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Door Tweeter Not Playing

4K views 11 replies 4 participants last post by  BreadTM 
#1 ·
My passenger door tweeter does not have any sound coming out of it. The regular speaker in the door is working fine. I'll be taking the tweeter out and trying it on the driver's side tomorrow, but assuming that it doesn't work on either side does that mean I need to replace the tweeter? I've read that the inline filter goes bad on the tweeters, but I have no idea how to check that or replace it. Can anyone tell me how to do that?
 
#2 · (Edited)
It would be very helpful if you say weather you have firebird or camaro, what year and which system you have as they are different for each make and several factory options.

But studing the firebird 94 diagram with 10 speaker system; the tweeter gets power directly from same wire as mid range. Just a splice and wire to tweeter.

So look for trouble at the wire splice to tweeter, or better yet just hook up another speaker and see if it works. If yes, get another tweeter, if no, download the appropriate service manual from sticky threads of 4th gen section, or go to www.bbbind.com and download the radio wiring. diagram for your car.

Since the system has no crossover network in it, the way most companies split the sound frequencies up is to put a capacitor of the correct value in the tweeter somewhere. The capacitor causes the low frequency signal to pretty much go away, which leaves just the high frequency signal for the tweeter to reproduce.
 
#3 ·
D'oh, yes that would be helpful. It a 94 Trans Am with the UW2 sound system that is all stock minus the headunit.
The wires look good, but I will check them a little more just to make sure. If the capacitor was dead would that stop the tweeter from playing anything at all?
 
#4 · (Edited)
Yes it would but it is easy enough to check with you multimeter set to ohms. I believe the tweeter has a 4 ohm rating. If capacitor is dead you won't get continuity between the 2 speaker terminals.

Of course a bad speaker coil will produce the same results. In either case no continuity between + and - terminals means bad speaker.
 
#5 ·
Yeah, make sure the speaker is disconnected from the stereo when you do the continuity check too.
 
#6 ·
I've got the tweeter out. The drivers side tweeter works and when I plug the passenger tweeter into the drivers side, it still does not work. So it's the tweeter that's the problem.
I can't get a reading with the multimeter though, maybe I'm doing something wrong? It's a digital multimeter and it stays at 1.
 
#9 · (Edited)
If the capacitor is in a place where you can get to it, try unsoldering it, then using your multimeter set to ohms on the wires running directly to speaker cone. If you get continuity, (0 to around 4 ohms) then tweeter is good and a new capacitor of the same value as old one will solve the problem.

You do know that when using a multimeter on ohms setting, the positive red lead must be moved from voltage hole to the ohms,amps hole.

And as hrcslam has added, when testing ohms, always disconnect what you are testing from the power source. In the tweeters case, take the wires off from stereo.

If you still get no continuity on the ohms test, then new tweeter time has arrived.

If it is the capacitor make sure you buy the same value as the old one. If you use a different value capacitor, you will change the crossover frequency to tweeter.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I looked at factory wiring diagram again. It shows the capacitor is in the midrange speaker, and it's an actual crossover network.

So when you use the multimeter, set to ohms to check the tweeter, you are getting the actual reading of the coil of the tweeter. If your not getting a 0-4 ohm reading, the speaker coil is bad.

Get a new tweeter.

I've added part of the wiring diagram. The red circled part is the midrange speaker where the crossover network is located. If you wish a larger image, right click on image and save image to desk top where it can be enlarged to see better.
 

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