CV's making a popping sound

[dsk]

I have a pair of Cerwin Vega VS 100 speaks. They have 10 inch woofers. Recently, one of them began making a "popping" sound on some bass-heavy passages. Any thoughts on what might cause this, and whether there is a fix?

 

[Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

They probably have foam surrounds and are probably cracking open from age...which in turn can cause the cone to shift and make the voice coil rub (bad) and cause the cabinet to unload at low bass frequencies. The cabinet will see the rip on the surround as an additional "hole" in the box and that will cause the cone to have more excursion than was intended. Take the grilles off and look them over carefully. Replacement foam surrounds are available from many sources, including Parts Express (who is an AK sponsor).

 

[Inspiribomb]

I'd have to agree with Celt. Like he said, check the foam integrity. If its bad, then its possible the cone is not properly aligned and the voice coil will rub (also like Celt said). A less likely possibility is that the woofer is actually at the limit of its excursion and is smacking the back of the magnet assembly, but I highly doubt that is the problem. So to sum up, I was basically just agreeing with Celt, which makes me wonder why I even bothered to post :scratch2:

 

[Ed in SoDak]

If the foam is shot you can most definitely bottom the coil or even separate the coil from the cone. Don't rock out till you get it repaired.

-Ed

 

[Nat]

Its also possible that you might be hearing hard clipping. If you are driving your amp very hard (excess volume or bass cranked up), the distortion components can become large enough to sound like loud cracking or popping. Its bad for the amp, for the speakers, and for your ears, so I hope that you are simply bottoming out the drivers.
I used to have a speaker building club at the school I teach at, and most years some student would complain that his speakers didn't sound good -- making bang noises and so on -- and it turned out that he was running them off some little all in one unit with the bass turned all the way up and the loudness switch in. It was hard clipping and it was actually impressive that they didn't blow the drivers (often focal). Didn't matter how many times I warned them beforehand that they needed an actual amp or receiver.
Incidently we got the drivers (close outs and so on) and lots of help with crossovers and selection from Elliot at Zalytron on Long Island. Great place if you need stuff. They are on the web.