044Ti Deterioration in 250Ti
I've had my 250Ti since 2011 and they have given me very little trouble since then thanks in no small part to advice obtained here.
But now things have changed. I also own a pair of Martin Logan CLS 1 and Kinergetics SW-800 subs. Last summer I set them up in place of the 250Ti just to give a listen. The CLS sound quite nice but recently I began to become a bit disenchanted with their limitations (lack of dynamics, impact). And since we are getting ready to do some major home renovation and I expect quite a bit of dust floating around the house (not good for ESLs), I decided to pack up the Martin Logans and move the good old 250Ti back into my system.
Listening to the 250Ti, I was startled to hear a kind of noisy, hissy distortion coming from both 044Ti tweeters. Judging from what I've read, I assume this is the dreaded tweeter damping foam rot syndrome. I thought I had it a couple of years ago but I swapped out my original drivers for a spare set and that seemed to be an improvement but I guess the replacements have it now too. For the record, the distortion is not always there, it's audibility depends on source material, and to a much lesser degree the electronics I use with the speakers. But it looks like I've come to the end of the line with these tweeters as they are. I tried putting the old drivers back in but to no avail-- they all seem to have this distortion. Maybe it was always there but perhaps it took using the other speakers for me to hear it clearly when I switched back to the JBLs.
My question then is what next? It would seem most of us with original 250Ti are in the same boat-- 25-30 year old systems with tweeters that can't easily be replaced and uncertain prospects for repair or refurb. Has anyone found suitable replacement drivers or an outfit that can refurb these?