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B&W DM3000 issues - advice needed

G

gajraaj

New Member
Hey guys and gals..
Picked up my first set of vintage speakers today. B&W DM3000.

Seems to be in fairly good conditions. Still need to clean and listen a bit more.

First issue : I hear a lot more sound coming trough the top tweeter ( even if I turn the treble down to zero). This is making the sound a bit high pitched and even a bit shrill. Though all drivers are working fine.

Second issue : the Kevlar drivers on one of the speakers have the center portion a bit “dimpled”. Does this effect

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

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Nice looking speakers, should sound good, well worth restoring. What are you driving them with?

I would start by listening closely to each individual driver at low volume to make sure everyone is working.

If you go here http://bwgroupsupport.com/ and select service manuals, go to B&W service manuals, then go to DM Series then DM3000 you can get the service manual for these speakers.
 
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At present I am driving them with a NAD 326 Beee .maybe that’s part of the problem.


Waiting for my Sansui BA-F1 to arrive sometime in next two weeks.
 
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gajraaj said:
thanks.
Did you recap them at some point in time?
Click to expand...
I never did because everything worked on mine. I had no driver or crossover issues. The only problem I had is the top plastic peice was warping and the fabric on the metal grill was starting to snag.
 
There is an audio mod under B&W dm12 to disengage the APOC (auto protection overload circuit) and led next to the BW symbol.. My dm17s were very similar so i used this as a model for mine. Yours appears to have a schematic available which mine did not. I am guessing your APOC is locked on, in some fashion diminishing the "overload " signal to your woofers. This is possibly the result of a small 100 uf electrolytic cap in the circuit leaking chemicals and creating a short in the circuit. It looks like a lightning strike happened, which probably did not. Pour yourself a stiff one and visit the french site audio heritage dm3000. Right-click to translate.
The mylar caps in the signal path are decent quality and likely do not need changing. Modern silver plated wire soldered to the drivers could be rewarding.( a la Troelsgraveson BW 802).
 
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I read somewhere these dm3000 weigh 75 lbs. Take care and good luck.
P.S. The " electronic delay" appears to be a series of caps and coils on the tweeter circuit separate from the APOC.
Also see about lifting diodes and transistors & R10.
Jerry's B&W 802 S2 Review (1997)
The DM3000 is well worth repair with a superior wiring harness to the earlier dm12/17.

PPS. Simpler but worse;one of the 6 1/2 " kevlar woofers BZ 200 16 ohms. may be on the way out. Should be easier to check that first.
If someone is parting out a dm220 the woofers (and tweets) could sub in a pinch.
 
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I have a pair of DM 3000 I picked up with bad tweeters a few years ago. I ended up swapping them for some from Dayton but I'm thinking about redoing the X-over now. Just curious if you had any luck?
 
Hello guys …. Long long time . Lot of things happened ( including a pandemic) that led me to put my vintage HiFi stuff in the storage . It’s out now and I will start working on it soon.

Stay tuned
 
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