 2xoptical/ 1xcoaxial digital in and 1xcoaxial out. This package sounded awesome while playing a movie....but was lacking went it comes to music....time to bring out the tool box
Curiousity got the best of me. Once I received the TEAC HTIB, I took the subwoofer apart. To my surprise, theres no polyfill at all! Its just an empty box! The same goes for the speakers! No polyfill again! No wonder the sub sounded boomy and the speakers sounded hollow at times.
Anyways, I went to home depot. Got some fiberglass fill for $8.50 and started stuffing the subwoofer/speaker cabinet lining. While I was at it....I also replaced the original 24 gauge wire which connected the crossover to the speakers with 16 gauge wires.....as someone pointed out on this site, "whats the point of using 16 gauge speaker wires when the wires used inside the speakers are reduced to 24 gauge wires?"
WOW! What a difference! The sub sounds way better. Much tighter bass respond. The boominess was completely eliminated. The speakers no longer sounded hollow. B4 filling the speakers, the speakers always give out a echo/in a tunnel type of sound. But now with the fiberglass filling, the sound, especially the midrange, was much warmer and pleasing to the ears. All the vocals are accurately reproduced through these speakers. What do you guys think?

 

[David Ison]

what's the point in using 16 gage wire when the wire going to the voice coil is 28 gage?, not being a smarta** just want to know?

 

[Greg Monfort]

It's all about voltage drop (dB loss) between the amp and VC. The larger the conductor the less the drop since more current can flow. Of course there's a point of diminishing returns based on cable length and available power.

GM

 

[Ches Campbell]

My bro had that Teac system for a while. I was pretty impressed with the sound for such a low price. The midrange material was really impressive for the price. We had to take it back because the subwoofer would shut off even if there was a ton of bass going through it. He tried it with 2 subs (costco let him trade for a new sub) and the same thing happened. Maybe it was just that batch of subs. Glad you had better luck and are happy with your purchaase.
Later

 

[Ricky_K]

I found another interesting change after I replaced the original 24gauge wires with the new 16 guage wires from the speaker to crossover. Anyways, today I messed around with the speakers a bit. I took out all the fiberglass fill and compared the speaker with the new 16 gauge wires to the original speaker with the 24gauge wires. The modified speaker's overall volume dropped. Its not as noisy as the original speakers. The midbass is tighter and the overall sound is cleaner...but the overall volume of the speaker dropped. Is this supposed to happen when I switch to a thicker wire to connect the crossover and the speaker? I also noticed that the speaker with the 16 gauge wiring picks up less noise from the environment. For example with the original speakers, I hear a little buzz when I place it on top of my monitor...but now the buzz is gone with the new 16 gauge wiring. Are all these changeds which I described supposed to happen with the thicker wiring? Or did I do something wrong :frowning: ? Please give me some advice. Sorry for the grammatical mistakes...but its 2AM and I am tired.....but still holding on to watch the world cup matches

 

[Ches Campbell]

Ricky,
FOr the heck of it, I bid on the TEac speaker system you have (same thing, just without the receiver, and it is natural woodgrain color with silver grill cloth) on ubid for 49 bux. It comes with a 3 year warranty so I figured "Why Not?" It is cheap, And I already know that they sound pretty dang good. Anyway, I am going to do the modification that you did. My question is, did you have to solder the thicker wire onto the crossovers, or did you just have to use a crimp connector. The reason I ask is becasue I dont have any soldering experiance. If you had to solder, then I might see if someone can do it for me if you think the difference is worth it.
Another mod you can make is siliconing the inner corners and putting foam tape around the speaker cutouts to really seal them up good.
I am going to use two of the speakers for my rears, the center channel, and the sub for a while (i live in a dorm room at Texas Tech so it is only temporary). The other two spaekrs will be my B speakers and will use them as my computer speakers. I have some DIY mains with Focal drivers that I built over christmas. Hopefully my sub will work, unlike my brother's. Just thought you might be interested to know that there is another Teac owner here.
Later

 

[David Ison]

the difference in sound level could be because the speaker with the fill has a lower resonance, as far as the "buzz" goes the 16 gage most likely has better shielding. so maybe the better sound?, is due to the fill and not the wire size?

 

[Ricky_K]

yea but I took out the fill and the speaker still sounded better. Weird.

 

[Ricky_K]

Ches, Yes, its definitely better to solder the wires. This is only my second time soldering and everything came out okay. Just take your time and don't rush. Also get a nose mask. The smoke from using the solder made me sick after a while
Oh the part of filling the speakers...I think I used too much. The midrange became muted even though it was much cleaner. Instead of lining all the inner walls with the fiberglass, I just lined the rear inner wall. I say a one inch thick piece of fiberglass sheet is good. Just mess around with how much fill you put into the speakers. If you don't like the sound you can always unscrew the speaker and take it back out

 

[Ches Campbell]

Ricky,
I got my Teacs in today. They look great. I am really impressed with the mids. The magnets on them are huge. Well I was getting ready to put the polyfil in and probably upgrade the wire. I was just wondering how you got in to the subwoofer cabinet. I couldn't get the plate amp off, and I couldn't get the grill of either. How did you do it? Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Jerry Parker]

Im kinda confused about this. I can understand how the fiberglass upgraded the sound, but the speaker wire? Like David Ison said near the top, what is the point when your voice coil is 28awg? With the 24awg wire, you have cables less than 5% of the speaker's resistance. You lose so little power, less than a decibel with the 24awg wire. I dont see how the upgraded wire did anything? If you ran a 24awg wire from the reciever to the speaker, I could see how you could get an audible drop.

