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Author Topic: Changing drivers in active speakers, is it advisable?  (Read 2103 times)

Reggie Kendrick

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Changing drivers in active speakers, is it advisable?
« on: January 15, 2014, 09:15:24 PM »

I ran across this video on Youtube and it seems like this fellow swapped the ND2 high-compression driver in a ZXA5 with something from Ciare.  Dude's speaking some foreign language so I don't understand what's really going on.  Is this advisable or practical if you're trying to achieve better sound from your speaker?  He seems to be panning back and forth between the original driver and the Ciare but I can't tell which is which.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm3L-Q2RyBI
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Brad Weber

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Re: Changing drivers in active speakers, is it advisable?
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2014, 09:40:10 AM »

Since a powered speaker is an integrated system and a change to any single component can affect other elements, one would seem to want to really know what they were doing to start swapping drivers, otherwise it seems to likely result in a number of potential unknown implications on the overall speaker performance and reliability.
 
I also wonder how much of any desired audible differences achieved by swapping drivers could have been achieved with equalization of the signal driving the speaker.
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Changing drivers in active speakers, is it advisable?
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2014, 10:25:03 AM »

I ran across this video on Youtube and it seems like this fellow swapped the ND2 high-compression driver in a ZXA5 with something from Ciare.  Dude's speaking some foreign language so I don't understand what's really going on.  Is this advisable or practical if you're trying to achieve better sound from your speaker?  He seems to be panning back and forth between the original driver and the Ciare but I can't tell which is which.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm3L-Q2RyBI

I don't know. Do you know how to design a loudspeaker better than a professional loudspeaker design engineer?

 I know that I can't.  8)

JR
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Paul G. OBrien

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Re: Changing drivers in active speakers, is it advisable?
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2014, 12:21:31 PM »

I ran across this video on Youtube and it seems like this fellow swapped the ND2 high-compression driver in a ZXA5 with something from Ciare.  Is this advisable or practical if you're trying to achieve better sound from your speaker? 

The amount of room for improvement in any speaker system is indirectly proportional to the amount of engineering that went into building it in the first place. The ZXa5 is not a cheap entry level box so it would be safe to assume it's just a bit more than a passive speaker with a generic amp module bolted on the back, it will have amplification and DSP processing custom taylored to the particular combination of components in the box. So I think any "improvements" you could make from a driver swap would be pretty subjective and have a high probability of making things worse or negatively impacting something else not directly related to sound quality... like amplifier thermal stability for example.
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Changing drivers in active speakers, is it advisable?
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2014, 12:35:28 PM »

The amount of room for improvement in any speaker system is indirectly proportional to the amount of engineering that went into building it in the first place. The ZXa5 is not a cheap entry level box so it would be safe to assume it's just a bit more than a passive speaker with a generic amp module bolted on the back, it will have amplification and DSP processing custom taylored to the particular combination of components in the box. So I think any "improvements" you could make from a driver swap would be pretty subjective and have a high probability of making things worse or negatively impacting something else not directly related to sound quality... like amplifier thermal stability for example.
True, and you might be surprised by the amount and level of engineering invested into making cheap speakers not suck. It's harder than engineering expensive speakers (think about it). Just throwing a more expensive driver into an existing design that was dialed in for a cheaper driver will likely be a waste of time and money.

Companies that just slap a few drivers into a random box and cob a generic amp to it, will not do well in a market with any competition. 99.9% of the cost is in components and assembly, there is little real economic benefit from skimping on engineering to optimize for the cost effective components used.

JR
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Re: Changing drivers in active speakers, is it advisable?
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2014, 12:35:28 PM »


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