Latest Additions XPL

[Mr. Widget]

This is the post I remember reading that gave me pause:

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...l=1#post354676


Widget

[gferrell]

This is the post I remember reading that gave me pause:

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...l=1#post354676


Widget

Don C seems to be the person with the most experience with the XPL's. Maybe he can chime in with any hints on preventive maintenance. Why would they break at the connectors?

[rdgrimes]

Aluminum wire will always fail, its only a matter of time. Enemies are heat and motion, both present in a driver. It will become brittle and break. Use extreme caution if handling it.

[Robh3606]

Aluminum wire will always fail,

Depends on how it is terminated. There are lots of vintage systems all loaded with aluminum voice coils still going strong after 50 years. Every compression driver, except possibly the phenolics, all the ring radiators and the D-130, most of the Musical instrument drivers all use aluminum coils. In a conventional woofer/cone driver the actual voice coil moves with the cone and VC form. It's all bonded together. It's the litz wire between the frame and the cone islet where the VC wire is terminated that gets the workout.

Why would they break at the connectors?

That's the constraint point? Also aluminum doesn't solder all that well? The surrounds move and at high frequencies get quite a bit of bend cycles to say the least. Think about it. They changed over to Ti because of the limited life in bend cycles of the surrounds of aluminum diaphrams. Here you have an aluminum wire strapped on to a Ti diaphram surround. Somethings going to give.

In the -1 drivers, like the 046Ti they changed over to copper clad aluminum. I have 046Ti -1's but no 093'-1s.

Rob

[Don C]

The wire may break right where it is soldered to the terminal. That's what happened to mine. Pull some wire away from the surround and bring it back to the terminal, but the wire is well stuck to the surround. Then heat the terminal to resolder the connection. The heat then makes the terminal pin fall over. It's stuck into some glue, and the heat melts the glue. Pretty scary. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's never going to be easy.

[gferrell]

Looks like delicate surgery. What about the foam? Do you have pictures?

Thanks Don C.
PS your doing much better than John Fox today.

[Don C]

More pictures, including good shots of the foam, can be viewed in this older thread.
http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...-XPL200-Rehab/

[gferrell]

So, is this the only foam? Just the foam gasket around the edge of the dome? Is there none under the dome for damping like the Ti high frequency drivers have?

[Don C]

There is some foam on the inside of the back cover, but it doesn't touch anything. Other than that, there is no foam behind the dome of the midranges. Just the surround foam.

[Titanium Dome]

So, is this the only foam? Just the foam gasket around the edge of the dome? Is there none under the dome for damping like the Ti high frequency drivers have?

That's all you see in my photos. That's all there is.

[gferrell]

Thanks very much Don C and TD. I guess I feel a little more confident that they may last a while longer.