Do Audiophiles blow speakers?

Nrchy, did you hear about the terrorist that tried to blow up a bus?

Burned his mouth on the exhaust pipe.

No but some of their speakers really blow!

Cknight

Something called RMS, or average power. When you had the volume at that level, along came a sudden transient, a bass guitar, a drum, whatever, you heard your woofer bottom out against the stops. No harm. Try not to keep doing it however.
Transients can be several times the average level.
If all you played was a pure tone at say 100Hz ( a pure sine wave)...this is the value the speaker manufacturer specs for power handling, not musical signals whose peaks and valleys are far to random.

You have not blown a driver, just your nerves. Turn it down!!

Shortly after purchasing new alon 5 mk 11's I was listening to a very dynamic LP. I heard the gun shot - like a 30-06 and subsequently the tell tale buzz of a blown woofer. Manufacturer replaced on the house- one time only. My solution was to replace amp and have had no problems since.

mckeown

OK, maybe this is a stupid question, but here goes: I own a 250W amp (MF A5)- and speakers that are rated at 300W (VSA VR-4jr's). Thus, I thought, I can turn up the volume as much as I like- even all the way- and my speakers will be able to handle it. So I tried it! I was, well, saddened- but not really surprised- to hear a tremendous POP (like a gun shot) from the left speaker when the volume was at about 7... I immediately turned the volume back down.

Now... my stupid question. 1. Since the amp's max wattage is less than the speakers handling capacity, why can't I turn the volume all the way up? and 2. does this POP mean that I have blown a driver? As far as I can tell the system still sounds fine. Advice would be very welcome!

In my early days I have taken out a few tweeters in some Polk SDA speakers. I can only take partial blame as it was common in the 1980's Monitor line of Polk speakers. Then again, the 80's were part of my party days.
I have not blown a speaker since.

Bill

I have not blown a speaker in 45 years, but a ARC SP6 blew both of my Linn Isobarik speakers. This was the preamp that would turn off with low voltage and then turn on when it went higher emiting dc which fused both speakers. I will never buy another ARC component as they dismissed any responsibility.

Back when I was into car audio...
I took the stock speaker out of the door. I hooked it up to my 500 watt soundstream amp and turned the volume all the way up and played a 60hz test tone. It was really cool sounded like a model airplane. the speaker jumped around and started to smoke that is before it melted. The second one just went POP! the third one jumped around and then quit no smoke :( The forth one had a meeting with a screwdriver.

I also took an extension cord that got run over by a lawn mower and hooked it up to my car sub that wasn't in a box. Plugged it in got some serious excursion out of the speaker! I don't think it blew. I really can't remember. So I don’t know if that one counts.

I kept playing a the roar of a T-Rex(from a Telarc CD)over and over while increasing the volume each time on my 802's. A new tweeter was $110.

nope...only money

What, you think audiophiles are too smart to blow speakers?

hmmmm...too smart... these are the folks that will spend $3000 on interconnects... or will write on their CDs with green pens to realign the bits ....

I once blew about 8 drivers in one day - decided to hook up a bunch of small paper cone cheapo drivers to my sears silvertone tube amplifer - cranked up my fender strat - jammed away and heard the most beautiful distortion - before every driver failed one by one...

But of course I was not yet an audiophile in high school - so I guess that does not count.

Well, if Fotis_k is gonna get all off-topicky on us, I guess I'll just have to add this one:

A penguin was driving through Arizona on a hot, summer Sunday when he noticed his oil light was on. He got out of the car and, sure enough, it was leaking oil all over the road.

The penguin drove around the corner to a service station and asked the mechanic to take a look at it. The mechanic said he had a few others to look at first but if he came back in an hour he could tell the penguin what was wrong with his car. The penguin agreed and went for a walk.

He found an ice-cream shop and thought a big bowl of vanilla ice cream would really hit the spot, since he was a penguin and it was Arizona in the summer, after all. He sat down at the counter and started in on his ice cream. Of course he had no hands so it was rather messy. By the time he was done he had ice cream all over his flippers, and his mouth was a total mess. He walked back to the service station and said to the mechanic, "Did you find out what is wrong with my car?"

The mechanic replied, "It looks like you've blown a seal." "No no," said the penguin. "It's just ice cream."

Blown a speaker?
I once gave a great speech in high school english class, but no one seemed to find it THAT good..........
sorry- couln't help myself.

Yes, Celestion Mod. 3 old audiophile fav. I don't know why just figure hooking up with amp stupidly left on. Would anybody know where I could get replacement drivers for this model anyway??? Thanx a lot Jack

Fotis,

I noticed you still called him a friend. If someone did that to my speakers he would have gotten a free trip on "boot airlines" right out the front door.

Good luck with the therapy. Currently both my systems are down and I've been spending most of my time in the fetal position.

Fotis, with any luck your friend may see what happens in the meat grinder :)

OK, my turn-
Over the holidays I had friends and family over, all respectable people. I even managed to avoid my wifes friend, the one with the two evil boys. Evil 6 year olds break things.
I ran upstairs, came down to no music. My obviously mentally challenged friend, who for some unknown, illogical, complete lack of sense of reasoning, decided to get his dumb self of the sofa and push into the mid range driver of my Gershmans. He said he was "curious." There is now a lovely crease where no crease belongs. Now, is this coincidence, but the tweeter stopped working on the OTHER speaker, at the SAME time. What else did he do? I don't want to know.
I am nearly heart broken.
O.K., this can be repaired, but the sheer stupidity is truly frightening. How can he not forget to breathe? I wonder if "curiosity" will lead him to wonder what will happen if he shoves his head in a meat grinder. It's been two weeks and I've yet to speak to him.
So, to Gershman-land the speakers go for some R&R and a therapist for me.Or my friend.

I think the Krell puts out about 150 w/ch into 8 ohms, doubling into 4 - I don't think it should be underpowered really. I hoping to keep it for rear duty and have a similar kind of power amp / amps to drive them in the future - so I hope not!

Your suggestion of clipping would explain why the resistors didn't blow, but the tweeters did however.......would you agree?

Dmurfet

Despite my veiled confession, I do think that clipping blows speakers more than volume, absolute power or intoxication.

Relative to your speakers, could your amp be a bit underpowered?

I was stone cold sober when I blew mine up CW.

It makes me wish I was otherwise, especially when I get the bill, but 'twas not so.

Leedistad

You, Sir, did not blow up your speakers.

Your faulty preamp blew up your speakers.

I stand by my position that audiophiles, when sober, do not blow up speakers.

Audiophiles do not blow speakers when sober.

Untrue. I blew up both 8" drivers and half the midrange drivers in a pair of Totem Wind. The preamp I was using shorted, and sent unattenuated white noise at full gain to the amp, which faithfully reproduced it at full blast and fed it to the speakers. KABOOM! Actually, it sounded more like WONK!SCHNORK!POP!scufflescufflescuffle!

FWIW, the amplifier was totally unharmed

Audiophiles do not blow speakers when sober.

i blew a couple of drivers of my ap libra's running pse studio v mono blocks... much to my surprise they didnt have enough current ( pse studio v's are pretty good in regards to current,however the libra's are pretty inefficent- 85-86 db @ 4 ohms...)

i changed the pse for classe cam 350 monos and never blew another driver and i listen to pretty stupid levels sometimes (when the wife isnt home..::)

also, never blew a driver in the car system either (balanced eclipse deck, zapco monos blocks on the comp. speakers and jl 500/1 on the subs, dynaudio seperates and image dynamic subs)

Bassman99

It sounds like you are a demanding user.

Consumer audiophile gear is designed to sound good at reasonable sound levels and not specifically designed to be played at extremely high levels for long periods (coils heat up and fail). Also an 8 inch woofer is never likely to play extremely loud as it simply doesn't move enough air ....why else do rock concerts feature rows and stacks of many 12" and 15" woofers.

Also note that as a coil heats up - its impedance rises and this leads to audio compression => as speakers heat up they actually start to play less loud....this may cause a user to crank up the volume more to compensate for the lower SPL output...eventually leading to higher temperatures and eventual damage/failure....a vicious circle.

My suggestion would be to go for pro gear - like they use in high end night clubs or recording studios - these speakers will be big rather than esthetic but they will have more expensive magnet designs for reliable high SPL's with less compression ....big woofers for high SPL's and big magnets that dissipate all the heat generated.

Another option may be to go for speakers with circuit protection or an amplifier with a soft clipping circuit....but if you like loud crystal clear sound then pro gear is probably your best bet.

I have blown countless speakers over the years and proud of it too!

It seems to be a regular hazard for someone who spends countless hours listening to music and has multi-room setup. I admit that a couple of times it was not me - once the kids and another time when someone turned it up too loud at a party....a crowd of people absorb sound (so does the beer!) and make you need higher SPL's then listening alone....sometimes higher than the system can handle ..tweeters seem to go most often but I have blown woofers too.

Fortunately over time I have migrated away from consumer gear to pro gear and professionals are pretty hard on their gear and often require repairs....so it is pretty simple and inexpensive to have the drivers re-coned or order replacement tweeters if those get over driven and burnt....I have done this on three separate occasions over the past 10 years.

Simply put

I am amazed.

Nope sorry Oneobgyn, the resistors were intact and both tweeters have been blown :-(

Chap has prders two new tweeter from Provo, but since most of them will be at CES, it may take a while.......I still have demo cabling but I can't use them!

That is the beauty of Wilson speakers...you will blow a resistor and probably never a driver.

