EMIT K Mystery

Talk_Louder

Member
One of the Emits stopped working on my 1987 model 7 Kappas. As I was mad, I found a pair on ebay and snapped them up. This morning I opened the box to find what looks like a pristine pair of Emit K's. Both read 3 ohms (yeah, that's why these things are hard to drive). Anyway...

When I removed the speaker from the cabinet, it, well, looked like someone had put it together with brick mortar! Stunned, I opened the other speaker to find the same stuff on that Emit! It is hard as a rock.

I bought these speakers brand new in a never opened box. These came from the builder like this.

Anyone know what this is all about? Do I need to smear some JB weld on my two new (to me) Emits?! (I'm kidding)

emit k faces.jpg emit k compare.jpg emit k bad.jpg
Any insight is appreciated,
Mark
 
It’s hard to imagine what the adhesive.on the magnet structure would do. I would ignore it.
 
I will ignore it as far as troubleshooting why I lost a tweeter. I'm just confused as to why Infinity would have done this. And why both speakers are identical in this treatment. And if anyone else has seen this from them.
 
I've never seen that, on any emit. And you bought these straight from a store never opened ?
 
Did you solder the leads onto the one with the stuff around the perimeter or did it come with the leads already attached?
 
goodolpg, the speaker(s) that has the goop was factory installed. I took them out of the boxes in 1987 and have never seen the backside of the tweeters until now. I had Millersound do my polydomes and I did the surrounds myself on the woofers.

okeeteekid, any theory why they'd have this stuff smeared on them? The only thing I can come up with is that maybe they made a bad batch of tweeters and somehow repaired them this way.

The two that I just bought that do not have the goop on them came out of a pair 6 Kappas. They ohm out at the same value as my other Emits.

I think now that I have other issues with either the amp or preamp. Neither tweeter is firing, which is kind of suspect (unless BOTH crossovers are toast). Oh well, more troubleshooting to do.

Cheers
 
Don't know why they added the goop stuff, perhaps to control any vibrations on early EMIT's, maybe they change the plastic material that the goop is covering in newer versions of the EMIT and the goop was no longer needed, who knows.
 
I asked because the solder on the NOS ones looks like my solder work, not straight from the factory work.
Guess it doesn't matter, was just curious.
Plenty of earlier Infinitys suffered from dirty EMIT and midrange l-pads over time, the Kappas have that sandwich type construction so not really sure if a good cleaning is possible but might be worth exploring. Another possibility is the fuse/breaker/whatever it is those use to protect the EMITs. Those may be the internal mounted on the circuit board type of protection devices. Again worth looking in to.
 
I asked because the solder on the NOS ones looks like my solder work, not straight from the factory work.
Guess it doesn't matter, was just curious.
Plenty of earlier Infinitys suffered from dirty EMIT and midrange l-pads over time, the Kappas have that sandwich type construction so not really sure if a good cleaning is possible but might be worth exploring. Another possibility is the fuse/breaker/whatever it is those use to protect the EMITs. Those may be the internal mounted on the circuit board type of protection devices. Again worth looking in to.

Now that you mention it, it does look a little, ah, different than a usual OEM solder joint. I'd say something didn't pass muster during manufacture and these guys were "tweaked" before going in the boxes.

Gotta look at crossovers now; something is wrong in paradise. I'll track it down eventually, if I don't pull out my hair and go mad first.

Cheers all.
 
So in my morning thoughts, do you think that stuff is there to help kill any waves because of the close proximity to the other drivers?
 
The tweeter is in very close proximity to the polydome, but the dome is in its own little box.

There may be some merit to woofer pressure. There is an awful lot of batting in the box, but it still might be a thing. Very curious.

I removed one of the crossovers (man, what a job!). I don't see any bulging caps, and nothing so far measures out of wack (though I have a long way to go to finish checking).

All I can do now is fire up the old preamp that was retired for one fuzzy channel. The other channel is good, so I can test each speaker individually with a KNOWN source that I can hear.

It will, however, be embarrassing if it turns out that the Pioneer SC77 makes a great home theater receiver, but a lousy preamp.

Cheers
 
We all know how much Infinity liked to change things up from one day to the next not to surprising.
 
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