Prelude MTS drivers

Glad you got them working, the only way to tell if the neo magnet coating has failed and peeled away is to disassemble the old mid range driver and pull the cone and coil from the frame so to be able to look inside and inspect the neo wafer for peeling, the neo wafer is part of the pole piece, the peeling of the neo magnet cannot be seen from the outside of the driver because the voice coil will be blocking your view of the neo magnet, the neo wafer is mounted in the center of the coil, if i were you i would connect the old mid to your amp or receiver, play some piano music and listen for any buzzing, you could use a capacitor if you want on the positive side to cross it over but i don't think you need a cap if you don't play it too loud, if you hear any buzzing coming from the driver then i would disassemble the driver to inspect for peeling, i did the same as you when i replaced my mid with a new driver, the driver looks perfectly fine till you disassemble it and see the faulty neo coating peeling, that's when i got pisses at HK, this should never happen to a $10,000 speaker and if it does they should be responsible and support their products.
 
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A bit late to the party, but after speaking with Harold Kevelos at Harman, I just shipped my I90GB90's to The Speaker Exchange in Tampa for hopefull repair. I will keep you all posted with the results.

I am with you Greg C... HK is just stupid. I had to repair my sub amps myself too.
 
Given the preludes have so many drivers prone to fail, did anybody consider disassembling the drivers and removing the problem coating, and reassembling them?

At over $200/driver replacing 10 drivers is pricey. Would make sense to rebuild them.
 
In the words of the immortal Lo Pan: "Now this really pisses me off to no end!" I originally got my Prelude MTS towers and center about 10 years ago. I don't know how many driver replacements I've had to buy since then. If I had a dime for every time Harman told a customer "This is the first time we've heard about that..." I'd probably be able to buy another mid-range.

Until recently, I've been able to head over to Orange County Speaker Repair with a tower (or center) to have a driver replaced. Due to the nature of the problem, they've always recommended a new driver. Other than the hit to my wallet, this was a straightforward problem. As we all now, drivers are no longer available from Harman. I find this confusing because they were probably making a pretty penny selling us drivers again and again...

A month or so ago, I got tired of listening to problems with my midrange and brought the speaker in to OC Speaker. Their tech did a cleaning on the midrange and I had high hopes that this solved the problem. The driver sounded perfect for a few weeks... and then started up again. My only solution now is to order a new driver from Germany. Since the dollar stinks against the Euro, this is a very expensive solution.

I am at the point now that I'm considering buying a new set of speakers... but, it is going to be quite challenging finding new speakers in my price range that sound as good as my MTS set. If I do end up with new speakers, they will not be from Harman.

A bit late to the party, but after speaking with Harold Kevelos at Harman, I just shipped my I90GB90's to The Speaker Exchange in Tampa for hopefull repair. I will keep you all posted with the results.

I'd love to hear if that worked!

Regards,
- Steve
 
I am in the same boat here I could use 2 3.5" drivers. Was wondering if there was any updates on repair or if anyone knows where I can pick up some new ones?
 
Hello,he does not remove the magnet.
He removes the cone - fix the problem and than put back the Original cone in place.
It is a permanent fix.
He gets the speakers from al over the world californie ,washington,denmark.............
Stefaan.
I took them apart, you can not repair the magnet unless you remove it as it can not even be seen in the voice coil gap.
 
I am not saying you are wrong.
This man has a method to fix them permanent without opening the magnet.
And yes the peeling is the problem.
He has fixed some 200 - 300 prelude MTS speakers for some years and all are ok.
Stefaan.
I 'd like to see a video of his repair process, I hope he is not just blowing out the peeled partials from the magnet with a compressor then just re assembling them because they will continue to peel and scrape again a few years down the road.
 
I would have to know exactly what he was going to do to my drivers before I would ever let anyone work on them, if your work is good you should have nothing to hide.
 
Does anyone have any new information about the flakey magnet repairs? I just bought a pair of IL60s (with bad amps) and assume that is not going to be a problem, but don't know. Would love to know if I can safely keep an eye out for the other higher end products in this line for a future project or is it best avoided.
 
I have been hearing a sort of rattling noise from one of my speakers for a while now, usually when listening to piano music at the start of and during a crescendo. It is audible, but not very loud, so that it takes a while to admit to one's self that there is something actually wrong.

Researching the issue I came across a thread on A'gon dating back a few years where I realized that this is a known issue.

By listening carefully I think that I have narrowed down the problem to the 3.5 inch mid driver.

Well it appears that replacements are no longer available, here in Canada, or in the US for that matter. Since these are CMMD drivers, an Infinity proprietary technology, there are obviously no other sources of anything that could properly replace this driver.

What would you guys do in such a situation?

Double down and buy more used towers hoping that the mid will be ok and cannibalize them?

Learn to love the noise and hope it doesn't get worse?

Get in touch with Infinity distributors world-wide to see if anyone has them and are willing to send them out of their own market?

Is there anyone out here who can repair these drivers?

Any information and suggestions would be greatly appreciated as now being retired the financial resources are not what they used to be.

Thanks.

Pat.

@PatBB yes a common problem with the Prelude MTS drivers. I had two pairs which both experienced the same problem of rubbing sounds on the voice coil, then eventually the driver will quit working all together as the magnetic coating that Infinity used on the midrange drivers and the 4 upper bass drivers in the upper cabinets flakes off and jams up the magnetic gap blocking movement of the voice coils. This does not happen on the tweeter or the 12 in woofer only on the midrange and upper bass drivers. There is a guy in Holland who claims he can rebuild the drivers. Looked like he did good work. If you don't get the drivers rebuilt the problem will continually get worse until most of the drivers have locked up.

I sold both pairs and have now moved on to something else.
 
Does anyone have any new information about the flakey magnet repairs? I just bought a pair of IL60s (with bad amps) and assume that is not going to be a problem, but don't know. Would love to know if I can safely keep an eye out for the other higher end products in this line for a future project or is it best avoided.

@Cdrat the problem was not on any of the Interlude series; only the Prelude MTS and Intermezzo 4.1 towers. You should be fine with your drivers.
 

To get better you'll likely have to spend a lot more. When they were working I sure liked the sound of the MTS Preludes.

The woofers in the subs are really good. Still use them as subs for my current speakers. They come in below 40 hz.
 
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