Is something causing my speakers to blow?

Question

I have 2 passive Peavy speakers (400w each) I use for mobile Djing, and they hadn't failed once in 5 years. Last week, one of them died mid-party, I had it fixed and last night it shorted out. Bad. I mean smoke coming out of the speaker, and all. The same thing happened to the other speaker 20 mins later, effectively killing the party. I just think it's really unusual for that to happen after 5 years of perfect performance, so I'm guessing something's causing the speakers to overload where they didn't before, so my question is what could possibly be causing my speakers to overload so bad without warning?

I haven't done any changes to my setup, i've always used the same 1000watt amp, same mixer, same sound cards, same everything, and I constantly check to make sure there's no audio clip or overload of any sort.

Ken C · Accepted Answer

If the speakers are smoking, then the voice coils are overheating.  Two things cause that....excessive signal / clipping or DC voltage.

It's entirely possible to have your system set up with no clipping or overload indicated, and still have the problem.  If some of the power transistors have failed in the power amp, it could be putting out a clipped signal at a low level. 

Likewise, an amp fail that puts DC voltage on a speaker will destroy it pretty quickly.

Get your amp checked out.  That's the only thing that could do this.

Good luck.

Greetings from Austin, Tx
Ken

AVDADDY · Answer

Amp.

Is something causing my speakers to blow?

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