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Burnt smell from speaker, but it’s still working fine. Should I be concerned?

Doodski

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I've warmed up voice coils before and they've been fine. They start to smell quite strongly before fully melting the enamel coating and can handle some high temps without damage.
I've disassembled hundreds of woofers and tweeters for warranty service and found browned coils but they still worked before ripping them out. It's the ones that reek up a room with burnt smell and the older ones with blackened burnt ferrofluid too. :D
 

MachOne

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I've disassembled hundreds of woofers and tweeters for warranty service and found browned coils but they still worked before ripping them out. It's the ones that reek up a room with burnt smell and the older ones with blackened burnt ferrofluid too. :D
It's a smell that's hard to get out of the nose if you get a good dose of it, really persistent. Hangs around in a room too.
 

diddley

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It's Heavy Metal for god sake, not ment to be played with ear plugs!!!!
That is my vow to rock and roll and live concerts; never wear those ugly plugs.
 

Doodski

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It's a smell that's hard to get out of the nose if you get a good dose of it, really persistent. Hangs around in a room too.
Yes, lmao. Mr Customer walks in, sets a pair of speakers on the counter and asks. Do you repair speakers, I heard you are the warranty depot...lol... sniFF sniFF... REEK REEK! We covered every single ENERGY and KEF speaker with burnt coils in-warranty that had warranty coverage. Lots of happy customers. When out of warranty we sometimes gave coverage for obscure physical stuff but burnt drivers where not free.
 

Matthias McCready

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Well it’s like the difference between a live rock concert and using headphones. At those volumes you feel the sound in your chest, hair, and pant legs vibrating. It makes the music (especially rock/metal that’s pretty much meant to be loud) much more engaging to me.
If that is really what you are after.... may I recommend some PA speakers? :cool:

Danley, D&B, L'Acoustics, and Meyer Sound all make some great offerings. And yes some of those brands, and their respective models, do sound good enough for the living room. :)

They will offer more SPL capability, and driver protection where appropriate (additionally the better brands limit what the end user can muck with "special sauce" processing). For example Meyer Sound only sells powered speakers. You cannot access or change the individual box processing, nor could you recreate it if you had years on your hands; it is that good. You cannot buy D&B or L'Acoustics without also buying their amps, it is a locked eco-system, as it should be.

----

Also if you want to "feel" the music. May I recommend going quieter, and EQ'ing out the harsher frequencies? You may find you can achieve the weight you are after while listening at a manageable level. By trade I am a live sound engineer, and for mixing rock music, a large part of that work is removing frequencies that I find to be "offensive" from the sources; cultivating a sonic space, and being intentional about what I am wanting to hear.

As SPL changes so does our expierence of frequencies. How a 80dBA show is mixed vs a 95dBA show can be quite different. The louder it is the more care needs to be taken to trim back the mids, and top end (hence why many PA's are tuned to a slope or with a large sub "haystack").

Granted the frequencies you would find to be "offensive" would depend greatly on the song/genre.
 
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DMill

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Manowar started in Auburn NY. Just outside of Syracuse. About an hour from me. It seems they did loudest at about 139dB. My guess is they weren’t too worried about SINAD. :) Really just insane SPL. I’m trying to think loudest concerts I’ve seen… Maybe Motörhead broke 105? Pretty glad I didn’t destroy my hearing pressing my head against PA speakers like many of my friends did at a Black Flag concert.
 
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Qbd

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I know Manowar is meant to played loud, but dear God… 120dB. I bet your neighbors love you. :)
I'm more worried about your neighbors. Did you call to make sure they're OK?
It’s luckily a decently soundproofed room, so while it’s slightly audible outside the house at those volumes, it’s not something anyone would complain about!
 

astr0b0y

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Might be worth contacting Ascendo. The continuous dB rating of your speakers if very high so to cause heating of the voicecoil to temps that burn the epoxy might be in indication of a manufacturing issue with your speakers. Or maybe you‘re in the middle of a heatwave and ambient temp was high to begin with?
 

azzy_mazzy

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The volume was somewhere around 115-120 dBA
which probably means it was way more than that at the woofers because of the A weighting. what is the listing distance?
dba.dbc_.jpg
 
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Qbd

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which probably means it was way more than that at the woofers because of the A weighting. what is the listing distance?
Listening distance is only about 2.5 m (8 ft). It’s a fairly small room at about 4.2 x 3 m (13.8 x 9.8 ft).

But yeah I was probably close to the limits of the speakers, especially on a fairly intense track at those volumes.
 
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Qbd

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I’ve finally gotten around to opening up the speaker. Prepare for an exclusive, as these may well be the only pictures of this speakers insides available!

113278E1-9808-46F4-A371-7F3E88CCB98D.jpegA9558B45-E0C7-41A0-A3E0-4685CD9888C3.jpeg7F36919D-C6B6-4673-9D1E-0D50EF4C5EE2.jpegC94754E1-7CE8-4599-B851-8B0CA8956DCA.jpeg4D8E7139-CB90-430D-A0C1-DD3FCC78523E.jpegE0862D34-76E1-41E6-8B98-9A8BF6A5E16A.jpegFF844E9B-2864-4DCA-BE69-D7C7536930D5.jpeg

The driver is kind of hard to inspect, but at least I don’t see any signs of damage in the crossover components.

Feel free to comment on the quality of the build and components too! I’m personally very happy with the speaker. My main requirements were that it be small (couldn’t fit anything much bigger than this), loud, had decent sound and preferably coaxial (it’s sometimes hard to stay sitting when the music really gets good, so I prefer good vertical dispersion).
 

fpitas

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Well the good news is, a Celestion FTX1225 isn't terribly expensive when you torch one. The rest looks orderly enough.
 
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the_brunx

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Well it’s like the difference between a live rock concert and using headphones. At those volumes you feel the sound in your chest, hair, and pant legs vibrating. It makes the music (especially rock/metal that’s pretty much meant to be loud) much more engaging to me.
Why don’t you install bass-shakers instead. They work great for me an are quite silent
 

puppet

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Hows your smellmory? Does any one area of the enclosure have the lingering smell you smelt?
 
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