Long post, so please bear with me. Last April I purchased 4 STX 825's from JBL Direct for $1200.00 each, including shipping. These were "factory refurbished", had a few paint touch ups but looked great. This of course was a smoking deal. I mainly purchased them to use in a 4 per side array in a rodeo arena with my existing SRX 725's. Had I more time I would have located another 4 725's.
I first used these over the 4 825's as the mid/hi speakers over the top of my SRX-728's in a stereo tri-amp configuration. I usually run my 725's this way and wanted to give the 825's a listen. They worked and sounded great. The next time I used them was at an indian pow wow. 2 per side, ran passive, powered by two I-Tech 6000's. during sound check I had a bit of feedback, nothing that seemed too extreme, but it took out three of the four horn diaphragm's. Having my 725's in the truck of course saved the weekend & I had no further problems. I went ahead and bought three replacement JBL diaphragm's, carefully installed them myself and put them away for a few weeks.
The next time out was during an event in the afore mentioned rodeo arena. Once again running passive, by the end of the night I had lost the same three diaphragm's. There were no feedback issues and the 725's running alongside performed flawlessly as they have for the last 6 years. (I have never lost a diaphragm in these speakers).
I have not used these speakers since, but it is now time to repair them & get them ready for another upcoming season. I have heard from two others that there is an issue with the early run of these speakers and wondered if maybe that isn't the reason that JBL had so many refurbished unit's to sell, due to customer returns. I e-mailed JBL about this last month & received nothing but silence. I had hoped that they might either replace the diaphragm's (hopefully with an upgraded part), or at least offer me a break on them. My next move is to call them, but I'm hoping to to hear from some others who have experienced this issue so that I might have some added "ammunition" when I call.
Now I know there are those who may say that I should have had JBL replace the diaphragm's as to properly align them. However, this new design has a lip that fits around the magnet tightly so it would seem to me that factory tech alignment should be unnecessary. I'm wondering, does anyone here think that this could actually be an internal crossover issue instead of a diaphragm issue? Also, seems strange that I've replaced the same three each time, but one of the original's has had no problem.
Thoughts?
