Ever Break Speakers?
It's amazing I still have my hearing today.
I have fried tweeters in a pro audio system. The voice coil melted. But the speakers were known to fry tweeters in that particular model. My son did rip apart the woofers in one of my studio rooms. He used to have band practice in the room and use my stereo system to play the real song loud (to hear the lyrics) while they played music. I figured it out after inspecting the torn aprt cones. I bout a re-coning kit and fixed em. Never had a problem since then...but no more cranking it so loud.
As a teenager I decimated many speakers and to begin, I totally cooked FOUR of my parent's 3-way midrange and tweeters in four cabinets listening to InnaGaddaDivida. It was 'cool' that the empty garbage can outside was buzzing and almost dancing. My Folks got home and they were royally pizzed! All of the tweeter and midrange voice coils failed but all four 12" woofers survived -- and 45 years later, I still have the bulletproof woofers.
A few years after that event I learned Dad's 'modern' transistor amp was a turkey that actually used vacuum tube circuitry (quasi-complimentary) ... which became famous for distortion including square-wave output ... basically pulsing direct current to the voice coils when cranked at high levels.
Sorry Dad, but it wasn't not entirely my fault ... LOL!
Jim
A few years after that event I learned Dad's 'modern' transistor amp was a turkey that actually used vacuum tube circuitry (quasi-complimentary) ... which became famous for distortion including square-wave output ... basically pulsing direct current to the voice coils when cranked at high levels.
Sorry Dad, but it wasn't not entirely my fault ... LOL!
Jim
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I remember as a kid we had a big Motorola console record player. It was made out of wood. There were two front-firing speakers in the cabinet. There were large dials on the outside for vol and general EQing if I remember. The lid on top opened and there was a turntable inside. The turntable was supported by springs. I would bounce the turntable sometimes. In the back you could see the tubes glowing as they warmed up. Speaker design was pretty slim. Just a woofers and tweeters mounted on a board. The back of the console was open except for a fiberboard back, with round vent holes, to allow heat out.
I worked sound for several rock bands and DJ'd many LOUD parties in my life, but I've only cooked one pair of speakers!
1977 - I had a set of no-name speakers with 15" woofers and a new set of mid-priced radio shack speakers. We had a Halloween party and put all 4 on a friend's beefy amp... and cooked the radio shack speakers. I told them the amp was too much for the speakers - oh, well! (The no-name speakers survived until the late 80's when the cones got brittle.)
Fast forward to 2009, I needed a set of speakers for the garage and found a pair of identical radio shack speakers in pristine condition at the thrift store - $5! Powered by a Pioneer receiver I rescued from the recycle, they have served me well and sound great. This Halloween, I used this setup for our Halloween party - the speakers handled it well. So well that my anal-retentive neighbors called the police because we were too loud!
1977 - I had a set of no-name speakers with 15" woofers and a new set of mid-priced radio shack speakers. We had a Halloween party and put all 4 on a friend's beefy amp... and cooked the radio shack speakers. I told them the amp was too much for the speakers - oh, well! (The no-name speakers survived until the late 80's when the cones got brittle.)
Fast forward to 2009, I needed a set of speakers for the garage and found a pair of identical radio shack speakers in pristine condition at the thrift store - $5! Powered by a Pioneer receiver I rescued from the recycle, they have served me well and sound great. This Halloween, I used this setup for our Halloween party - the speakers handled it well. So well that my anal-retentive neighbors called the police because we were too loud!
Ha ha, scoflaw! About 4 years ago during a summer afternoon, Julie and were working in our front yard and we had our old stereo setup running inside our house at "full blast" -- not all that loud through four Radio Shack Minimus speakers, at most 40 watts RMS. A new neighbor (130 feet away) came over to introduce himself boasting he was an attorney and in the State where he was from he could have us arrested and sue us for making that much noise. I agreed with him and told him he was probably correct, if only it was after 10:00 PM. To keep the peace with our new neighbor we dropped the level a bit.
That was the first time since I was a teenager anyone has suggested to me 1960s-1970s Rock and Roll was 'noise' ... and he was my age! I wondered what kind of music he listened to ... chamber music?
Jim
That was the first time since I was a teenager anyone has suggested to me 1960s-1970s Rock and Roll was 'noise' ... and he was my age! I wondered what kind of music he listened to ... chamber music?
Jim