Passion of the Hi-Fi: Part VI - Resolution

“I hope that’s all I need.” After buying a replacement tweeter for one of my Usher S-520s, I asked Stan Tracht, US representative for Usher, a pair of questions.

“Will I need to solder anything?”

“No soldering needed,” Stan advised.

“Do I need to buy a second tweeter to ensure the speakers match?” I’m in the process replacing the tweeters on a pair of busted Polk Audio Monitor 7s I bought in the basement of the Silent Barn for $30. Adam Sohmer, Polk representative, recommended never having unmatched tweeters.

Tracht said, “No need to match the tweeters.”

That’s confidence!

The tweeter arrived two days later. It cost $25. It was surprisingly heavy.

I placed the speaker with the blown tweeter face up from the ground. Of course, the screws holding the tweeter could only be removed with the one Allen key I was missing.

My screwdriver with interchangeable heads was at Stereophile HQ. I needed it to take apart JA’s Creative EMU, a portable computer audio recording interface that I borrowed. While mishandling it during my own recording project, I dislodged the USB input, and the device no longer communicated to a computer. I disassembled the unit to take a look inside and found the golden walls of the USB input spread eagle. By clamping the walls of the input back together, I hoped to save the bird, but after re-affixing the circuit board and casework together, it didn’t even turn on.

Digging through a milk crate of wireless routers, ponchos, and other inessential essentials, I found an old set of drill bits, a high school graduation gift, but I didn't have a drill. I tried removing the screws with the drill bit in between my fingers. This failed. Fortunately, old-roommate Pete left some of his stuff behind while he found a new place including his drill(s).

After drawing out each screw just enough to grab, I twisted them out by hand. I tiltied the speaker to the side, and the tweeter plopped out dangling by a thick set of wires clipped on to posts on the left and right sides of the tweeter. Using needle-nose pliers, I pulled the wire’s pushpins off their posts. The tweeter’s magnet kept drawing my pliers towards the center of the tweeter. This was annoying, but ignoring the magnet’s force, I carefully forced the pushpins onto the new tweeter’s posts and screwed the tweeter back in place.

It worked. My soundstage was now evenly balanced between left and right, but the new tweeter sounded a little tight in its expression of the highs. I sent Stan an email.

Stan consoled me, “It will smooth out.”