How screwed am I?

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pM of impk21.co

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I was working on a beat. I was messing with the bass part of it trying to get a nice, warm bass feel. The problem is I may have over done it, I guess. My monitors Alesis Monitor One Mk2s, kinda poped, nothing extreme I thought, til I hear the left monitor's subwoofer making this scratching sound every time the bass hits. I took the subwoofer out, and there is nothing on the outside to show any signs of a loose wire, so the scrathing sound is coming from within. Am I just screwed? If it is blown, which I believe it is, can I contact Alesis to get a replacement, do I take it to a dealer? I dont know cept Im pissed off, at myself, but I can only try to fix the problem I guess, any suggestions, help, LOL, "it will be okay" would be dope. Thanx, pm
 
push gently and evenly on the cone, right around the dust cap in the center. Make sure to apply presure as equally around the voice coil as possible. Do you feel any "scratchiness"? If so, the voice coil's probably bitten the ol' dust. Also, stick a multimeter on the terminals (with the wires disconnected) and see what you get impedance-wise. If it's rated as a four ohm woofer, you probably won't get a reading of four ohms, but it'll be in the ballpark. If it's way higher, you've got issues.
 
I think you may have killed the voice coil..... Sucks doesn't it.
 
I know exactly what you are hearing. Been there, done that. Not in the studio, but in our band.

Your monitors did kick the bucket. Pushing too much wattage, huh? That is the risk you have to take when your monitors are not active and your amps deliver more wattage than your monitors can handle.

Remember, the power rating of the speakers are normal and max, .(i.e. normal 100 watts, maximum 120 watts) while the amps normally are rated MINIMUM RMS (Root Mean Squared). Let say your speakers max rating is 100 watts and your amps' rating is 100 watts, matched right? Wrongo, the amps will blow your speakers.

Solutions:

1. You could find a technician or place where they rewind voice coils. They are getting rarer and rarer and more expensive everyday. Get a warranty. Some unscrupolous technicians do not do a full rewind and your monitors capacity will be lesser than the original, meaning you are more apt to blow it again than before. (Cheapest Route)

2. You could buy a similar rating speaker (wattage. ohmage, size, voice coil diameter, magnet size and depth, cone dimensions and angle/depth, cone material, etc. - the closer the match, the more faithful it will be to your original sound) . Check the internet. YOu probably will not have the same number of screws and edge dressing of Alesis, but this is not really that bad. You see, a monitor's sound does not only depend on the speakers. The housing, the padding, the crossover electronics the port hole all influence the sound you get from it. So if you are changing anything, only a part of it will be different. (Somewhat expensive)

3. Buy your speaker from Alesis. (Most expensive - but since you are paying retail from them, you might be better off buying a new one)

If you are lucky, options 1 and 2 will work for you, but more often than not, the performance will be somewaht impaired and since you need accuracy - buy a new one! See if someone may be technically inclined to buy them from you in eBay.

Good Luck
 
I see somehat.....

Well I did some things suggested on here. Thanx for the helpful responses.

I called alesis, I just bought the monitors less than two months ago. There under warranty, but liked I figured, I gotta send the monitor to CA, plus I guess I pay shipping, but that is a last resort. For me anyway. The guy felt it was odd only one speaker was faulty or blew.

The other day when this happened. The scratching noise was there. After shutting the lab down a few hours I returned and powered everything back up again. I no longer heard the scratching noise.

I did the test thing with the cone, very carefully, pushing the cone in and I hear no scratching noise what so ever. I even played the same beat threw the monitors I was working on at the tiime of this issue, still nothing. But I would probably assume this does not mean that it is NOT blown, correct?

Either way, if its blown, I want to be able to avoid this in the future.

The receiver I have is an old, old, Pioneer quartz X-3800. The speakers are plugged into the channels for 4 ohm speakers. On the back of the reciever all it say is 200watts. Dosent specify per channel or anything like that. Kinda sucks. The monitors are 4 ohm speakers with 120 watts program(dont understand the program term) with a peak of 200 watts (using EI4-426A method)
Does this make any since to anyone, LOL, thanx for you responses and help.............get at me when possible...........pm
 
its easier to blow your speakers with using a amp that is under wattage of the speakers pushed too high then to have them blow from using a amp with over wattage pushed higher. Of course you dont want to use the full power of the over wattage amp or else it will blow. But using under wattage and pushing it full will heat the coils up alot easier.

new drivers for those things cost around $70 bucks i think. Really not that bad and not that hard to install. Its hard to say with the amp you are using. Is it 200 watts at 4 ohms or 8 ohms? Maybe 200 watts with 2 ohms even. Never really know. See if you can find these details out so you can decide if you need to buy a new amp.

Most likely, its better for you to get a new amp anyway because the amp your using is most likely coloring your sound horribly. No sense on even using the Alesis monitors if your amp is displaying incorrectly.

danny
 
Normally, and I mean just normally, a 4 ohm speaker at 120 watts is really a 60 watt speaker at 8 ohms. The 200 watts at the back of the amp means the power consumption of the gear, not the power output. Get a new amp.

Hafler - for around $200 or get a used Yamaha Natural Amp or receiver (70's or 80's type) from ebay for around $100.

I haven't heard of an under powered amp blowing a bigger speaker. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I just haven't heard of it nor could I figure it out how it does that. My question is, if I have a 20 watt amp turned all the way full for output volume, would that blow my Bose 901 speakers?
 
Here's a snippet from a re-coning site. IT refers to guitar cabs, but is true for amps and speakers in general. Do a google search on underpwered speakers and you'll find a lot.

"My guitar amp puts out 100 watts. I have 2 12" 85 watt Celestions and although it doesn't happen a lot, I am still at the recone shop 2-3 times a year. They tell me I am over powering the speakers but that isn't true. If my Celestions can handle 85 watts a piece, they should be able to handle 170 watts together shouldn't they? My amp only puts out 100 watts. Am I having my chain yanked about this? This is getting old but I really like the sound." A: "Most speakers fail because they are under powered. Sounds wrong but, that is the way it is. If you have an amplifier that puts out 100 watts of signal, you also have a DC power supply of about 17 volts DC current when you turn it up to 10 or 11. If your amplifier puts out 17 vdc you will light up the voice coils in your speakers like the light bulb in a flashlight. Speakers do not handle DC voltage well at all. When you turn your amplifier up past it's rated output you are sending DC voltage to the speakers and you will snuff them rascals. To the inexperienced eye, the voice coil will look at the burnt voice coil and assume they were over powered when the fact is, they were underpowered. The rule of thumb is this: Buy twice as much power than your speakers can handle. "
 
Speaking of volume. I have my gear running threw a cheap but effecient Euro Rack 4 channel mixer then the sound goes from there to the reciever. I have the volume adjusted right at the 0 marks on the mixer. Now as far as the reciever, its volume can go up to 10, I have never had it set past 4-5, usually its just set on 2 and that, honestly, is a good mixing volume for me. If I turn it up to about 4 to 4.5, that is really loud. But by normally running the volume on the reciever at 2-2.5, is that not giving the speakers the proper power. I think I might be a bit confused. But no matter what kinda reciever/amp, system I have. The rule of thumb is to always mix at lower volume right? pm
 
Your fine.
He meant when you have a smaller amp cranked way up, trying to push speakers that can handle much more.
 
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