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Dynaudio Confidence C1 broken & Cap question

Last night we sat down to listen to some music. I quickly noticed something was amiss. Sound was tilted toward one side and figured I had a cable or tube issue. After about 20 minutes of swapping cables and tubes and generally getting paranoid that my Pass Labs 350.5 amp was broken I swapped speaker placement and discovered that one of the midrange drivers was dead. That was somewhat of a relief.

Having purchased these used I took the offending speaker apart. After unsoldering the driver from the cross over board I checked the driver with a 9 volt battery and noted no cone movement. The wires are still secure but something is definitely wrong here. I called Dynaudio this morning and got the impression that because I don't have a receipt, other than AG, they are not going to help me. I'm waiting to hear from tech support. Anyone have any experience with used, broken, expensive equipment and refused support?

If in fact they do and I don't end up with a mono system, I was wondering about the Solen caps on the x-over and a possible upgrade to platinums. Any thoughts on this?
128x128desalvo55
desalvo55's avatar
desalvo55 OP
257 posts
 
I've spoken with the Dynaudio folks who were suprised to here that one of their drivers went down. The gentleman I talked to said it was the first he's known about. Lucky me.

The cost to replace is about $550 dollars. I'm hopeful they'll cut me a deal. I'm shipping the broken driver back to Dynaudio.

The prior owner I'm pretty certain had nothing to do with the problem of this speaker. They played fine for a month..

We sometimes play music pretty loud, especially my wife. I hope this isn't a pattern to continue. I would hate to feel shy turning up the volume on 7K dollar speakers for fear of breakage! That being said I'm wishful for a way to limit the low end excursion on these drivers and allow my JL Audio Fathom F113 to fill in the space below say 40-45Hz. I think this would have a positive effect on the C1's and perhaps ease my fears of broken drivers.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,389 posts
 
The most common cause of blowing out speaker drivers is clipping from an amp being overdriven.

I don't know what amp you use, but offloading the low end to a good sub like that sounds like the right thing to do.

Also, if the large excursions are due to rumble during vinyl playback, you might want to look into getting a handle on reducing that because that drains power from the amp in order to reproduce noise, not music. For digital and other sources, rumble should not be a problem.
jerry_gt3rs
82 posts
 
I purchased a pair of C1s here and shortly their after found one of the bass drivers had a problem at certain frequencies. I was using a set up disc to dial in a sub and the issue was immediately evident. I spoke to my local dealer that I have done a fair amount of business with and they ordered me a matching pair of bass drivers. I replaced them and they worked perfectly until I sold them. I am sure the most any Dynaudio dealer will be happy to help. Good luck, Jerry
desalvo55's avatar
desalvo55 OP
257 posts
 
I was running my C1's with a pair of Nuforce 9SEV2's and noted that on some material, I could hear the cone having issues that was not pleasant. Deciding that my little copper jewels didn't have the ba, ah, current to drive the C1's, I sold my Nuforces and bought the Pass 350.5. No more weird little issues now but maybe the damage was done earlier.

Still waiting for an email from the Dynaudio folks.

Would like to have a simple method of crossing the Dyn's higher like a change in the x-over. I would think it easily done but I'm no speaker designer. I did grab the values off the caps and still wonder about the platinum bypass caps.
xti16
1,525 posts
 
The C1's really sound the best when driven fairly loud. That being said with your amp it's possible to be over driven. I met with 3 Dynaudio reps at my dealer on 2-27 and they told me they have one of the lowest failure rates for speakers. Lowest doesn't mean - zero failures. I'm sure if you send the bad driver back to Dynaudio they can tell you what happened if you get a replacement.

Personally I would not change the crossovers in any way.

BTW I too own a pair of C1's and love them. I can't think of any way to make them sound better.
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