4410A Experience

[chris21]

Bought some 4410A's from a guy in town. Listened to them at his home just to make sure they worked and brought them home.

I connected them to the system and found a tweeter was not working. Took tweeter out, checked it with a multi-meter and clearly there was a break in the voice coil. Spend two hours total fixing it. 4.1 ohms which matched the other tweeter. Cool. Still they did not sound right, not enough low end. Checked on line for wiring diagrams and some forum reading on JBL cross-over to driver wiring. Took out the drivers, checked the polarity of all drivers with a battery because the woofers were wired opposite of each other (good news!). Connected all drivers with the wire with the black stripe to the black/negative terminals on the drivers even though the woofer black terminal was the positive terminal.

Put them back together and onto stands 10" above the floor tilted up and put them into production. They sound awesome and the Pioneer HPM-100's with upgraded cross-overs are going on Craigslist today. No comparison. Should have changed them out for good JBL's years ago.

Anyway, still wondering about the driver wiring. The diagram shows that the tweeter should be out of phase with the other two drivers but the woofer terminals have confused me a bit.

[chris21]

More info or clarification. Currently I have the solid green going to the red terminal on the 127H-1 woofer and the green/black is going to the black terminal.

[Odd]

More info or clarification. Currently I have the solid green going to the red terminal on the 127H-1 woofer and the green/black is going to the black terminal.


Here is the wiring for 4410. Believe 4410a is the same.

[chris21]

Here is the wiring for 4410. Believe 4410a is the same.

Many thanks for the document. I guess I will switch the woofer connections and see what happens.

[DavidF]

"... Anyway, still wondering about the driver wiring. The diagram shows that the tweeter should be out of phase with the other two drivers but the woofer terminals have confused me a bit.

Yeah, can be confusing. There a quite a few threads on the board about this very subject. The JBL polarity convention until more recently was that the driver motion would pull in away from the listener with a positive signal to the system terminal.


More info or clarification. Currently I have the solid green going to the red terminal on the 127H-1 woofer and the green/black is going to the black terminal.

That is correct. The solid color wire (green usually for system woofers) goes to the positive-signed, male quick connect, or red terminal.

[chris21]

Thanks David, I did not switch the leads on the woofer because they sound so good.

[Don C]

Here's the 4410a doc.
http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Studio Monitor Series/4410ALR.pdf

[chris21]

Here's the 4410a doc.
http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/Studio Monitor Series/4410ALR.pdf

Thanks Don.

To anyone I ask for confirmation that this diagram indicates that if I apply positive DC voltage to the red terminal on the cabinet that all drivers should move out meaning that no drivers are out of phase with each other. If it is wired correctly that is.

[DavidF]

Thanks Don.

To anyone I ask for confirmation that this diagram indicates that if I apply positive DC voltage to the red terminal on the cabinet that all drivers should move out meaning that no drivers are out of phase with each other. If it is wired correctly that is.

You will note in the schematic that JBL included with each driver a symbol with a positive sign inside a circle. Below the schematic there is a footnote explaining that this symbol means an outward motion with a positive signal to the red system input. So, yes all drivers are shown in the same polarity.

For kicks you can see that the polarity scheme is achieved by connecting each "positive" driver terminal to the system negative input. Remember that the driver polarity of the time was that all drivers responded with an inward movement with a positive signal to the "positive" terminal. In order to reverse the polarity for the drivers the polarity is effectively reversed at the system input (within the crossover circuit more accurately) rather than messing with changing the polarity at the driver input.

[chris21]

Indeed now when I put a dc positive charge to the red "System" terminal, the drivers all move out. Needed my kids to watch the mid and HF drivers because my eyes were not up the task.

Thanks again to all who helped me get these sorted out.

Is it really worth replacing all the internal wiring with good 14 gauge speaker wire and also re-soldering the board?

[DavidF]

Indeed now when I put a dc positive charge to the red "System" terminal, the drivers all move out. Needed my kids to watch the mid and HF drivers because my eyes were not up the task.

Thanks again to all who helped me get these sorted out.

Is it really worth replacing all the internal wiring with good 14 gauge speaker wire and also re-soldering the board?

A good inspection of the solder joints and cleaning of all connections is worth it. Is it worth it sonically to install new 14 gauge wire? Probably not. These are short runs,after all. But then again what the hey?

[Doctor_Electron]

Some years ago I upgraded the internal wiring on my 4410's and did not make a good pre-mod drawing of it. When done, the mid's were not phased 180 degrees from the woofers (as shown on the JBL drawings). You would not believe just how hideous they sounded.

Apparently the phase interaction between the mid's and tweeters is not so detrimental when they are connected in phase. (Or?)

4410's are great speakers but they really open up (very smooth and great imaging)when used with subwoofers (I used 2235's) and crossed over at 125 Hz, even at 6 db/oct.

It is asking a lot of the 10" woofers to carry the deep freight at all but lowish SPL's'

I got help with this from Drew Daniels, and what he suggested was indeed correct.

[chris21]

Some years ago I upgraded the internal wiring on my 4410's and did not make a good pre-mod drawing of it. When done, the mid's were not phased 180 degrees from the woofers (as shown on the JBL drawings). You would not believe just how hideous they sounded.

Apparently the phase interaction between the mid's and tweeters is not so detrimental when they are connected in phase. (Or?)

4410's are great speakers but they really open up (very smooth and great imaging)when used with subwoofers (I used 2235's) and crossed over at 125 Hz, even at 6 db/oct.

It is asking a lot of the 10" woofers to carry the deep freight at all but lowish SPL's'

I got help with this from Drew Daniels, and what he suggested was indeed correct.

I will try the sub in line with the speakers using the subs crossover at 125. I have seen conflicting wiring diagrams on the 4410A's. Mine are currently wired so that a positive voltage to the red terminal on the back of the cabinet makes all drivers push out.

[Doctor_Electron]

I will try the sub in line with the speakers using the subs crossover at 125. I have seen conflicting wiring diagrams on the 4410A's. Mine are currently wired so that a positive voltage to the red terminal on the back of the cabinet makes all drivers push out.

The midrange drivers must be out of phase with the woofers. Not sure of the midrange and tweeter phasing, but if your woofers and mids move in the same direction in your test, they will sound terrible. I went through that as mentioned.

Regards

[chris21]

I wired the woofers out of phase with the the mids and hf drivers. They sound better. They are not wired per the specs as far as I can tell.