Those who sell/manufacture/repair speakers, or advise on sites such as this, seem to imply that speakers don’t blow unless their owner has essentially done something wrong to cause it.  I’m curious to know what those of you who have experienced blown speakers would say caused it, and what you might have done differently in setting up your system to avoid it.

Re: Anyone who’s blown their speakers

First off, the efficiency of a speaker determines it’s life expectancy. Less efficient speakers will blow under normal conditions. High efficiency speakers like Cetec, Gauss, Eminence, JBL last longer.
Learn about unity gain; most problems arise from not matching levels between preamp and amp.  Also, improper electrical grounding can cause many problems with a sound system----a line conditioner is what you need, ground lifts too, if individual components give you a hum. 

I blew a tweeter in my KC-500 amp; problem was, it was a cheap tweeter. Once I swapped it for a better high efficiency tweeter, problem solved.  I use Furman line conditioners in my racks, and carry extra ground lifts in my gig bag.  I also carry an electrical ground checker.

Re: Anyone who’s blown their speakers

99% of it is the operator driving the speaker harder than he/she should.

The other 1% is equipment failure (like an amplifier melting down).

If you are blowing speakers left and right you need to look at your whole signal chain and figure out what’s wrong. I’ve been gigging for close to 30 years now and in that time I’ve only blown a speaker twice from overcranking and once from an amp frying and putting DC into the speaker.

Re: Anyone who’s blown their speakers

I think there’s an implication that “BLOWN” means operator-induced failure…

However, any mechanical device will fail with time.  Either the surrounds will become fragile with use, age or exposure, or the lacquer insulating the electromagnet windings will deteriorate, allowing a short, or the solder joints to the coil will fail from vibration… Not all failures are caused by abuse, but nearly all failures will mimic a the “Blown” speaker…

Re: Anyone who’s blown their speakers

One of the advantages of the modern trend towards Active monitors and even active PA speakers is that the Amplifier is matched to the speaker a little better than the guesswork often involved in partnering a standard amp and speaker.

One of the issues you can have is in having too small an amp to drive the speakers youhave - what happens then is you turn it up full and end up moving into the non-linear portion of the amp’s response with the corresponding speaker blowing scenario. It is often better to use a more powerful amp but keep it barely ticking over - this will give good headroom and spare your speakers. Of course the temptation woudl then be to turn up - this woudl result in overpowering your speakers.

So a matched amp to a speaker: a good idea all round.

Cheers

Re: Anyone who’s blown their speakers

I have blown speakers in the pass.  Recently my JBL Eon G2s were blown.  Man it was half the cost of the speaker to have repaired.  I did an opening act for a blues artist, Mel Waiters, in a small town in Texas and the sound crew was messing around and caused a power surge.  I did not realize that the high frequency drivers were blown until after gig after I got home.  Not only did it blow the HF drivers but the amp on the HF side was blown as well.

I have blown others in the pass, it is mostly caused by high gain along with distortion that will blow your speakers.  Sometimes you do not have control of those situations.