When a speaker "blows" what actually happens. I suppose its different between a tweeter and woofer, but is there some mechanical damage or is it electrical. does something break? Besides a woofer cone ripping, what happens to a tweeter if it is still working, but raspy or staticy? I have heard "blown" speakers before, or ones that didnt work at all, but I really dont know what it is that breaks and whether it is fixable or just replace.
generally caused by a amp being pushed into distorted clipping and this generates heat in the speakers voice coil ruining it eventually. just a laymans definition. they can also catch fire....
Is there a way to test the speaker to see if there is a problem. The reason I ask is that in one of my speakers, when playing very loud, I heard a sudden rasping sound.When I reduced the volume, it sounded ok. It can still play quite loud without the rasping sound, but I dont really want to play it again as loud as it was to see if the sound comes back. IT was really loud, Pink Floyd Dark Side of Moon, Money. Quality amp of 275 watts, playing vinyl.
If you can move the driver over to the other speaker; pay attention to which wire goes to the proper terminal of the driver to see if the problem moves;if it moves then you have identified the driver as being bad. If these are a expensive or special driver and is damaged I would talk with Bill Legall of Millersound to get his opinion;he is highly respected in the business and his work is of the highest caliber.
Millersound 1422 Taylor Road Lansdale, PA 19446-1531 (215) 412-7700
Hi all ! Sounds like a rubbing voice coil .If you are handy remove the dustcap and manually move the cone in and out . You should see and hear where / what the problem is . Could be off-center ( sometimes fixed by pulling the driver and re-installing upside down ) or debris in the voice coil gap .
I would play It but not SOOOOO loud. You might have been clipping the amp. How loud is loud? I play hard rock over 90dbs at times like RUSH with lots of bass with out glipping my amp at all. But I have a Krell FPB 400cx. If you love It LOUD you better have lots of good clean power. Clipping a amp will blow any speaker no matter how good It is. You can never have to much power as long as It's good clean power. LOL
Tough question, alot of partial answers here. There are different ways a speaker can be blown. It is possible for a speaker to run out of excursion limits (travel), when this happens, you normally would hear a popping sound before it is too severly damaged. That popping is the voice coil former bottoming out against the magnet, then the voice coil is damaged from slapping against the magnet or the cone rips from too much travel as you stated in your question. The most typical problem has been somewhat addressed above by others. Amplifiers are driven to clipping, the voice coils heat up and either come apart or get so hot that they may partially melt and seize the cone. If a cone seizes its obvious, it is frozen (won't move). If the coil has partially come off the former, that is where you will hear a rubbing or garbled sound. As Elizabeth stated, you can put your fingers on both sides of the center of the cone and push evenly, if the coil has shifted, you will hear or feel a rub. If the tweeter is blown, most designs have replaceable diaphrams, its kinda like a recone on a mid or woofer. Reputable woofers and mids have recone kits available. It is very important to get the correct kit, the weight of the cone and stiffness of the surround and other things must all match for the performance to be the same of the original driver. Lastly, it is possible for a component to be bad in the crossover, typically a burnt resistor or a electrolytic cap can burst. So when you say, "what actually happens" it is a very broad question. I have given you a very broad answer, but one that I hope makes sense. Good Luck, Tim
Timlub, I suspect, after further investigation, that it is a problem with the crossover, as the mid and tweeter work fine, and no sound out of the 3 woofers on that speaker. I doubt that all three woofers would suffer mechanical damage and the same time. Any thoughts?
Manitunc, at this point, you need to remove 1 of the dead woofers and test it individually. If that works, you are on the right track with a crossover repair. I didn't see anywhere, did you say what speakers you have?
the crossover is not viewable or easily accessible. I will be taking it in to a dealer today to see if they have the tools to open it up. I cant imagine it would be a fuse that would not be accessible to the user. there is no sound at all from any of the three woofers in that speaker, but the midrange and treble work fine.
You could take a driver out 1 at a time and using a DVM measure the resistance of the speaker at the speakers terminals;maybe one is open and if they are wired in series then all the drivers would appear to be non operational.
ok, got the verdict today. the crossover was broken in two and laying at the bottom of the speaker. Unlikely caused by overdriving. I also doubt it happened in shipping as the speakers were well packed in the factory boxes. I suspect the original owner dropped the speaker at some time, causing an impact enough to crack the crossover board and perhaps later vibrations finished the job. Anyway, it will be replaced and fixed. This was an interesting voyage of investigating a problem that wasnt apparent on first examination. Easy to jump to conclusions on partial information.
Don't rule out the shipper dropping the package as this happens a lot more than one would think. The package could drop and land flat, so no damage would be evident to the box or the outside of the speaker, but cause internal damage like you're speaking of mainly because of the weight of the contents.
I would think there would be visual damage outside the speaker, or at least markings if someone dropped a speaker that wasn't packaged?
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