HELP B&W CM1 clicking

xerefey

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Hi,

Guys i need your guidance on the following i do have a pair of B&W CM1 speakers, these are powered up by a Rotel RA1570 (120WPC) integrated amplifier and for low bass i do have a B&W ASW610 sub connected using the pre out.

I have noticed that with some tracks CM1´s start clicking, normally at high volumes, "apparently" this is happening when low bass songs, few questions for you,

* is this a normal behaviour of the speakers?
* is this happening because of too much power coming from Amp. (Be aware that currenlty it´s almost impossible to pass from 75 volume level on Rotel)
* Is there something i can do to mitigate this?I´m wonder if playing with frequency cut on the SUB might help (Currently i do have it on 60Hz)

Any advise that you could provide would be welcome.

Brgds
 

spiny norman

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xerefey said:
Hi, Guys i need your guidance on the following i do have a pair of B&W CM1 speakers, these are powered up by a Rotel RA1570 (120WPC) integrated amplifier and for low bass i do have a B&W ASW610 sub connected using the pre out. I have noticed that with some tracks CM1´s start clicking, normally at high volumes, "apparently" this is happening when low bass songs, few questions for you, * is this a normal behaviour of the speakers? * is this happening because of too much power coming from Amp. (Be aware that currenlty it´s almost impossible to pass from 75 volume level on Rotel) * Is there something i can do to mitigate this?I´m wonder if playing with frequency cut on the SUB might help (Currently i do have it on 60Hz) Any advise that you could provide would be welcome. Brgds

Extremely unlikely it's the speakers clicking: much more likely they're just relaying a symptom elsewhere, most likely in the amp or the sub.

Might be worth disconnecting the speakers and just listening with the sub connected to the amp, to ascertain whether the noise is coming from the sub, but sounds to me more like the amp is struggling to play as loud as you want it to, and something meatier might be needed.
 

ErwinC

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spiny norman said:
Extremely unlikely it's the speakers clicking: much more likely they're just relaying a symptom elsewhere, most likely in the amp or the sub.

I dont' agree. It is very likely that the speakers are clicking when they are pushed to hard, especially wtih low bass.

Do you use the crossover in your subwoofer to limit the low frequencies going to the CM1? If so, try to set it higher (80 - 100hz).
 

BigH

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I heard of Neats bottoming out, this is at higher volumes when the bass kicks in like a double bass, not sure if you have a similar problem or not. I would disconnect the sub for a start and see if it still clicks. You could take the grills off and see what the driver is doing, I seem to remeber there was quite a bit of movement on the CM1s with bass. If that is the problem only thing to do is not play it so loud or change the speakers for something like Totems.
 

spiny norman

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Wouldn't describe the sound of voice-coils hitting their end-stops as 'clicking': it's going to sound much nastier than that.

But I agree that unless the speakers have already been driven so hard that the drivers are shot, the OP is going to have to be abusing them pretty seriously to make such noises. And with the Rotel amp, that's fairly unlikely, which is why I suggested it was the amp making the noise, not the speakers. Sounds more like clipping noises to me...
 

Vladimir

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You are playing them too loud with an amp that has no power to control the woofers and the voice coils are hitting the stops. I had that issue with my Pioneer A400 but not when I moved up to the significantly more powerfull and controling Roksan Kandy K2 BT. They can play very very loud with the Roksan and no issues at all.

Solution is to have the low frequency cut off arround 70-80Hz on the CM1 and set the sub to take over arround the same. This makes the sub do LF the work.
 

xerefey

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Guys,

I really appreciatte all your answers, i'm not really an expert however been 100% honest i really do not think the amp is an issue specially when i do have just a pair connectted and the amp is above CM1 speakers requirement (30w to 100 w), just to clarify the noise is at both speakers, for sure they are not blow because they sound perfect below 70 volume level on Rotel and i have been very carefull in not going to higher levels if quality of sound or strange noises are noticed, i checked SW and the noise is noticeable coming from the CM´s, so at this point i think i do not have too much to do than the following.

* Unplugg the SW and run the CM´s with same song and volume level in order to isolate the problem, for sure i would not expect a great bass but my logic tells me that speakers should be clean, if not what do you think could be the cause? doe you think this could be an speaker capacity issue? is too much power coming from amp to these tiny CM´s?

* Play with Frequency cut at SW currently at 60 and if i undertood correctly answers above i might go play with something between 80hz - 100hz is there any risk of going this way around? i do question it because this eems to be not recommended by SW manual.

* Someone talked about modifying the frequency cut on CM´s? how do i suppose to do that?

Help much appreciatted.
 

Vladimir

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BigH said:
Vladimir said:
Solution is to have the low frequency cut off arround 70-80Hz on the CM1 and set the sub to take over arround the same. This makes the sub do LF the work.

Yes that makes sense, what cut-off have you got?

I use them without a sub since my room isn't big and is a bit boomy. Buying the proper FS-700/CM stands, fiddling with positioning and using a hard driving amp sorted everything out.
 

Vladimir

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For a High Pass Filtering of the CMs you can either use an Active Crossover or solder simple NP caps in series on the positive lead of the speaker cables. Best to have someone knowledgable in electronics do it. Its simple, cheap and works.
 

adamrobertshaw

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I've got a pair of CM1 and they never had any issue with playing loudly from a Yamaha AV amp (stereo or 5.1), a Marantz PM6003 on an Audiolab 8200A.

I hooked them up to my Marantz HD AV receiver and they could play stereo quite loudly no problem too.

But when I watched a couple of movies in 5.1, whenever there was a considerable bass sound effect during the movie, I thought the speakers were about to blow. Almost like the drivers were being hammered out from behind.

The front speaker set up was put to small and I tried to direct as much low frequency response to my sub-woofer as possible ... but no cure.

My conclusion was that the burst of power coming from the AV amp was too much for the little CM1s.

Thankfully my MA RX2 soak everything up faultlessly ... 8 inch drivers
 

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