Advice needed: tweeter damage from a high frequency pure tone test

[underthetable]

Hi there. I made a classic beginner mistake, and played a pure 18k tone fairly loudly (not quite max volume, but probably not far off) through a pair of floor-standers. Shortly after, after actually thinking, I realised I could have damaged the tweeters. I downloaded a frequency analyser app on my phone, and again played some high frequency tones, but at an extremely low volume. I managed to get a reading up 20kHz for both speakers. Phone+app could not detect anything above that. I guess that could be a limitation of the phone mic and or analyser app. Given this result, would you say that the tweeters are damaged? I know it's difficult to judge online without proper measurements, but any help would be appreciated.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Welcome to ASR.

Hard to say. Having done what you did more than once, last time I had REW sweeps. So I compared the before and after. Everything from the tweeter was way down. Wasn't zero, but not much versus prior to my ill advised tone. So I replaced the tweeters, and everything matched the earlier sweep reading.

TIP: don't do tones on speakers, use sweeps. Or modest level wideband noise. So maybe do some -20 db pink or white noise and you can get an idea if the tweeter is doing its part. Also, is it a speaker that has been measured somewhere? The measurement published will give you a rough idea of how high the tweeter level is vs everything else.

And yes, likely both the phone software, phone mic and speakers might be limited to 20 khz. The software certainly is if it runs at 44 khz or 48 khz sample rates.

 

[underthetable]

Thank you, and thanks for the tip. Yes, I will definitely stay away from pure tones for the future.

I just played some pink noise, and recorded the measurements below (left and right). The speakers are Focal 826, so probably similar to https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/focal-chora-816-speaker-review.42988/. Although, I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Just from what you show there I doubt the tweeters are blown.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Last time I damaged a tweeter it manifested itself by very uneven frequency response and high distortion. You can measure both with REW from close distance and a moderate volume sweep.

 

[JoachimStrobel]

I damaged mine playing a single Frequency. But then it was gone completely, that was easy to find out!

 

[underthetable]

Just tried a frequency sweep with REW and a built-in MacBook mic close to one of the speakers. Any thoughts?

 

[McFly]

your tweeters are fine.