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Blown speaker?


Darklava

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Plugged in the Vibrolux and only one speaker

works.Now I've never noticed anything weird

like a crakle or what ever a blown speaker

should sound like,just nothing.There was a master

vol added to this amp and I use it wide open

with the other vol knob at three or four,which

is not that loud at all.Is there something that

could be causing this speaker not to work other

then it being blown?It's the main speaker,or the

one with four wires going to it.

The story of life is quicker then the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye.
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Two speakers wired together but only one works? That doesnt leave much does it?

Maybe check the little wires from the terminal board to the cone. A light tug to see if one has corroded or worn into might be revealing.

When i get big i'm gonn'a get an electric guitar...

When i get real big...

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I know that there are a ton of proper ways to test speakers and I'm sure someone will post a better method, but in the old days, we used to hook the wires up to a 9 volt battery. You hook up one of the contacts and brush the other. If you can hear a staticy crackle over the speaker (Very quietly), then the speaker is fine.

 

Also, you can sometimes tell by gently pushing in on the speaker cone and seeing if it moves in and out freely. If not, it is frozen and you are out of luck.

 

I hope this helps until someone who actually knows something about this comes along.

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Sounds like you need to try the battery test. You can also check it with a VOM (Volt/Ohm Meter) or continuity tester to determine if there is a circuit between the speaker's two contacts (you have to disconnect the speaker from the lead wires). If there's no continuity or infinite resistance the voice coil is burned out and the driver is toast.

 

If you try the battery test and you hear a crackle (which can actually be rather loud) then the speaker is working. I would then check the lead wires for continuity/resistance. Unhook them from the speaker first.

 

Are the drivers hooked up in parallel or in series? If they are in series (fairly unusual) and one works then the voice coil in the one that doesn't isn't burned out but it could have been melted and therefore the cone is stuck. If they are not in series you can try moving the wires from the one that works to the one that doesn't. If that speaker starts working then the wiring is faulty.

Born on the Bayou

 

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I think that it is worth mentioning that the 'battery test' can also fry things like tweeters, and my recommendation is that you just don't do it.

 

Continuity is a good check, which also sends a signal, but not as hot. If you get any continuity, then the speaker is okay, and there must be a wiring problem somewhere. Not that unusual... I found a 2/8" 'high impedance air gap' in a motor controller recently. It was sell hidden, up in the cable rather than on an end.

 

Bill

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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Originally posted by bpark@prorec.com:

I think that it is worth mentioning that the 'battery test' can also fry things like tweeters, and my recommendation is that you just don't do it.

Well, I've done it for about 35 years with never any problems. And I've used it to test full range speakers, woofers, mid-ranges, and tweeters (horn, piezo and cone).

 

In fact that was the only way we used to be able to tell which speaker we were wiring in when we wired up car stereos using existing wiring. Of course, we were only using a single 1.5V AA battery. I don't think I would use a 9V tranny battery. In any case only BRUSH the contacts and do it LIGHTLY. You aren't trying to make a good circuit. Only enough to send a signal down the wire.

 

Still what we were doing was improvisation because we were poor teenagers. And because we were trying to identify the correct speaker, it needed to make noise. A VOM won't do that. I just never got out of that (bad) habit when checking drivers although I have both a continuity tester and a VOM, now.

 

In a pinch the battery test will do. But if you can use proper test equipment (like an OHM meter) then you should use that.

Born on the Bayou

 

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So the conversation went like this:

 

" ....we used to hook the wires up to a 9 volt battery..... "

 

"Sounds like you need to try the battery test. "

 

followed by "my recommendation is that you just don't do it."

 

the "Of course, we were only using a single 1.5V AA battery. ..." came a little late for anyone trying to do quick troubleshooting from advice gathered here, and has nothing to do with the 9 volt battery recommended originally, to which I responded.

 

 

35 years ago I might have used a 9 volt battery on 15" JBLs (In fact, I know that I did.... like you, we used batteries as test signals when were were young and stupid) but I know that I have not done such a thing since the 80s. I suspect that there are a lot of things that we both did in the 80s that we would not do today, not all of which revolve around 9 volt batteries.... :eek: ...from absurd physical acts to bad fashion choices,,,.... do we really want to recommend these acts to others? (could be scary stuff!!!) :)

 

Bill

"I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."

 

Steve Martin

 

Show business: we're all here because we're not all there.

 

 

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Originally posted by bpark@prorec.com:

So the conversation went like this:

 

" ....we used to hook the wires up to a 9 volt battery..... "

 

"Sounds like you need to try the battery test. "

 

followed by "my recommendation is that you just don't do it."

 

the "Of course, we were only using a single 1.5V AA battery. ..." came a little late for anyone trying to do quick troubleshooting from advice gathered here, and has nothing to do with the 9 volt battery recommended originally, to which I responded.

 

 

35 years ago I might have used a 9 volt battery on 15" JBLs (In fact, I know that I did.... like you, we used batteries as test signals when were were young and stupid) but I know that I have not done such a thing since the 80s. I suspect that there are a lot of things that we both did in the 80s that we would not do today, not all of which revolve around 9 volt batteries.... :eek: ...from absurd physical acts to bad fashion choices,,,.... do we really want to recommend these acts to others? (could be scary stuff!!!) :)

 

Bill

Hee hee, you're right, Bill. I did leave the AA part a bit late. And I absolutely would not recommend some of the dumb things I've done over the years... :D

 

I'd give examples but I don't want to give anyone any more bad ideas. ;)

 

Sometimes, though I am a bit surprised at some of the things I hear people ask about that we pretty much took for granted everyone knew back when I was a teenager (in the 70s). :confused::)

Born on the Bayou

 

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