Re-engineering HIVI 2.1

Jump to Latest
illnastyimpreza

illnastyimpreza

Member
Joined 2008
#1
#2
It is unlikely the issue to be the tweeter. I remember such a kit or very similar being offered for about 120 bucks a couple of years ago. Boy was that a great deal, lasted for a very short time at Amazon though.
 
#8
You have been mentioning active, that's just equalisers before amps...

OK, with any electrical crossover you have a few parts. Driver blending, driver eq and global eq. Often these are combined into one big EQ per driver.

However once you have the drivers blended it is best not to mess with that. On the other hand global EQ is something that gets messed with. It makes a little sense to do that on a separate level.

In an active setup this means you might keep those filters in a different place and make sure they only act on the overall system to keep the individual drivers out of it. In a passive system the goal is the same, and an equaliser could be a conventional active unit, computer based or whatever you like.

The conversation about global EQ, its implementation etc. can be a separate thing and you can have it whether you do the other parts active or not.

Do you not think it could make a difference?
 
#9
My goal is to set it and forget it. I can tune an active system myself. set crossover points and EQ. I'm not that great at it, but I'm learning 🙂 the great thing about active crossover and eq is that I can change it on the fly. I can also reuse my system for future builds.

passive crossovers seem to be a thing of the past. Why do people still use them? For the price of passive components I can build a multi channel amp and DSP 🙂
 
#10
illnastyimpreza said:
They sounded very "disconnected" as if the vocals were coming from around the corner.
Click to expand...

It will serve you well to understand the cause of your problems before applying a fix. What you describe does not correspond with the comments that reviewers of this kit have posted. This suggests that something in your setup is not correct.

The most common shortcoming with regard to tweeters is low frequency overload and consequent distortion. But this won't give you the effect that you describe. It is still possible to seamlessly blend a lesser tweeter and woofer. It would give you a coherent image at low volumes.

The first thing I would suspect with your "disconnected" description is that one of the drivers in your system is electrically reversed. I recommend that you listen to each speaker on its own, and see if there is a difference. In fact, I would first do a sanity check by swapping in a completely different pair of speakers, just to check that nothing upstream is to blame.

I could go on to recommend other possible causes, but I think you should clarify your intentions first. It is not clear to me whether you want to go active because you believe that passive crossovers are no good, or whether you simply want to fix your speaker. As for passive crossovers being bad: you are wrong about this. While it is possible to build a bad passive crossover, the same can be said for active.
 
#13
Shaun said:
The first thing I would suspect with your "disconnected" description is that one of the drivers in your system is electrically reversed. I recommend that you listen to each speaker on its own, and see if there is a difference. In fact, I would first do a sanity check by swapping in a completely different pair of speakers, just to check that nothing upstream is to blame.
Click to expand...

That's the first thing I thought of too. Check that both speakers are wired the same way polarity wise from amp to binding posts and also from binding posts to the crossover board. Another easy way to check is just reverse the wires at the binding posts of one speaker and re-listen.
 
#14
Same here with disconnected vocals. Mine was a two way with 12dB XO so tweeters out of phase with the woofers. I kept checking and double checking the tweeter connections because that is where the problem seemed to be in the audio spectrum. Turned out to be one of the woofers connected backwards. So please check and double check.
 
#16
illnastyimpreza said:
My goal is to set it and forget it.
Click to expand...
Let me try this another way. You could get an EQ, see if it is possible to get good sound with the current crossover. Use measurements to make sure it always makes sense. Get it flat and wind down the treble. EQ the bass... When you later go to do the drivers separately you'll have learned something to put you ahead.

By the way, it would be interesting to do that measurement twice, once with the polarity reversed. (Maybe also drop the mic a touch because up close the relative driver distance changes.)
 
#19
illnastyimpreza said:
I'm lead to believe the crossover is just no good. So I'm going to go Fully Active with it instead. But I still think the stock tweeter is the weak link in these speakers.

Can anyone reccomend a Good tweeter upgrade ???
Click to expand...

I definitely think the crossover provided with this speaker kit is not good enough. I’ve recently built a pair of these and I ended up with a modification of the crossover, so you might be interested to take a look at my post about it: HiVi/Swans DIY 2.2A (crossover modification/upgrade)
As for the tweeter upgrade, I think it’s gonna be incredibly difficult to swap Q1R with something else, because of its size and the fact that it’s flush mounted. The flange is 116 mm and there is virtually nothing on the market that can be used as a replacement with this diameter. At least I’m not aware of such. The tweeter itself is not so bad, but it wouldn’t be my first choice either.

- @llex
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom