Speaker damaged or blown..? quick question

[Tyler]

Can you blow a speaker in other ways than physical damage.. like to the cone?

i was jamm'n to UNEARTH today on my way to work and it was hitt'n hard. and nicely. then all of a sudden i smelt an electrical like burning scent then the speaker or amp? started not hitting all the time. and when it hits its fuzzy. but the amps on my guage still drop like usual.

speaker or amp?

when low volume it plays fine.

when i crank it, it is fuzzy and weak and misses quite often

[fenderman]

You can damage a speaker in a lot of ways. How old are the speakers? One of the factory speakers in my 99 went not too long ago and the spider tore completely on the inside allowing the diaphragm to travel further than usual. During low songs with little bass it was fine because the diaphragm traveled very little. However when there was a bass intensive song or it would get turned up really loud it made a really horrible buzzing sound with some pops in between. When I replaced all the speakers in my car I took the bad one and looked at the spider, pushing on the diaphragm from underneath. The voice coil came all the way out from the center of the magnet. I am thinking the same thing is happening to you. When the voice coil comes out completely it can bind up when the speaker pushes it back towards the magnet. This may explain why the speaker misses at times during those bass intensive songs. During low volumes you are not driving the voice coil very far so the spider does very little in this situation.

You can tell pretty easily if it is the speaker by simply removing it and inspecting the inside for any rips or tears at the spider. Do not flex the speaker too much but you should be able to see if you push just a little bit whether the spider is travelling with the diaphragm or not. If you have no clue what I am talking about, check out this link:

http://www.audiovideo101.com/graphics/cutaway.jpg

If you suspect the amp the only way to diagnose a problem that I've ever heard of is to have the amp tested. Of course, if you have another speaker of the same impedance and power rating you can test it that way but I'm guessing if you had one you would have already tried that route.

If you do determine that the speaker is the problem I would look into why it failed. If it is just age, that is fine but if we are talking about a relatively new speaker I'd double check that the impedance and power ratings of the speaker match those of the amp. Of course if your speaker will handle above and beyond the power rating of the amp that's fine but the impedances should definitely match. If the numbers check out and the speaker is relatively new I would still have the amp tested to make sure it is not subjecting your speakers to premature failure.

[death2ricers]

Dude your speakers are gone, get new ones!!

[Tyler]

wooohooo thank god for warrantees!!!