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[Ed Walters]

The tinsel lead design obviously does not work long term when exposed to the right (wrong) droning frequencies, a fairly typical application for a high excursion sub.

Might be enlightening to put one on the bench, with a signal generator and an amp, and sweep around and find out at what frequency the tinsel leads really start flapping around. I'd be glopping some rubber cement on the leads or their point of connection with the cone to change their resonance if needed...especially if I was having to buy recones just for tinsel lead failures!

Ed Walters

[Elliot Thompson]

This sounds more of a flexibility issue than the length of the tinsel lead. The constant bending at a certain point weakens the tinsel and it snaps. I recall such issues with drivers around 15 or more years ago when there is a lot of rapid cone movement. 

The tinsel may be too thick on the Faital Pro 18 XL 1600 woofer to manage the constant flexing.

Best Regards,

Elliot.

[paul bell]

I had seen a stroboscope video of this. The leads flap around and they flex at just one spot.

Like I said, embedding the leads into the spider will fix it.

[Terry McNeil]

Terry, you are still struggling with this? Move on man, lose Faital and get your self some better drivers. When a company that make drivers for you is not listening your complains, and do nothing for such a long time, that should be telling you something right?

Uh, I'm not struggling with anything. Driver changes were made and subwoofers are selling like crazy. I made the post so I can find out if it's happened to anyone else because a few other guys I've talked to have had the same issues.

[Terry McNeil]

Terry, don't you mean the leads should be woven into the spider?

Doing this would eliminate the problem.

During use at certain frequencies, tinsel leads can start flexing at the cone attachment point with it's own resonance. This constant stress at that one point will eventually lead to breakage.

Faital's excuse to me was they've sold thousands of these drivers and haven't heard of any problems like the one I and a few others have experienced. So I guess that means woven tinsel leads aren't necessary until a few hundred drivers start to fail.

[Marjan Milosevic]

Faital's excuse to me was they've sold thousands of these drivers and haven't heard of any problems like the one I and a few others have experienced. So I guess that means woven tinsel leads aren't necessary until a few hundred drivers start to fail.

There should be no excuse to this. When you make a high xmax driver you make sure the tinsel leads are not simply "in the air" flopping with the music.
It is clearly a design flaw.
The fact that not much problems with it in general just proves that they are quite close to making a very good product but dont want to go the extra few feets to change what is a very easy fix.
The leads should be placed much lower and go along the spider (attached to it on a few places) so the lead is not flexing that much.
Cant find the picture i sent to Terry some time ago but i hope you all know what i am trying to say.

[Jeff Bankston]

i got the 4ohm version last year when they came out and havent had an issue. i have 2 that are waiting on cabinets and will check the leads out. i cut mine off at 40hz so i might not see what you see. one thing to note is when below 38.7 hz the power handling goes down. at 30hz the max power handling is only 59.5 watts and anything more than that will shoot the vc right past maximum xmax. thats why i have a l-r 24db/oct slope set at 40hz so i can play it loud and not worry about that. its possible that what happened to yours is the xmax was exceeded. i'll talk to Al at USSpeaker on monday to see if he had any complaints about the leads. also if you run a program you must use the specs for the impedance of the woof you have as there are a few differences between the 8 and 4 ohm and it makes a difference in the outcome of the cabinet/vent design.

heres 2 fotos i just took of my 18xl1600 4ohm version.

[Jeff Bankston]

i had some extra time and called AL at usspeakers today and he said he hasnt heard of any problem with the tensil leads on the 18xl1600

[ProSoundWeb Community]