Thiel Owners

Rojacob, Thielrules, Jazzman, Jon_5912, TomThiel and all!
Thank you all for the great responses. Yes I think one of those fat straws would fit through and I love the idea of the paper towel roll. All great ideas.

That being said I found a video(see link below) of Paul McGowan talking about dented tweeter domes. In his opinion, depending on the extent of the dent, it would most likely not be a problem except cosmetically. His attitude was that it would not affect the sound quality. I was a bit skeptical about that and wanted to hear opinions from you guys.

I called Rob over at Coherent Source this morning. I wanted to run some of these ideas by him before I tried anything. He suggested the tape method as well. I mentioned the video of Paul and his opinion on dented tweeters. Rob agreed with Paul. Rob said as long as I was not hearing any buzzing, then the voice coil was not damaged and it would likely not be an issue.

JA and I are trying to get together for a listening session at my place in the next few weeks. I’m thinking I might wait for JA’s assessment before I try anything. That will give me time to keep listening, and thinking about what I want to do. I don’t feel any need to rush to fix it at this point.

That being said, I bet getting that dent to pop out with a paper towel roll or straw is probably the most satisfying feeling in the world. If I try anything I am leaning towards the paper roll or straw(I have the perfect water bottle straw).

Thanks for all the help. I will keep you all posted when I have an update.

https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/does-a-dented-dome-tweeter-matter/

Bighempin - I agree with Paul: in the pistonic range the same amount of air is moved, so the frequency response is not impacted very much. But there are further subtleties in my opinion. The shape of the compression wave coupled to the air will get turbulent as the frequencies approach the upper limit of the tweeter. I think it likely that the upper octave may become ragged with the crumpled dome.

Even though we, especially older male, listeners aren't supposed to hear above 15K (I'm out considerably lower than that), we somehow register anomalies in the upper ranges. I can hear the differences in various digital high-cut filter configurations, and all that stuff is supposed to be near or above 20kHz.

So, there may not be a "huge" difference, but then again, consider the effort we spend on getting quite small sonic improvements from our systems. The human ear-brain is a magnificent piece of work.

I had a previous spare set of CS3.6s that I bought with dents in both tweeters. I delicately pulled most of the dents out with clear Scotch tape, but with metal domes there will still be slight undulations. It doesn't just pop up in one motion, but requires multiple small pulls. I used clear tape since I could see through to the underlying dome. If you use a straw, I would use one made of soft rubber like comes in some of the "sippy cups" and preferably clear so you can watch as the dent comes out. Jon

Thanks Jafant.

(I admit to being perplexed by Andy's theistic allusions in regards to audio...)

andy2,

That's a third for visiting the Grand Canyon.
Going through the canyon in an inflatible raft is an awesome experience.