can a cd player damage speakers??

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wolf larson

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Hello,

It's been a while since i posted on here so hello to all!

I'm after some techy advice - basically for the past few years my dad's system keeps knocking out drive units (on various speakers - so it's not the speakers). We initially thought it was the amp - a late 70's Sugden A48mkII. So the amp has been back to Sugden a few times, and each time they say there is nothing wrong with it.

Recently he bought a 'new' amp (an Alchemist Nemesis which was still boxed and never used) and some Rega ELA speakers which he acquired a couple of months ago and had never been used. i set the system up at the weekend using new cable and only connected the CD player and digi box. 2 days later, the right drive unit has blown. the ONLY item that was used in his old system was his CD player, (a late 80's Denon DCD900 which works perfectly). so it's either coincidence or the CD player is somehow causing this. Is this possible given that the signal goes through the amp?

The woofer on the driver the driver that has blown is literally torn 1" around the centre. He wasn't pushing them hard when this happened.

As i say all the cable (inc the interconnects) have been replaced as the Sugden has din connections and the Alchemist RCA's.

Advice would be really apprecaited!
wolf
 
very irritating...it must be.
the CD signal being amplified would think if their was a CD problem you would hear it in some way..distortion, hum etc, Could be a surge of sorts from the CD but that would have to make it through the amp and up your speaker cables without causing any damage to the amps CD stage etc..all seems very odd, could try a meter at the CD outputs but if the problem is rare then you may grow a beard in the interim. :)

See Sonic Boom ... .

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...AA35753C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all


Quote:
however if you pump too much energy or request the speaker to produce extreme lows or highs you might blow your speakers. This will cause the air to blow a hole through the paper woofer, or for the voice coil to heat up and clip.

In some situations, when too much power is sent through the speaker, the entire woofer can warp its shape- producing inferior sound. Since the speaker at very high levels of power is being thrusted back and forth to produce sound, an immense use of force can easily blow speakers that are not built with high quality components or engineered correctly to reproduce sound.

http://www.tech-faq.com/speakers-blown.shtml
 
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perhaps some helpful advice ?

are you in the uk ?
is the mains voltage correct for your location and for the equipment used ?

was the amp bought new ?
were the speakers bought new ?

if yes then look to get either or both swapped ?

contact rega regarding the driver damage ...they may have a known "issue" they will also be able to advise about driver replacment.

As to will cdp blow drive units .... its seems more than coincidence ...I'd point my finger at it too [ with no other evidence offered to the contrary]. I would how ever have expected the tweeter to have blown if it was the amp ..and as pointed out this normally only occurs at reasonably hi volumes running the amp into clipping the resulting square wave burning the voice coil. I have seen turn on thump eject bass speaker cones ! but for the effect you describe ...I've not actually experienced myself.

Remember that if you have household insurance ..this may cover you lessening the expense of repair or replacement. Can't hurt to contact them ?
 
Hi all, thanks for your comments and questions. In answer, my parents have moved house since this problem first started. Basically my dad gave up hi-fi because he was fed up of blown drive units and not knowing why.

So the move could rule out the mains. the only items connected a the time were the digi box and cd player, all the cables (inc speaker), amp and speakers are recent acquisitions. Amp was boughts as boxed and old 'new stock', same with the speakers which i bought from a rega employee. If this was a one off, i'd look to blame his new amp, or driving the speakers too hard. But as this has happened before (drive units blowing in the right channel) it seems too much of a coincidence, and the ONLY peice of equipment carried over from his old set-up is the CD player.

I should say although about 20years old it plays fine and sounded fine, no feedback or hum when i tested it. At the time it happened my dad was playing some bassy music at half volume. the bass seemed to get too deep and boomy before crackles kicked in. He then quickly entered the room (he was in the kitchen) but it was too late.

I should also mention that when this happened in the past (with his Sugden amp and Mission speakers) it only blows drivers, regardless of if the speakers are bi-wired or not. Normally they jsut stop working showing no obvious signs of physical damage, but the regas have paper cones and are perhaps more delicate.

I also noticed on one occassion when it last blew his mission speakers that the white block thing (not sure what it is some kind of resistor) on the cross over had scorch marks.

As I say seems too much of a coincidence of this to be caused by the new equipment.

Thanks again - good to be back!

On and we have a dog, but she wasn't near the speaker at when this happened - too busy chewing the mains cable.
 
Thanks again - all tone controls were always set to flat on the sugden, no bias in either direction. A pair of Heybrooks also lost a drive unit to this problem some years ago (ones which i'd used for years through my Arcam amp at reasonable volume levels and never had any problems. A few days with my dads system and one of the drivers packed up. The sugden has din inputs, so none of the cables have been carried over. Sugden also had the amp back repeatedly as we presumed this was the culprit, but they could never find a fault.
 

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