Did I damage my speakers?


Group,
Need your expertise: I own a pair of Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Baby Grand SE's.

I recently paired them with a new-to-me set of Bel Canto REF600M monos, which replace a Bel Canto REF500S dual mono stereo amp. My preamp is a Bel Canto Pre3VB with the battery power unit.

This weekend the tweeters and upper mids, vocals (mostly female), piano,  sound hazy, at times somewhat distorted, grainy. My listening level is typically between 60-75db. I don't push these speakers hard, but I'm also getting acquainted with an amp now giving 100wpc more than I'm used to. Recently I may have pushed these speakers a bit too hard, getting up into the 80db range a few times. Could I have over-driven the tweeters with this more powerful amplifier?

I've owned the REF600M's for about two months; until this weekend, never heard this kind of distortion/congestion at the top end. Doesn't happen on everything I play (mostly CD's). Before this weekend the sound has been wonderful.

I've had these speakers for almost 7 years and have never noticed something like this before.

Wondering how to troubleshoot this.

Thanks in advance for your insight/perspective.

J


arcamguy
80dB should not be challenging at all, and should not be harmful to practically any HiFi floor standing speaker in the world. It is also doubtful that both speakers have failed in precisely the same way at the same time. Far more likely we are looking at an electronics issue.

I suspect your problem lies in the battery unit. I wonder if the charge from the battery supply is failing/weak, and thus would cause distortion when playing. I presume it would not simply fail like a light switch, but would falter and cause the distortion. If you have a software package for digital streaming that allows volume control through the software, then you could hook it up using the software volume control, bypassing the battery preamp and going direct to the mono amps. BUT, you MUST have software attenuation! Do NOT hook up the amps directly without some attenuation/level adjustment. With a more direct setup you can determine whether the preamp/battery supply is the culprit.

Or, you can buy an inexpensive attenuator and put it in line. You may actually prefer the sound of one of these alternative setups to the preamp in the system. You cannot know unless they are tried. So, you could turn it into an exploratory time for the system, too. Why not try to push for a big improvement while hassling with it? I use problems to spur me to move the rig to a much better sound quality. :)

Have you had power outages that could cause the battery supply to fail to charge properly?

If you still have problems, even after removal of the preamp, then you likely can zero in on the amps as the culprit. But, again, not very likel that both would fail identically. Perhaps you should isolate your speakers L/R and see if only one is acting up, or both. That would tell you something, too.

Recheck your connections.
@douglas_schroeder 

Thanks for the input. I don't do digital streaming, but I do have another preamp I can put in the system to see if that eliminates the issue.

Never thought it could be the preamp. I should note I do not keep my system on 24/7, and powered it up after being off for several days. I usually keep it on throughout the weekend.

I'll keep you updated,
Regards,
J







Good suggestion with the preamp. Before you swap out the pre,check all connections. Speaker,red to red,black to black. I always try to trouble shoot the simplest things first. 
J, keep in mind a more powerful amp is LESS likely to damage your speakers (by making clipping less likely).  So when you "pushed" the speakers into the 80db range you were only drawing one watt or so of power, regardless of which amp was used.  So as the others have stated, the problem is not the speakers.  Let us know what you find.