Is it normal that all my vintage speakers have died on me in last 2 years

[darkblue94]

Age is not friendly to any thing.

Really? It sure does wonders for the antiques trade.

 

[biscuithead]

Bass at 70% and treble at 100% is the best sound there is. If all you audiophiles are spending all this money on vintage gear and setting at 50% bass and 50% treble your systems must sound like walkie talkies!!

PRSSST... TEN - FOUR good buddy : this is alpha 1 reaching out to goofball one... What's your twenty?
What? "shooba-tuba-don't-know-nothing..."
... you say you're in " whoooDAfuk-nose " ...
yeah I know where that is... Between WhooDafuk-knees and WhooDafuk-cares...

 

[KentTeffeteller]

You mention in your other thread that your Pioneer amp running on one channel is getting hot. Yes, amplifiers do get warm - or even hot - but "hot" is a subjective term.

If all of these speakers failed on the same amplifier, I would look into servicing the amplifier. Oscillation could also damage speakers and cause overheating issues.

The amplifier is not right. And shows signs of needing proper servicing. Also consider the 4 ohm load being less than ideal for the amplifier, and also under powered perhaps. And excessive volume and very boosted tone controls and other things service technicians call Ab-User issues.

Any one or all can cause the issues you are experiencing. A case in point, a tone deaf ex-aerobics instructor who could cause a JBL Professional woofer and tweeter to die from burnout in less than one week, amplifiers to clip and puke output devices. And the same JBL drivers in mine and most other cases lasting us many, many years without downtime. And the same amplifier lasting just fine in virtually ever other use case and application (a Crown DC 300A)

Your kind of sound needs heavy duty good PA type speakers and PA amplifiers which won't be overworked. That type of combo properly chosen would serve you fine. BeoVox speakers and KEF speakers are more difficult loads, and 4 ohms nominal and can drop lower, your poor Pioneer is giving you a hint it's needing attention and for you to exercise caution. OK to like the sound you like, but buy gear built to tolerate a steady diet of your use case. A good choice for you would be to buy a QSC amplifier and speakers, or a Peavey CS 800 amplifier and some JBL PA type speakers or a similar setup. That should last you a lot longer, play as loud as you want without strain, and the way you like it.

 

[crazy-in-az]

Bass at 70% and treble at 100% is the best sound there is. If all you audiophiles are spending all this money on vintage gear and setting at 50% bass and 50% treble your systems must sound like walkie talkies!!

Most vintage speakers need to be recapped. When they are recapped the treble improves and most of us "audiophiles" find no reason for boosting the treble on our vintage gear.

And if you like 70% bass and 100% treble, that's cool, but it doesn't make it "the best sound there is". Sound is subjective to all of us.

 

[dezmond76]

I think I understand your thinking. Since you have 35 watts a channel that means if your speakers are 50 watts rms you can crank the volume bass and treble controls to max and the speakers should handle it ?

 

[westend]

Bass at 70% and treble at 100% is the best sound there is. If all you audiophiles are spending all this money on vintage gear and setting at 50% bass and 50% treble your systems must sound like walkie talkies!!

That generalization won't fly and you should know that just from the numbers of members here, their varied systems, and the laws of probabilities.
I muck around with tone controls, occasionally, and have integrated amps or preamps where the tone controls are very sophisticated. Typically, I'll set tone controls back to flat as the difference between one bit of music and another is the only time where boosting treble or bass amounts to an improvement.

Diagnosing your speaker failures is difficult. For sure, the amplification should be in order and not passing any DC of high value. One shouldn't turn volume to 11 and expect good longevity, either. Beyond that, you could put a durable driver in the mix and see if your system deals that a death blow.

 

[orsen]

bass at 70
with a bit of volume, you are asking that amp too work very hard, probably well into the clipping range.
get a bigger amp
and a powered sub

 

[hjames]

Bass on flat and treble on flat is a horrible sound quality.

Not with the right amps and speakers - heck, my Jolida doesn't even HAVE tone controls -
yet the bass is quite full on music that has good bass. No CB radio here!
If you need more fullness in the music, get more power - 35 w/ch isn't much unless you have very efficient speakers, or don't listen very loud.

 

[toxcrusadr]

A properly working amp with (probably) more power than this one and a powered sub

Although you may find that with enough power you don't need a sub.

Question, have you heard some other AKers systems, or anybody that you think has pretty good gear? And did you like the sound?

It turns out that the better the gear, the less tone controls you need, regardless of the type of music being played. At some point most people who cranked up the boomboom realize that they're missing a lot of the music by obscuring it with far more boom and sizzle than was intended by the artist. Not to sound like an audio snob, YMMV. But I suspect even AKers who like heavy bass are doing it without blowing up speakers and overheating amps - by having the right gear to do what they want.

 

[bluesky]

The problem is much of the 'old great gear' is almost getting too old now.

 

[FluxT]

I think I understand your thinking. Since you have 35 watts a channel that means if your speakers are 50 watts rms you can crank the volume bass and treble controls to max and the speakers should handle it ?

Not exactly. If you drive that 35WPC amp to clipping, it will still clip and damage your speakers, even if they'll take it just fine from a more powerful amplifier. Of course, send them anything more than 50 watts, and they'll blow up as well.

Honestly, I’m frankly in awe of the amount of sound levels you have to be kicking out to bust a speaker, even with a low-powered amp. My meager 18WPC Kenwood has soldiered through several fairly lit parties with the knob never really going past 3/10. Granted, at New Year’s, I did tell a friend to pull the volume knob off and keep it in his pocket to keep a drunken friend from cranking it any louder, for fear of damaging it. To be fair, we’ve got an enough-to-dim-the-lights-when-powered-on WPC Pioneer for serious 7.2 gaming and movie duty, and it’s been driven into emergency-shutoff mode on more than one occasion under not-so-heavy usage, so I know how easy it can be to overdo things.

 

[Bdbras84]

G7 , have you considered getting an equalizer and a powered sub? I think you would really benefit from it. Also the speakers that you currently own are not the best match for your musical tastes IMO. Try some jbl's or Cerwin Vegas, they may just be the sound your looking for.( I'm a big fan of both so let me make that clear, and no I'm not saying there good as loud rock speakers only! They're great at a lot of musical genres) Oh btw, this hobby can be very subjective sound and gear wise. So you really make your self look like a jackass when you generalize an call out all of our systems to sound like " Walkie Talkies"/ crap. Not a good idea if your looking for help or advice from the group. Live and learn my friend,live and learn an good luck on your audio journey

 

[Bodyblue]

Running a small amp with tone controls flat out at high volumes is the audio equivalent of the Tide pod challenge........nothing good will come of it.