Also, the "noise" issue does not make sense either. Speaker wires are not shielded in the first place, how would the 16awg wire be rejecting noise better than the 24awg?

 

[Greg Monfort]

>Im kinda confused about this. I can understand how the fiberglass upgraded the sound, but the speaker wire? Like David Ison said near the top, what is the point when your voice coil is 28awg?
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And I explained why.
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>With the 24awg wire, you have cables less than 5% of the speaker's resistance. You lose so little power, less than a decibel with the 24awg wire. I dont see how the upgraded wire did anything? If you ran a 24awg wire from the reciever to the speaker, I could see how you could get an audible drop.
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Though he doesn't say, he implies that his speaker wire is 16ga. We don't know how long either the cab wiring or his leads are but let's look at an example assuming the cab wiring is 1ft, his leads are 10ft, and there's 100W/8ohm peaks, or 3.54A current carrying requirement:
The 16ga wire has a negligible ~0.33V drop over 11ft and the 16ga/10ft in series with 24ga/1ft is ~0.3 + ~0.19 = ~0.49Vd. This represents ~0.09dB Vs ~0.15dB, so in this case it's inaudible.
If we lengthen them to 20ft, then it's ~0.19Vd Vs ~0.25Vd, so still inaudible.
Really, there's not enough power available with this amp to have an audible effect in the LF BW, though the type of wire used may cause a sonic difference in the mids/HF.
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>Also, the "noise" issue does not make sense either. Speaker wires are not shielded in the first place, how would the 16awg wire be rejecting noise better than the 24awg?
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This makes no sense to me either unless its construction is such that the TV was causing the smaller wire to vibrate. Still pretty far fetched though. The other possibility is an improved connection, if one exists. It's not uncommon for different type connections to have audible differences.
GM

 

[Jerry Parker]

I understand how you are saying that there is a specific voltage drop. But the voltage drop by the voice coil is going to be much higher. Youve got many feet of 28awg, vs 1 or 2 feet of 24awg. The voice coil is going to have a much higher loss than the hookup wire. So much that you are only losing 5% of your power through the wire. I think you know that though. My point is however, you could use 18awg wire 10ft lengths with a 8ohm speaker and dump 4kW to each speaker. You *should* still see the same ratio of loss in the cable as compared to the voice coil. Now I may be incorrect about this, i am not an EE, please explain if I am wrong, I would like to know... :b
I know a guy in Tulsa who builds prosound speakers for a hobby. He has a crown macrotech 1.2kW amp hooked up to two horn loaded JBL 2226 15" speakers each with a compression driver. Thats 600w to each driver. Yet, he only uses 18awg speaker wire, 10 foot runs per channel. When I asked him why he didnt use larger diameter wire, he said that it was not necessary. Had his runs been any longer though, he would have used larger wire.

 

[Greg Monfort]

>I understand how you are saying that there is a specific voltage drop. But the voltage drop by the voice coil is going to be much higher.
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Doesn't matter. The VC's resistance is accounted for in the speaker's impedance curve. IOW, if a speaker has a Qt = 0.7 and you don't want to audibly affect it, then the resistance of the wire feeding it combined with the amp's output impedance needs to be low enough to keep from lowering it.

This is one of the ways boutique wires makes your speakers sound more dynamic or 'fast'. They use a small wire gauge that rolls off the low end, leaving the harmonics more prominent. Or they add a series resistor that's either a significant portion or equal to the speaker's nominal impedance to raise the Qt of a bass shy speaker to make it sound more 'full', and so on.....

As the wire gets larger though you have to start looking at how it affects the mids/HF in wide BW designs. IOW, use the wire size appropriate for the application.
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>My point is however, you could use 18awg wire 10ft lengths with a 8ohm speaker and dump 4kW to each speaker.
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Yes, but with a 3Vd, and anything >1V isn't considered acceptable, for sure it would be audible.
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>I know a guy in Tulsa who builds prosound speakers for a hobby. He has a crown macrotech 1.2kW amp hooked up to two horn loaded JBL 2226 15" speakers each with a compression driver. Thats 600w to each driver. Yet, he only uses 18awg speaker wire, 10 foot runs per channel.
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At ~1.2Vd, it's borderline audible.

Again though, even if you keep the Vd low, the type/construction of the wire can still affect the speaker's overall response.

GM

 

[Ricky_K]

wow....thats a lot of math for just wires.....I have a headache

 

[David Ison]

still even if this is the case and it does effect the overall response , the difference of this short of a run (i bet it's less than 8 inches) would still be inaudible.
Ricky if you really want to improve the sound of your speakers ,line the inside of the cabinets with closed- loop indoor/outdoor carpet.

 

[David Ison]

OH sh"t i left something out ,the carpet needs to be rubber-backed. sorry about the back to back posts.