Do speakers wear out without blowing?

BuzzKing · #1 12-07-2010, 03:53 PM

I have an older (~14 years) Eden D410XLT cabinet that I have heavily gigged with during those years. I have used several amps over the years but have never overpowered the cabinet with wattage that its not rated for.

In recent weeks/months the cabinet has sound a little "floppy" and when I dig in on the low E or B string it pops and farts. At lower volumes and higher register on the neck the cab still sounds great with no distortion or other indicators of a blown speaker. Also when I watch the speakers the excursion of all 4 speakers is the same an coordinated although there does seem to be a lot of excursion.

SO the basic question is this cab just worn out or do I likely have a blown speaker(s)? How can I affectively test the speakers. I have heard of using a 9 volt battery but don't know the exact procedure.

Thanks,
BK

billfitzmaurice · #2 12-07-2010, 04:25 PM

Speakers tend to work well or not at all. I'd be looking at the drivers being loose, allowing leaks around the frames which will kill the low end.

MNAirHead · #3 12-07-2010, 04:26 PM

some do.. normally takes 20 years or so

Growly Lytes · #4 12-07-2010, 04:34 PM

Ive never heard of this.When a speaker craps it gone ! Maybe there is air getting in as one said. They do tend to loosen soemtimes after a long while.

BigOldHarry · #5 12-07-2010, 04:37 PM

Blown speaker *usually* mean fried coil;
Worn out speaker usually mans the cone material has gotten fatigued and falls apart. This was very common back in the day of paper cones; Modern speaker materials are an order of magnitude better now.

Wes Whitmore · #6 12-07-2010, 04:42 PM

Some speaker cones will crease/fold where the surround is glued to the outer edges of the cone due to overexcursion. It will sound fine at lower volumes, but when it's pushing out/in at the extremes of the suspension travel, the cone starts to fold instead of the suspension just pulling tight.
Wes

twangchief · #7 12-07-2010, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wes Whitmore

Some speaker cones will crease/fold where the surround is glued to the outer edges of the cone due to overexcursion. It will sound fine at lower volumes, but when it's pushing out/in at the extremes of the suspension travel, the cone starts to fold instead of the suspension just pulling tight.
Wes

Wes,

What is the resulting effect to the sound because of this?

Thanks!

Growly Lytes · #8 12-07-2010, 05:05 PM

Not good i suppose !

Wes Whitmore · #9 12-07-2010, 05:11 PM

I suppose it would cause the linear piston movement to suffer, or causing the voice coil to extend out further than it is supposed when the paper cone folds over as the suspension nears the end of its travel. Maybe more...

sawzalot · #10 12-07-2010, 05:25 PM

The cab will sound farty when the speakers start to fold like this. That Eden is a great cab but the drivers may be suffering a bit. I had this problem with an old eden 2x10 and new drivers fixed it. Sometimes you can find OEM drivers on eBay.

Mr. Foxen · #11 12-07-2010, 06:29 PM

Do the 9v battery test, if one speaker has died, it will be sucked in and out by the other speakers, appearing to be working, but it won't move the same with a battery. If one is dead, it upsets the cab tuning, I think that is why the ampeg 8x10 is all separate sections so it keeps working with dead drivers.

BuzzKing · #12 12-08-2010, 12:44 AM

Thanks for your replies. I will try the battery test. If that's okay I will see about some replacement drivers.

BK

gumtownbassman · #13 12-08-2010, 01:15 AM

one check i do is gently press the cone inwards back and forth with even pressure on each side of the dust cap to feel any voicecoil scraping,
and biasing slightly more pressure one one finger as rotating around the edge of the centre cap, while still pressing the cone in & out.
If the cone scrapes a bit then that indicates to me the speaker has been over exerted or tired and the voicecoil movement in is not parallel to the magnet anymore.
I don't know if there is any science behind that but it works for me, and helps find the suspect speaker of of the bunch.

Another slightly related issue was with my home stereo sub woofer last month, it seemed to have lost it's rumble so i open up the box and found the 8" driver had a rubber outer material and all of it had rotted off.
This left a paper cone flapping in & out but pushing no air.
I repaired it with a strip of vynal cloth glued to resemble the missing rubber parts.
It worked a treat but i don't expect it to last very long.

Wes Whitmore · #14 12-08-2010, 06:06 AM

The battery test and the manual pressing with your hand test will also show the paper cone folding/creasing. Those are good tests. Sometimes you might have to pull a driver out of the cabinet and test indiviually, so make sure you write down the wiring diagram. There is always the possibility that a wire has fallen off inside the cab and the driver is fine after you wire it back up. What you are looking for is 4 speakers that behave pretty much identical in movement and volume.
Wes

nysbob · #15 12-08-2010, 06:36 AM

There is a fairly sizeable contingent of folks here who are playing through 20+ year old EVs, Altecs, & JBLs. Like anything else, it has a lot to do with the initial quality of the product and use within the parameters it was designed for.

Wes Whitmore · #16 12-08-2010, 06:50 AM

Everything requires a little bit of maintenence from time to time, right? I would troubleshoot and see what it costs you to bring it back to the usual performance, and make your decision then. You could always recone to save money vs buying a "new" cast from speaker from Eden.
Wes

K2000 · #17 12-09-2010, 01:36 AM

If it's an older cab, the dust cap (dome shape in the middle of the speaker) can start to loosen, which can make farty noises at certain frequencies (or all frequencies - it depends). You can use glue to reattach - do a search on speaker repair, dust caps etc. It's been discussed. I used rubber cement.

Also, if this is your problem, you may need to remove the speaker to really inspect it. The loose dust cap isn't immediately obvious at first glance. I needed to inspect the speaker on a tabletop and use an Exacto knife to carefully pry up the dustcap edge, in order to see that I had loose edges. But my practice space wasn't well-lit, and my eyesight isn't great.

By the time I had figured out the speaker was fixable (by me), I had already purchased a replacement speaker. Whoops...

Growly Lytes · #18 12-09-2010, 03:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by K2000

If it's an older cab, the dust cap (dome shape in the middle of the speaker) can start to loosen, which can make farty noises at certain frequencies (or all frequencies - it depends). You can use glue to reattach - do a search on speaker repair, dust caps etc. It's been discussed. I used rubber cement.

Also, if this is your problem, you may need to remove the speaker to really inspect it. The loose dust cap isn't immediately obvious at first glance. I needed to inspect the speaker on a tabletop and use an Exacto knife to carefully pry up the dustcap edge, in order to see that I had loose edges. But my practice space wasn't well-lit, and my eyesight isn't great.

By the time I had figured out the speaker was fixable (by me), I had already purchased a replacement speaker. Whoops...

Yes i bought a cab a while ago with Celestions 10` Redline Speakers. It was used & sounded o.k. After i pumped it at gigs for year or two i noticed the same thing , the caps glue had come loose & pretty much all four speakers sounded dull.

countrybass007 · #19 12-10-2010, 08:50 PM

My Boogie 118 cab is 30+ years old, and it still sounds great. It's loaded with an EV.