Dmurfet...you should be able to change the resistor yourself. It takes all of 30 seconds and they are included in the kit that comes with your speakers.

I've blown both the protective resistors on my Wilson's accidentally before xmas by getting off the sofa with a remote and a cd case in my hand, not noticing that my finger was being pressed against the volume up button. By the time I had realised, both tweeters now do not work......should be fixed on Friday.....

You can if you are not careful, broke leadout wire to a KEF B139 Woofer. Had to repair it by unwinding part of the voice coil. I think I was playing Beethovens Victory Symphony, the one with all the cannons and muskets, on an LP as well.Regards Anthony.

Easy Bassman99 easy. It's the weekend. Head on over to the loudest band in town tonight and hang out by the monitors. You'll feel much better till the morning, anyway. Just kidding! Don't do it. Your ears will thank you.

i guess if your speakers are soundind sweet it's just natural to want to make them louder. it is for me and i have blown my celestion impact 25 woofers with my ps audio hca amp last year . then the following year blew the tweeters then now again the woofers.gets expensive replacing them . not sure how iam doing it since my amp has plenty of current & i don't hear distortion cause we all know how crappy distortion sounds.and it just makes you want to lower your preamp to get rid of it . but in my case i started hearing a rumbling sound in my woofer one morning then realized something was wrong then before i could replace it the other woofer in the other speaker started having a worse rumble than the other one.then i realized i damaged i guess the voice coils or the diaphrams in them and at this point am looking to get new speakers all together.in the last 6 months i blew my car jl audio sub woofer by blowing the voice coil with a ppi 400 watt ampin guess i pushed it a tad over its rating no one i talked to has heard oif blowing a jl audio sub with a ppi amp but i did.150.00 for repair or 160 for a new speaker that's a no brainer. i guess i really need to chill on the volume but i want it louder.i have a power amp rated at 225 wpc ps amp and an m&k mx 105 sub and still doesn't seem tyo play loud enough for me so i keep blowing my speakers .maybe i am buying speakers with to small a woofer in them . 8 inch woofers should be ample right! this is getting old and at this point i am so frustrated with it i feel like selling everthing i bought and just get some good headphones.not sure why i am writing this crap i already know what i need to do just play my music softer but hell thats weak.enjoy.

Spica Angelus woofers tweeters got tired of replacing them their Great speakers but just can't play loud enough for me.
Interesting story my friend had a party his Cerwin Vega woofers got totally trashed when someone pushed the 10 db gain button on the preamp, was already 100 decibels already.

Matti,

Some of those young interns also say the "political powerful" in Washington are very hard on books.

Guess they were talking about books, the complaints were concerning "bending over the pages".

Ask this on the Washington D.C. interns forum for additional input.

Hmmm, I better knock on wood I guess!

I never have but my son destroyed three of the four woofers in a pair of Paradigm 9SEmkIIIs a few years ago (damn that rap music). The Paradigms were one of my earliest forays into quality speakers. I replaced the drivers with look alikes from MCM and gave the speakers to my son. He still listens to them. I replaced the speakers with Thiel CS1.5s.
When someone asks about a damaged speaker I know what blown voice coils sound and feel like.

I left my tube amp on in the morning because i was going to listen later, left the house and came back an hour later to hear a very loud hum before i even opened the door! One tube went bad, caused a low freq hum in the right channel, and took out a woofer on my 1 month old speakers! My tenants upstairs thought a spacecraft was in my living room!

I Once blew the tweeters in a pair of Cerwin Vegas with an NAD 3020 amp when I was in high school.

I also bottomed the woofers hard (CRACK!) in a pair of Paradigm Studio Monitors with an Adcom 5800 four years ago. The woofers were undamaged though, and the speakers are still in service.

Blew up the crossovers on my Martin Logan Quest Z's, and totally fried the woofers on a pair of Spica Angelus. In both cases I was having a party and let others control the volume. Live and learn, I haven't let anyone touch my system in 10 years.

I have noted all of your names and will never buy used speakers from you.

I will NEVER blow my speakers, I love them too much and they respect me for it !! HA !!!!!!!!!

I have been known to use such a technique for popping dented soft dome tweeters. What can I say, I love my system.

Yes. You don't want to know the list of issues.

Chadnliz, you werent playing Aerosmith's "Big 10 Inch" at the time by any chance, were you?

lmao, oh well atleast this got members talking, my wife wanted to see what it was like to blow a speaker, boy that 12 inch woofer looked pretty funny in her mouth...ooooops

lmao, oh well atleast this got members talking, my wife wanted to see what it was like to blow a soeaker, biy that 12 inch woofer looked pretty funny in her mouth...ooooops

I don't swing that way but I bear no ill will toward those who do.

((Sorry,someone had to say it.))