Your most spectacular speaker/component failure?

[DerekTheGreat]

Bummer.

If it wasn't for Ken, I'd still have two minty PR300 cones I could part with. But alas, he's got those plus three 044 tweeters of mine.

[jblwolf]

My first component failure was the tinsle lead that was dettached at the cone. I sent the speaker back to Northridge, Drew Daniels personally repaired the speaker without having to recone it. the repair was free and I paid $10 for shipping.I still own the pair they are from 1962 blue frame.

[toddalin]

I was plenty bummed when the lens fell off one of the horns and dented the cone on the woofer on the L200/300s. One day I was looking through the grill and saw the lens sitting at the bottom against the woofer.

[short_circutz2]

Was assisting my dad upgrade the system at a local club from their EV system (which used a mixture of speakers from the then current Electrovoice TL and SH series)(where I then continued to tech for the next 30 years or so until new ownership). We refurbished 4x 4560bka cabinets loaded with 2220b, with 2397 horns with 2470 drivers on throat adapters. System was tri amped using a pair of proprietary dual K145 cabs for subs. Audio Logic 3 way a tive crossover feeding EV7300 amps for midbass/mids and highs, with an EV7600 powering the subs.Upon initial power up of the freshly installed system, one of their mic runs from the stage to the dj booth was defective and caused a weird high frequency artifact/oscillation that popped all 4 of the brand new D16R2425 diaphragms we had upgraded the 2470s with.Also, until we upgraded the subs, the dc speaker protection was useless in those 7600 amps. Every single time a 7600 faulted, we'd lose both of the 145s on the channel that failed due to dc from the amp. After a pretty major light and smoke show from a 7600 failure at the close of one of their their college nights (which were also their busiest nights) one night, we were able to convince the owner to upgrade the subs by modding the cabs to install a single 2242 in each and sold them a nice new JBL MPX1200 to drive them with. Factory recone kits were getting sparse and expensive for the 145s at the time, and we convinced them that the upgrades were the way to go for a dependable system that was less prone to failureThere were No more failures until an incompetent dj drove the system so far beyond its limit that he ripped the surrounds and smoked the coils on BOTH 2242 from overexcursion.

[Mr. Widget]

No more failures until an incompetent dj drove the system so far beyond its limit that he ripped the surrounds and smoked the coils on BOTH 2242 from overexcursion.

Speaking of smoked coils...

Years ago I bought a Klipsch LaScala for $100 from a rental house. Some yahoo who rented the system over powered it so hard that the woofer's VC not only melted, it started a fire inside the cabinet burning several layers of the birch plywood inside the bass horn.

Interestingly the crossover and mid driver were still good. I replaced the tweeter, repaired the burned wood, replaced the woofer and has a perfectly good LaScala for under $300.


Widget

[Cyclotronguy]

Back in high school I was part time at a recording studio doing service work for the studio and the school district The owner, Jerry was a nice guy but frequently not focused. We had a brand new amp, his pride and joy burning in on the load bank at probably 50% power, A Phase Linear 700. We had an auto reverse tape machine playing some prog rock..... silently.Jerry comes in and asks "whatcha playing?" and before I could stop him he hit the speaker selector switch and brought a set of wall mount Electro-Voice column speakers on line, in parallel with the load bank. Those EV Wolverines were only good for about 35W, the the Phase Linear, Oh so much more. The amps were also as we were about to learn, chronically prone to catastrophic failure. Hence the common nomenclature of "Flame Linear"Flame came out of the column speakers and the amp.......... the silence was imediately deafening.Jerry went quite pale and walked out of the shop. For the rest of the year I stuck to Bell and Howell projectors and record players. Jerry would let the smoke out of those amps several more times, once at the Jumping Frog Jubilee in Northern CA. Between the bikers, the Clampers and the beer: I think he was feeling endangered! We got the PA system back onlne with a Radio Shack mixer and SWTP "Tiger" amplifier. The Tiger interestingly enough would prove to be more reliable.

[1audiohack]

I forgot about my most visually spectacular audio failure!

Years ago I bought a broken SAE 2400 amp from Steve Shell. He was selling it for a friend. I always liked the looks of them so I bought it.

I looked long and hard to find someone who could not just fix it but shred it out and truly restore it and give it a full run on an Audio Precision test bed.

$950.00 later and with an AP dyno sheet in hand I head to the shop to run it in the office where the 4435’s reside. Everything new or repaired runs here for at least a week. The 4435’s are pretty bullet proof and I listen to them more than anywhere else.

Slip it in the rack, connect and power it up,, man the meters look so cool. Switch the meter sensitivity all the way up and precede gently. Runs about five minutes just fine. Sounds good. Give it a little more gas. Running about 25 Watts for another five or six minutes and, drops a channel. Just as I turn to look and see one meter at zero, it literally pours burning embers out of the bottom of it. Nice.

That, was genuinely spectacular. I was thrilled.

Barry.

[Mr. Widget]

That, was genuinely spectacular. I was thrilled.

WOW! You might win with that one.


Widget

[speakerdave]

Smoke And Excitement

[maxwedge]

WOW! You might win with that one. Widget

What do you get if you win?

[Mr. Widget]

What do you get if you win?

Easy... you get bragging rights!


Widget

[DerekTheGreat]

Was assisting my dad upgrade the system at a local club from their EV system (which used a mixture of speakers from the then current Electrovoice TL and SH series)(where I then continued to tech for the next 30 years or so until new ownership). We refurbished 4x 4560bka cabinets loaded with 2220b, with 2397 horns with 2470 drivers on throat adapters. System was tri amped using a pair of proprietary dual K145 cabs for subs. Audio Logic 3 way a tive crossover feeding EV7300 amps for midbass/mids and highs, with an EV7600 powering the subs.Upon initial power up of the freshly installed system, one of their mic runs from the stage to the dj booth was defective and caused a weird high frequency artifact/oscillation that popped all 4 of the brand new D16R2425 diaphragms we had upgraded the 2470s with.Also, until we upgraded the subs, the dc speaker protection was useless in those 7600 amps. Every single time a 7600 faulted, we'd lose both of the 145s on the channel that failed due to dc from the amp. After a pretty major light and smoke show from a 7600 failure at the close of one of their college nights (which were also their busiest nights) one night, we were able to convince the owner to upgrade the subs by modding the cabs to install a single 2242 in each and sold them a nice new JBL MPX1200 to drive them with. Factory recone kits were getting sparse and expensive for the 145s at the time, and we convinced them that the upgrades were the way to go for a dependable system that was less prone to failure. There were No more failures until an incompetent dj drove the system so far beyond its limit that he ripped the surrounds and smoked the coils on BOTH 2242 from over excursion.

Whoa, would have liked to witness that happen as well as see the damage afterwards, both the failures of the 7600 amps, K145's and the 2242's...

Speaking of smoked coils...

Years ago I bought a Klipsch LaScala for $100 from a rental house. Some yahoo who rented the system over powered it so hard that the woofer's VC not only melted, it started a fire inside the cabinet burning several layers of the birch plywood inside the bass horn.

Interestingly the crossover and mid driver were still good. I replaced the tweeter, repaired the burned wood, replaced the woofer and has a perfectly good LaScala for under $300.


Widget

Noice, fires are spectacular. I've never witnessed a speaker ablaze, wonder how long that typically takes to happen. Wouldn't one notice abnormal sounds or something before total meltdown? Or maybe it's a case of, "I'm just going to step back in, turn this up and then return to the patio. It'll be fine!"

Back in high school I was part time at a recording studio doing service work for the studio and the school district The owner, Jerry was a nice guy but frequently not focused. We had a brand new amp, his pride and joy burning in on the load bank at probably 50% power, A Phase Linear 700. We had an auto reverse tape machine playing some prog rock..... silently.Jerry comes in and asks "whatcha playing?" and before I could stop him he hit the speaker selector switch and brought a set of wall mount Electro-Voice column speakers on line, in parallel with the load bank. Those EV Wolverines were only good for about 35W, the the Phase Linear, Oh so much more. The amps were also as we were about to learn, chronically prone to catastrophic failure. Hence the common nomenclature of "Flame Linear"Flame came out of the column speakers and the amp.......... the silence was imediately deafening.Jerry went quite pale and walked out of the shop. For the rest of the year I stuck to Bell and Howell projectors and record players. Jerry would let the smoke out of those amps several more times, once at the Jumping Frog Jubilee in Northern CA. Between the bikers, the Clampers and the beer: I think he was feeling endangered! We got the PA system back onlne with a Radio Shack mixer and SWTP "Tiger" amplifier. The Tiger interestingly enough would prove to be more reliable.

I forgot about my most visually spectacular audio failure!

Years ago I bought a broken SAE 2400 amp from Steve Shell. He was selling it for a friend. I always liked the looks of them so I bought it.

I looked long and hard to find someone who could not just fix it but shred it out and truly restore it and give it a full run on an Audio Precision test bed.

$950.00 later and with an AP dyno sheet in hand I head to the shop to run it in the office where the 4435’s reside. Everything new or repaired runs here for at least a week. The 4435’s are pretty bullet proof and I listen to them more than anywhere else.

Slip it in the rack, connect and power it up,, man the meters look so cool. Switch the meter sensitivity all the way up and precede gently. Runs about five minutes just fine. Sounds good. Give it a little more gas. Running about 25 Watts for another five or six minutes and, drops a channel. Just as I turn to look and see one meter at zero, it literally pours burning embers out of the bottom of it. Nice.

That, was genuinely spectacular. I was thrilled.

Barry.

Hah! I've heard of their reputation, but this is the first time I've heard firsthand accounts of them melting down. Makes me wonder what ole Bob Carver DIDN'T do right, to cause such spectacular failures.

[1audiohack]

SAE was Morris Kessler and Ted Winchester. No Bob.

On post fire full tear down of my 2400 was found a little driver board with three little transistors on it. One with its face blown out. This board had the dust of the ages on it and was obviously missed the first and second go around. The first shop burned it down again on their bench and after six more months I took my losses, went and picked it up, with a new big scrape through the black anodize face by a meter and no refund.

Fortunately there is a brilliant chap in Apple Valley CA that had it ready to run before I could get the face plate smoothed and re anodized. Thanks Craig!!

Barry.

[DerekTheGreat]

Phase Linear bears the mark of Carver, I should've specified.

A blow out, nice. Every amp I've gotten so far with issues has no obvious signs of the magic smoke being released. Sucks to hear about your experience, but glad it worked out in the end.

[short_circutz2]

Whoa, would have liked to witness that happen as well as see the damage afterwards, both the failures of the 7600 amps, K145's and the 2242's...

Luckily there was always a second 7600 to swap in on a failure. Issue was that upon amp failure, the speaker protection circuit would fail as well amd thus dc sent to whatever what was on the failed channel. The K145 pair on the channel would end up seized at their travel limit due to smoking the vc in them.The 2242 pair lived thru everything except the abusive dj pushing them beyond their excursion limit and ripping the surrounds on them. Thru communication issues between owners, they got another provider to replace them (replaced with RCF, forget the model, but I have them too now, lol) after I had already arranged for recone thru Santon Audio (before original owner retired, different owner now) for which they had to order recone kits in from JBL that I was now on the hook for. I managed to get the pair of 2242, got them reconed, and now they are part of my personal inventory. I'm planning on loading a pair of Transparence NAC 218 clones with my 4 working units. I also have a third pair that I need to try to non-destructively tear down to clean debris out of the gaps due to them having damaged dust caps.I also still have 2 of the K145 that were still finctioning after the final failure that led to the install of the pair of 2242.Well...actually I have pretty much everything audio that was ever in the club for about the 30 years that I was lead tech.