Testing Speaker Components w/o Cabinets

[pjburkina]

Hello Speaker Forum,

Caveats that I'm a newb and not very knowledgeable, so I'll just dispense with that right away.

Yesterday a friend gave me what I believe are the guts from a pair of early 80s Klipsch Cornwalls (K-33-E woofers, K-51-V horns, K-77-M tweeters, B-2 crossovers). The cabinets were apparently damaged and thrown out many years ago and these items were salvaged and have been sitting in a basement since. Now I've got em. I'm thinking I might build a new set of cabinets, but before diving into a project I'd like to test them and make sure these items are in working order. So here's my question. Is there any reason why I can't/shouldn't just set everything on the floor, connect drivers to the XO, and connect speaker wires directly to the input?

Thanks.

 

[goodolpg]

Should be fine.
Since your intent is just to "test" the components, keep the bass and treble settings in the middle of their range and don't go crazy with the volume.
ONE CAUTION, don't let any wires short out.

 

[elitopus]

You can also use a tone generator app from your phone plugged into a amp or receiver. If you know the crossover points, you can test the woofer in it's range (say 30-1khz), the mid in it's range (say 1khz-5khz), and the tweeter in it's range (5khz-20khz).

This is how I test drivers to make sure there are no buzzes at certain frequencies.

Since you have the crossovers, the other option is to hook the drivers up to the crossover, and connect your amp to the crossover the regular way (with speaker wire). That way you can test all the components from one speaker, including the crossover, all at once.

Good luck with your project. You can build some nice cabs for those components.