The Mission 753 is a favourite speaker of mine. It was supplied in two versions. The standard, and then later on a revised edition described as the Freedom model
At the beginning of the series the tweeter supplied with the Mission 753 was a metal dome tweeter. This gave a very crisp top end to the speakers voice. However also detectable was a slight tizz in the top end that masks some of the detail. Worse than that, in time the top end tizz or sharpness begins to get a little wearing on the listener.
Mission received criticism for the overly sharp top end, and when they wished to revitalise sales in the speaker they replaced the metal dome tweeter with a softer sounding silk dome tweeter,much to the delight of the critics.This freedom model was considered an improvement.
Now my opinion. I loved the Mission 753 when it came out. I was a Hi Fi Salesman at the time, and there was something about the taughtness of the bass in the 753 that I just loved. Its competition at the time were transmission line speakers, and they never quite had the punch or the looks of the Mission. they also were bigger.
The freedoms on the other hand i disliked when I heard them. Though the top end was cleaner, the softness of it was not to my taste. Fair enough when married with the sharp as glass top end of the Marantz CD63Mk2 (loved by What Hi Fi) the silk domes certainly tamed the CD player. But i didn't like the CD63, I was using a DACMagic as my source.
Years later I read about a simple tweak to perform on the original Mission 753 tweeter, and I had to give it a go. I have lost the original forum posting, so If this is your mod I am describing, please get in touch with the original posting and i will be delighted to give credit where it is due.
Basically a lot of the high end tizz from the Mission 753 came not from the tweeter domes themselves, but from a wire mesh grill that covers them for cosmetic reasons. Remover the grill, improve the sound!
- Remove the four retaining bolts to the speaker, found on the front of the Mission 753. With a little prising the tweeter and its casing should pop out.
2. Carefully prise open the four retaining clips that fix the plastic bezel to the metal tweeter assembly. At this point be very wary. The plastic bezel also clips the tweeter dome to the magnet assembly. You need to remove the magnet at the same time as the front bezel.
You should now have a magnet assembly..
And separate to this the front bezel.
Step 3. Turning the bezel over you will see that the mesh grill is not permanently attached to the plastic bezel,
it should easily pop out to leave just the bezel.
Step 4. Reverse steps 2 and 1 to reassemble the tweeter and screw it back into the Mission 753 cabinet. You should be left with a plain metal dome protruding from the cavity.
Now repeat for the second speaker, find some nice music and enjoy your new smoother cleaner sound.
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