Subwoofer Repair

[RC10th]

Thumbs was thumpin in the back with a cougar

[juicedcoupe]

I remember buying a klipsch 3 speaker set for my computer many many many moons ago for about $180 and thought that was crazy. The first piece of music I played I was blown away at the clarity of each instrument in the piece, something I had not experienced before !! The sub had plenty of bass to spare.

I had one of those setups as well. I kept the bookshelf speakers when the amp went out. They currently reside in my living room, powered my a Orb Audio amp with the previously mentioned Sony sub. This setup will walk all over the soundbar and sub in my bedroom.

Interesting though I had an old Bazooka tube in the back of my thunderbird and I loved it, deep and smooth, now I've got a Pioneer in a box and I don’t like it as much, not as deep and more punchy.

I have had several different car audio setups over the years. My current setup has a set of JL Audio 10's along with components, three amps, and an eq.

I was thinking that newer stuff didn't seem to play as well either but then I thought about a couple other things.

One being me. I don't listen to music the same way that I did 20 years ago. I have more power on my current mids and highs than I ever had before. And my radio and eq settings aren't like what I would have used then. And I wasn't a "bass head" then either, just even less now.

The second being music format. Digitally compressed music isn't the same as a quality cd. I have to adjust my stereo when I decide to break out my old cd's. XM, YouTube, etc just don't compare.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

I have kept all of my CDs. I agree that compressed streaming music just doesn't sound the same regardless of the speaker. I have JL 10s in my car. Not that I'm trying to impress anyone, as a music fan I just like the extra kick regardless of what genre of music I'm listening to.

[radioactivity]

Though the GIF looks unbelievable it’s not far from the truth.
A customer I once had buys a Kicker sub from me and comes back weeks later saying it “blew up”.
OK, so I go take a look at his Bronco and he opens the back. There is his box and sub. The surround was torn and shredded, the cone was shattered and half the cone was missing. It looked like someone threw a grenade in there.
Long story short he had “glued” the box together with liquid nails then almost immediately screwed the sub in and fired it up. A very poor wiring connection on the sub caused a spark and BOOM!
There was actually a scorch mark on his headliner where the explosion singed it.
The “shrapnel” flew right past his friends head that was watching.
Chuck

[juicedcoupe]

OK, so I go take a look at his Bronco and he opens the back. There is his box and sub. The surround was torn and shredded, the cone was shattered and half the cone was missing. It looked like someone threw a grenade in there.
Long story short he had “glued” the box together with liquid nails then almost immediately screwed the sub in and fired it up. A very poor wiring connection on the sub caused a spark and BOOM!
There was actually a scorch mark on his headliner where the explosion singed it.
The “shrapnel” flew right past his friends head that was watching.
Chuck

When I was younger, I had a neighbor do the same thing, except on a larger scale. He had removed his back seat and built a box for two 15's. The box exploded, destroyed the subs, and blew the back window out.

[dldiaz]

I have kept all of my CDs. I agree that compressed streaming music just doesn't sound the same regardless of the speaker. I have JL 10s in my car. Not that I'm trying to impress anyone, as a music fan I just like the extra kick regardless of what genre of music I'm listening to.

I have two JL 10" subs in my 2005 Silverado truck, with an old PPI (Precision Power) amp; then upgraded wiring with Kenwood speakers for the rest of the system, running factory head-unit (for stealth) with a Pioneer CD player inside that head unit.
I installed the system fifteen years ago when the truck was new, and it sounds great to this day. Those woofers will thump when needed, or sound smooth, tight, accurate, depending on music/volume settings - honestly the system is one of the reasons I have not traded-in for a newer truck!


I have put a lot of time, moderate amount of money, into a home-stereo/surround sound system - but I just can't get it to sound anywhere near as good as my truck...
I have a Yamaha receiver/amp with Klipsch surround sound speakers - the mids/highs are great, but it is the bass I struggle with.
I have a Klipsh 8" powered subwoofer, and a Definitive Technology 10" powered subwoofer in opposite corners of the room - they hit good for some songs, but other songs they just sound muddy and inaccurate. I have tried moving them around the room, adjusting their crossovers/volume settings, etc., etc. But they just don't work well with all different kinds of music (or even different songs of the same genre...).
- Whereas my truck handles any song/type of music beautifully, with nothing more than maybe adjusting the bass level for certain songs.


Edit: Update:
I had a memory lapse - the amp in my truck is a PPI (Precision Power), not Coustic as I had initially typed above.
The Coustic amp was from another system in a different vehicle prior to my truck - but the Coustic was not nearly as solid an amp as the PPI that has been in my truck for the last 15 years!

[dldiaz]

I have kept all of my CDs. I agree that compressed streaming music just doesn't sound the same regardless of the speaker. I have JL 10s in my car. Not that I'm trying to impress anyone, as a music fan I just like the extra kick regardless of what genre of music I'm listening to.

Oh and By The Way - I have about six-hundred CDs, which I have collected ever since cassette tapes were still the most common format for music!!

[juicedcoupe]

Oh and By The Way - I have about six-hundred CDs, which I have collected ever since cassette tapes were still the most common format for music!!

I was always amazed at how long cassettes stayed around. Considering that CD's came out in the early 80's, its odd that cassettes were still a thing well into the mid 2000's. When I was in high school in the mid 90's, car CD players weren't that common. But I also remember paying over $300 for a Clarion cassette player, but it did some cool stuff.

[dldiaz]

I was always amazed at how long cassettes stayed around. Considering that CD's came out in the early 80's, its odd that cassettes were still a thing well into the mid 2000's. When I was in high school in the mid 90's, car CD players weren't that common. But I also remember paying over $300 for a Clarion cassette player, but it did some cool stuff.

Yeah I had some pretty sweet cassette players in different cars back in the day - I remember the feature where it would try to stop between songs, so you could fast-forward right to the beginning of the next song!
(I guess it would detect the lapse in noise for those couple seconds between songs?)
I had a Kenwood deck where just a small part of the face was removeable so you could take it with you, thereby reducing the attraction to thieves because the unit would not work without the removeable face!!
Others were built to where you remove the entire face of the unit, but this one was cool because only a small part removed.

[juicedcoupe]

This is the one that I paid over $300 for. It had the automatic song skip feature as well.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Remember the pull-out decks??! I remember guys bringing their whole deck in and putting it in their locker! I can still hear the joke " I see you pulled your deck out."

[juicedcoupe]

Remember the pull-out decks??! I remember guys bringing their whole deck in and putting it in their locker! I can still hear the joke " I see you pulled your deck out."

Yeah, I remember them. They were still around with I was in school but the detachable face was more common by then.

I remember being at the audio shop when someone came in with a pull-out deck, asking for a replacement basket. Assuming that it was stolen, the manager said that they didn't sell them. I slipped out and got the tag number.

[dldiaz]

Remember the pull-out decks??! I remember guys bringing their whole deck in and putting it in their locker! I can still hear the joke " I see you pulled your deck out."

Yes! I remember the pull-out decks - you could knock somebody out with those things! Big, heavy, metal case...

I had a sweet deck in the early 1990s (I don't remember the brand) that would change colors (green-orange-red) - I would swipe my hand across it while discretely pressing the color-change button, and tell people it changed colors with just waving my hand in front of it!! Then they would try to do it but would never work!?!! (they weren't pressing the secret button )