Are my tweeters OK?

[JBL 4645]

JeffW

Oh, yes, yes I do remember now looking at tweeter a different soft dome cloth tweeter years ago and noticed a little price of foam glued to the magnet, so, foam rot? Could I be the glue that eats away at the foam as I know some glues would so this. Or, just simple air getting to the foam?

BJL

I’ve noticed a slight oily like smell on one of tweeters. Its working fine just noticed the smell.

So I take the foam is placed there in case little fingers push the dome in! LOL like we haven’t already seen that.
So what is the service life for the foam behind the dome tweeters, how many years, does it last for?

[grumpy]

There are a few threads here on the 044 family, and replacing the foam,
should it seem warranted. The one in post #44 (oddly enough) was due for it.

Seems like Seawolf may have done this or looked into it recently.

[pathfindermwd]

I recently acquired a pair of 4412s from a radio station. I've had the woofer surrounds redone. Everything else seems fine (really fine!) except for a shrillness in high-level voices, especially female voices. Even Steve Hoffman's great Joni Mitchell remasterings overload a bit. I've tried them with a number of decent amps, pre-amps and CD players. The harshness in vocals at high volume changes depending on the characteristics of the gear I'm feeding them, but never completely goes away. I don't notice this harshness in friends' high end systems. This characteristic doesn't seem right for speakers this good, but I suspect an issue with the tweeters. I'm listening at a distance of about 8'in a room 17' x 21', at moderately high, but certainly not super-loud, levels. How does one determine if the tweeters are in good shape or if they need repair/replacement?

Dave I just wanted to throw in an experience I had with my L100's which use the 035 tweeter. My friend sold them to me because they sounded terrible, and I needed the woofers. One day while I was exchanging crossovers I noticed that the positive wire (spade) was not going to where the tweeter mark said was positive. For like a whole minute I was completely stumped until I checked the tweeters on my L100t's and realized that someone had actually changed the spades around on the tweeter itself! I mention this because your description of shrill and unbalanced treble reminds me alot of what the "s" sounded like until we figured this out. Why someone would do this and keep it like that is beyond me, though vocals were very good on the odd song. So check to make sure all the drivers are wired properly to their proper positive and negative.