Tannoy Eaton speaker with defective HF unit

[radium7]

This post is to give some idea to peoples who are interested or like to purchase this type of products and hope this help them not getting cheated or disappointed just like me.

I recently purchased Tannoy Eaton speakers with HPD295 drivers from my very good friend. I bought it for 40K.The drivers looks good and cones are original. During the demo we found some distortion and unbalance between the speakers. One channel sounds muddy and other is normal. When we check it, we found few problems in the crossover switches and was told it may be due to the ageing of the capacitors in crossover. I also have planned to upgrade those capacitors. Everything looks genuine, so I bought those speakers.

Brought to my home and tested the same problems exists, so I opened the cabinet and checked the crossover and find one auto former core is fully of rust and one resistor have black spots. Besides that all soldering spot sre strong and clean. no problem in it.

I changed the drivers and crossover, after several tests i found the problem is in the drivers not in crossover. Checked the woofer- they are good. HF unit seems to be making the problem.

 

[radium7]

One driver which gives muddy sound has a different HF unit. It is dirty and poor finish. Coil material is different. It is not damaged or re-winded one; someone replaced the original diaphragm with this one. Huge disappointment.

 

[radium7]

Without creating this thread and showing this, i can keep it as it is and sell it to someone. No I won’t.

I don’t know who did this, but surely they won’t be a good audiophile.

 

[radium7]

You can see the difference in coil

 

[panditji]

Sir, what is the point that you want to make? Not to buy from good friends or not to buy old stuff or not to buy from that particular good friend of yours?

 

[radium7]

No, not like that. I don't know who did this. I just posted it to show the good and bad coils, and how it can be identified.

check everything before you buy --- whoever the seller is...

 

[srinisundar]

It is unfortunate you got an bad unit with replaced diaphragm.

I have heard this unit too at Naseer place and sounded good not too bad, but there is distortion as u said and I also suspected the cross over. Replacing the diaphragm can be done for coaxial especially Tannoys should have strong heart since it is too expensive and just an silly mistake will cost in thousands...May be an skilled person like you could have replaced the same. since the goods are from market it could have been replaced by the technicians.

However you are damn lucky to get the Tannoy HPD 10" for 40k, since the frame alone will cost 40 to 50K with out cone paper or cross over .

Let me see i can find out an diaphragm for you. i have passed the info to my contacts hope you will get one pair or one.

 

[radium7]

Thank you sir.

 

[antoniodias]

Hello,
I feel sorry for you being cheated. It is a bit unclear whether you feel that your friend got cheated prior to you purchasing from your friend? Perhaps your good friend did not know of this. Thanks for cautioning us. But you should be happy @srinisundar is helping you to procure a pair of those.
Great then fro you. Best of luck

 

[srinisundar]

Hello,
I feel sorry for you being cheated. It is a bit unclear whether you feel that your friend got cheated prior to you purchasing from your friend? Perhaps your good friend did not know of this. Thanks for cautioning us. But you should be happy @srinisundar is helping you to procure a pair of those.
Great then fro you. Best of luck

Yep, his friend also got cheated prior to him. He could not find the fault and he passed on the stuff , since Rajkumar is an electronics guy he took into confidence of replacing the Caps and make it perfect. Unfortunately on opening the same dia has been replaced with some local stuff which could not match the other original one.

regards

 

[mohamednaseer]

Hello Rajkumar i was not aware of diaphragm change in the speaker.I was bought this with the use of listening and felt no tonal difference
between both speakers.I clearly inform you that i don't aware of the drivers and has issue in volume pot .I thought issue present in crossover and you are able to correct.Here no cheating happens and i bought from my friend and he also not checked this.I am not a technician and not able to check like this. Don't worry i will repay all the amount including transport and keep this speaker with you and i will arrange to collect from your home.I am really sorry and this happens without my knowledge.

 

[radium7]

Yes, we didn't expect the problem in diaphragm. Thanks for your words. Money is not an issue. but someone has to correct the problem in it. i started working on it. I will make it work as much as close to the other driver. will update soon. No problem.

 

[antoniodias]

@ srinisundar. hi there, sure he is proud of you being of help to re construct the drivers he loved. Please do wha best you can. God bless success on his project.

Good of you @Mohamednasee. So nice of you that you owe up. Love such attitude, even though you are not at fault. God bless.

 

[mohamednaseer]

Good of you @Mohamednasee. So nice of you that you owe up. Love such attitude, even though you are not at fault. God bless.

Actually this is not like sale.I have got tannoy 15 inch driver don't want to sale Eaton and want to give this tannoy to a good listener and I know Rajkumar he is good listener and good audiophile so I have offered him but it becomes issue.

 

[antoniodias]

I understand your situation too. Never mind keep your cool.

 

[keith_correa]

My mind can but do one thing. Boggle!!!

 

[radium7]

No improvement, More distortion. Replacing the coil is the only solution. Trying to get one through my friend in UK, its available there but cost nearly 20K for a single.

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

You can see the difference in coil
View attachment 29602

Hi,
It seems that one of the diaphragm is re-coiled locally. The original coil which is silver in colour is made up of Aluminium ribbon wire and is edgewound to a nomex former. This is next to impossible to re-coil or replicate locally. What seems that It had been done using normal round copper wire, which will never sound the same.
1. The voice coil inductance of aluminium is lower than copper.
2. The coil mass will be lower for aluminium than copper.
3. The original edgewound aluminium is a one layer coil (edgewound) which is closely pack together for more efficiency resulting greater sensitivity....as to the round copper wire coil will need 2 layer of winding and will have a lower sensitivity and more mass in comparison to the original.

 

[Kannan]

There is always a risk in getting vintage gears, especially when purchased from seconds dealers as it is impossible to trace its source or the repairs it has gone through.

A friend of mine recently purchased a Sansui X1 for a bomb from a local dealer and it had quite a few critical components inside replaced. It is now lying under repair with Torvin Audio.

One has to be very careful when buying venerated vintage gear. One has to take into account that with ageing the chances of it being in original condition is remote and replacements, especially being in India are either impossible or very expensive.

Atleast with electronic devices like amps etc. some jugaad is possible, but with stiff like turntables, speakers etc...things usually get out of hands.

So my advice is to tread carefully when getting vintage gear.

But for the passionate who us willing to DIY and go the full route, sometimes great old school stuff can be had at a pittance.

So getting priorities right is critical.

 

[SIDEWINDER18X]

Atleast with electronic devices like amps etc. some jugaad is possible, but with stiff like turntables, speakers etc...things usually get out of hands.............
So getting priorities right is critical.

Maybe it is true for turntables But for Vintage speakers ..... It is quite possible to get things right on track. Atleast for most of the American and European vintage speakers here in India.
Restoration and re-building these vintage drivers can be done to the original factory specifications.
Depending how you do it ..where you do it.