For those of you that have Paradigm Studio Reference v.2 speakers you may want to confirm your midrange drivers are working properly.
I have four Studio 40 v2 speakers which one had an issue with mid-range performance. I disassembled the speaker to determine if by chance a mid-range driver had burned out, but the speaker was fine. I then removed the crossover assembly which is part of the rear terminal block assembly - this was easily removed by four small screws (see attached rear terminal assembly picture.) Upon removal, both terminals of the mid-range driver were loose with cold soldier joints - I re-soldiered the terminals and reassembled the speakers assuming the issue was resolved. Unfortunately this did not resolve the issue.
The crossovers were disassembled again to further check out components. After generally confirming that the crossover components were functional, continuity of the traces revealed the issue - the mid-range circuit had a choke mounting hold in the middle of trace which only allowed very minimal/marginal copper foil trace. As can be seen from the attached picture, nearly all of the trace is eliminated due to the mounting hole except for a tiny sliver of continuity (essentially a fuse!) Appearing to be a PCB design flaw, the other three v2 speakers were disassembled to find they also had this same foil trace pattern with sliver fuse.
To repair the one speaker and prevent future failure of the other three speakers, I scrapped off the green insulating coating from the PCB traces on each side of the mounting hole, tinned the bare copper on both sides, and attached a 14ga copper wire jumper - see attached photo.
I also have a Paradigm Reference Studio CC-570 v3 Center Channel - it has a different terminal assembly and does not appear to have the same anomaly as my v2s.
Despite the slight design anomaly I am still very happy with the overall design, build, and sound quality of my paradigms.
Regards,
JARATHJE
Rear Speaker Terminal Crossover Assembly:
Midrange/Woofer Crossover Board 'before' modification:
Midrange/Woofer Crossover Board 'after' modification:
I have four Studio 40 v2 speakers which one had an issue with mid-range performance. I disassembled the speaker to determine if by chance a mid-range driver had burned out, but the speaker was fine. I then removed the crossover assembly which is part of the rear terminal block assembly - this was easily removed by four small screws (see attached rear terminal assembly picture.) Upon removal, both terminals of the mid-range driver were loose with cold soldier joints - I re-soldiered the terminals and reassembled the speakers assuming the issue was resolved. Unfortunately this did not resolve the issue.
The crossovers were disassembled again to further check out components. After generally confirming that the crossover components were functional, continuity of the traces revealed the issue - the mid-range circuit had a choke mounting hold in the middle of trace which only allowed very minimal/marginal copper foil trace. As can be seen from the attached picture, nearly all of the trace is eliminated due to the mounting hole except for a tiny sliver of continuity (essentially a fuse!) Appearing to be a PCB design flaw, the other three v2 speakers were disassembled to find they also had this same foil trace pattern with sliver fuse.
To repair the one speaker and prevent future failure of the other three speakers, I scrapped off the green insulating coating from the PCB traces on each side of the mounting hole, tinned the bare copper on both sides, and attached a 14ga copper wire jumper - see attached photo.
I also have a Paradigm Reference Studio CC-570 v3 Center Channel - it has a different terminal assembly and does not appear to have the same anomaly as my v2s.
Despite the slight design anomaly I am still very happy with the overall design, build, and sound quality of my paradigms.
Regards,
JARATHJE
Rear Speaker Terminal Crossover Assembly:
Midrange/Woofer Crossover Board 'before' modification:
Midrange/Woofer Crossover Board 'after' modification:
