I had a tweeter go out on my speaker. I'm on a limited budget(as seems to be my whole depressing life) and so I don't want to buy another set of speakers. My dad has these external home tweeters hooked up to his stereo from Radio Shack. They look like horns and they sound really good- their not to high and I think they even have midranges in them. The problem is he bought these like 15 years ago. Does anyone know why I can get some like these? I tried googleing but I only came up with ethier car tweeters or square in speaker tweeters.

try www.partsexpress.com

You probably won't get good results by just attaching a tweeter to your current system - it would need to be integrated with the woofer with the correct phase and crossover point for decent results. A much better (and likely cheaper) solution would be to replace the blown tweeter driver with a matching one. You would need to identify what it was, buy a replacement and swap them out. This is unlikely to take more than basic soldering skills.

If you know the brand of the speakers with the blown tweeter, you could probably find somebody at www.diyaudio.com to identify the tweeter and recommend a replacement.

I have a JVC home theater receiver and I noticed that I can assign highs to one speaker, mids to another, ect. Would it matter in this case what the correct correct phase is?

By "external", you mean these are in little ~3" square boxes that sit on top of your regular speakers? I vaguely remember something like that in the Radio Shack catalog.

If you hook-up a regular (dynamic*) tweeter in parallel with your full-range speakers, you must use a "crossover"** capacitor in series with the tweeter. Otherwise, the low frequencies will burn-it up! (Those add-on tweeters probably had an internal capacitor.)

Of course, you can never tell how any tweeter will sound with your existing speakers until you try them.

Parts Express has a chart to help you select a crossover capacitor. It would be best to order a small selection and experiment. A smaller capacitor will push-up the crossover frequency. A larger-value capacitor will bring-in some mid-frequencies. If the crossover frequency is too low, it may sound "harsh". A very small capacitor can push the crossover point up where it becomes a "super tweeter" operating only at very high frequencies. This should give a more subtle effect. A higher frequency will also give you more power-handling, as more frequencies are blocked. (And, if you use a tweeter at lower-than-specified frequencies, it can't handle it's rated power.)

Another option is a piezo tweeter (example) which naturally presents a capacitive load. You can get horn versions that look OK without a box. (I have a pair, and I put some pinstripes inside the horn to improve the appearance.) They are generally very affordable, sensitive (loud), and can take high-power... (Your Radio Shack tweeters may have been piezos.)

You may need to add an R/C (resistor/capacitor) network to improve the sound. I found some information here about making a network for a piezo tweeter. You can use a resistor network to decrease the volume level, or an R/C network to push-up the crossover frequency.

In that case, you don't have to worry about the crossover issues. But, are you sure about that? This kind of set-up is called "bi-amped" or 'tri-amped", etc. Since a "home theater" system is usually 5.1 channels, this would require 11 amplifier-channels for a bi-amped system, and 16 amplifier-channels for a tri-amped system! It usually requires an electronic crossover and external amplifiers. Except for a separately amplified subwoofer, this type of set-up is very unusual for a home-theater or home-stereo. It is more common with high-end car audio, and very common with professional live-concert sound. Usually, the phase is marked with +/- or coded red/black on both the speakers and the amplifier. Red is positive and black is negative (or common-ground).

Almost everybody's on a limited budget... It's just that some people are limited to $10 and other people are limited to $1000.



* A regular-dynamic tweeter has a voice coil. A Piezo tweeter does not.

** An additional-external capacitor does not make a "proper" crossover network, but you can usually "get-away" with it. It does block the lows from the tweeter, but it does not block or "re-route" the highs from the main speaker. This presents more of a load to the amplifier (lower resistance) at high frequencies.

P.S.
I found a few add-on/external tweeters:

HiVi TN28
Pyle PAHT6
Pyramid PMBHTW4
Gem Sound ST21
PowerAcoustik NX10

A couple more thoughts...

If you are able to disassemble your existing speakers, you should be able to find a tweeter that fits mechanically. Or, you may be able to modify the speaker's front panel by cutting-out a larger hole, or making a little "patch panel" with a smaller hole. If it's a "traditional" wooden speaker, you may be able to make a completely new front panel. If it's a ported speaker, you'll need to duplicate the port design. (You'll need some new grill-cloth too.)

If you do end-up using external tweeters, you should cut the wires going to the good-tweeter, so that the left & right speakers have matching sound (assuming you can get inside the speaker box). It would be a good idea to cut the wires to the bad tweeter too, since it might still be drawing current. And, you might want bring-out the tweeter wires to use the existing crossover network with your new external tweeters.