Infinity Overture 2 - New Owner and Issues

[jtangen]

Hello Everyone, my first post here.

I friend gave (yes gave) me a pair of Overture 2's. They are in very good shape, only minor cosmetic imperfections. When I set them up at home and did a test tone to set volume levels for my 5.1 surround setup, I noticed the high end was muffled on one of them. Everything was working but the mids and tweeter sounded at a lower volume than the other even though everything was set equally.

I figured something was wrong with the X-over so I ordered another one on Ebay. I installed that and everything was fine with both speakers playing at equal volume levels across the entire frequency band.

But now just 2 months later I notice that the tweeter was not working on the same one that I had replaced the X-over. So I ordered a tweeter on Ebay. When that arrived, I hooked it up and no sound comes from the new tweeter. I checked both tweeters (old and new) and they work so it must be the X-over again. This is the same one I just replaced.

I'm thinking of getting new 3 way X-overs from Parts Express and bypassing the Sub-amps altogether as I'm sure I will have issues with those at some point.

I'm running a Pioneer 100x5 with powered Subwoofer so I don't need the "subs" in the Overtures to act like subs so I'm thinking the aftermarket X-overs should work fine as they crossover at 375hz whereas the original's cross at 350.

Any thoughts?

 

[goodolpg]

Have you checked the fuse?
Not just by sight, "it looks ok" isn't good enough, use a meter or replace with a known good one.
If you don't have a meter or spare fuses, take the fuse out of the one that works and try it in the one that does not.

If you do have a meter you could check the resistance of the tweeters. With the tweeters disconnected from the speaker, use the lowest or next lowest ohm setting and check across the tweeter terminals and see what the resistance is.

 

[swechsler]

I'm not too familiar with the Overture series; but ISTR that they have a powered woofer combined with the nonpowered upper drivers. This implies a passive crossover. I'd first do some investigation to see what in fact is wrong with them. They're fairly simple circuits compared with active circuitry (although, to be fair, Infinity has designed some pretty complex passive crossovers), and it could be something as simple as replacing a capacitor. In addition, once you get some familiarity with them you'll be able to repair them in the future, if necessary.

I'm not sure that replacing them with generic 3 way passive crossovers is a great idea - crossovers built for a specific speaker are generally designed around the characteristics of the drivers in that speaker; Infinity speakers especially (well, at least for the Kappa series and higher models; I don't know if they continued this trend with the Overture series, which was almost definitely designed by different engineers).

 

[jtangen]

Thank you for the replies.

Yes the Active Amp/Crossovers run the two built in subwoofers and the passive crossovers run the midbass/tweeter setup.

I'm not too saavy with the diagnostics aspect of testing coils, resistors, capacitors and such but when I ordered the replacement passive crossover, I compared it to the original and noticed they had repaired the replacement with a different type of capacitor which from what I could tell was for the tweeter. Perhaps that one went bad also.

I agree that a generic crossover is probably a bad idea because the Infinity crossover is quite a bit more complex than the one I was looking at on Parts Express.

Looks like it's time to order an Ohmmeter and do some investigation.

 

[swechsler]

If you can provide us some pics of the crossover in question (higher resolution is always better) we might be able to make some suggestions as to how to proceed further.

 

[goodolpg]

Thank you for the replies.

Yes the Active Amp/Crossovers run the two built in subwoofers and the passive crossovers run the midbass/tweeter setup.

I'm not too saavy with the diagnostics aspect of testing coils, resistors, capacitors and such but when I ordered the replacement passive crossover, I compared it to the original and noticed they had repaired the replacement with a different type of capacitor which from what I could tell was for the tweeter. Perhaps that one went bad also.

I agree that a generic crossover is probably a bad idea because the Infinity crossover is quite a bit more complex than the one I was looking at on Parts Express.

Looks like it's time to order an Ohmmeter and do some investigation.

If you just want a cheap meter, Walmart, Menards, Lowes etc have them. Some under $20, some under $10.
Like most things, you get what you pay for. If you just want to do basic ohm (resistance readings which can be used to check an individual drivers condition, as well as continuity which allows you to check point to point like for broken wires) or voltages, AC or DC.
Now if you want to check the values of capacitors you will need a meter capable of that, those will be more expensive but models under $100 are available.