Blown speakers - how to tell?

[admin_exported]

Dear What HiFi,

The other day I loaded a cd and pressed play and experienced a hell of a shock. The volume on my amp was turned round to full, I assume this was my daughter or one of her friends.

I seem to have got away with it, I turned the volume down almost immediately (a second at this volume at the most - wasnt a very loud track either). How easy is it to damage speakers? They are a pair of Mission M71s (c.75W) being driven by a Sony STR-DB940 (110W per channel) and the speakers are bi-amped.

While this might seem like an odd question, are there any good tips for working out if they are blown or not?

Thanks,

Rich

 

[Andrew Everard]

Well, if they sound OK they probably are

If they sound muffled, try disconnecting the speaker cables to the woofers and listening to just the tweeters. They're the most likely thing to have blown

 

[plastic penguin]

From my personal experience (although very limited) usually the woofer is first to go. If there is a resonating buzz, especially on the lower frequencies (it sounds like grit on the cone) try holding, very very gently, the outside of the cone, the buzz - if you have one - should still be detectable.

Like Andrew was saying if it sounds good, then no problem. . .

 

[manicm]

Very easy to tell, and usually tweeters are more fragile. Is the music suddenly sounding dull? The tweeters - yours ears up to them will hear nothing if they're blown.

If there's explicit distortion, cracking, then it's your woofer.