Exhibits, Shows and Displays

floorstanding speaker question!!?

I bought a pair of used SONY floor standing speakers a while ago, and now it seems the left column is failing to sound good. i can check it by just comparing while only playin one speaker at a time. i also tried disconecting the right one and plugging that into the left speaker and the sound quality is still horrible. I listen to a lot of electronica big beat stuff, and i was bumpin' em pretty loud today, but i dont think i blew the spaekers, it just sounds like only one out of the 3 on the column work. i unscrewed one speaker to peek inside and the wires go from the crossover to teh speaker fine. anyone had any ideas what could be wrong?

Public Comments

1. You could have blown speakers of the crossover inside the box. I would take out each speaker and check to see if one or more might have a burned out coil. All you need is a meter or even a battery and flashlight bulb. just connent the wires to light the bulb and then take one wire off the battery and toch it to one terminal of the speaker and touch the end of the battery that it was on to the other spaker terminal. If the bulb lights up, then the speaker is good, if not it is blown. If they all check out ok then I would look on the crossover board for coils or other parts that look or smell burnt. These parts can be replaced cheaply and easily if you ar comfortable soldering and can get the parts. Good Luck!
2. Ok, here we go. Remove each speaker and wire it directly to the wire coming into the array or column. Do NOT do the tweeters like this. Now, at LOW volume, with some Jazz or clean music, never rock, listen to the speaker. It will sound tinny because there is no cabinet baffle, but, you are listening for distortion. See, you can have continuity, but, still have a blown speaker. The tolerance between the voice coil and magnet is extremely tight, so it won't take much to hear a "scratchy" sound, which means the voice coil got hot enough to not "open" itself up, but, has changed shape and is scraping the walls. If you hear this scratchy sound, which you can also reproduce by just moving the cone in and out with your hand, cut the radio immediately as this can be a dead short. Replace the bad speaker. If you want to give the old speaker a proper "going out", plug the dead speaker into a wall outlet! LOL! mmmmm, fire. Ok, ok, lighten up, techs like to have a little fun at the end of the day too! If the speakers, independantly sound fine, other then the tweeters - you test those when you have a working system, then you must have blown your crossover. I am surprised you don't have a fuse on this set. Crossover's are more difficult to troubleshoot, however, it is usually capacitors that go. The coils or inductors are pretty stout and can take more current. The other guy is right here, look for burning, or smell, but, I wouldn't try to replace unless you are savvy with soldering. Use an iron, never a gun. You can take the crossover into a repair shop, they will put a signal on the front end, then, with an oscilliscope look for the frequency and how clean it is, on each crossed output. If these towers are high end. Do all of this. If they are cheapo's, have a garage sale, and get yourself some new ones, your time is worth more. Have fun, and happy troubleshooting. mmmm, fire. . .