Please tell me my speakers aren't destroyed

24

Comments

  • g42
    g42 Posts: 20
    edited January 2013
    Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I'll try to address each suggestion:
    ZLTFUL wrote: »
    And the Emo hater train is workin' up to full steam yet again! :twisted:

    (As I own 2 Emos, I am offended and hurt about all this hate...so much so that I am going to go listen to my music right now and wallow in self loathing!)

    LOL!

    Anyway, OP, with the RTIs unplugged, I would gently push on the woofers and make sure the voice coil isn't seized. It should move relatively freely with no scratching noises coming from the speaker. I HIGHLY doubt you had an over-excursion event on all 4 woofers at once while listening at moderate volume.
    But best to eliminate that possibility.

    I pushed on the woofers GENTLY and they moved freely with no noises or unusual resistance.
  • g42
    g42 Posts: 20
    edited January 2013
    Jhayman wrote: »
    g42 It sound like your Yamaha amp setting is not set correctly..
    Don't worry it was not the XPA-5 that caused this, unless of course you left everything powered on when you hooked everything back up..lol
    Go into your settings in the Yamaha and change your amp to 7.1 or another setting..
    Something like that happened to me and I eventually found out it was the Yamaha amp setting..
    my main speakers sounded all muffled but surrounds played fine..
    Something similar happened to me when I borrowed my friends Rotel amp, something in the Yamaha amp setting changed.
    As for the EMO haters keep opinions to yourself..

    I hope it's just me being an idiot not doing a setting or a hookup properly, but I've gone through the settings back to front, inside and out and can't find anything that changes anything. No I did not have anything turned on(or even plugged in!) when making my connections. I am kinda paranoid about that sorta thing.
    try them as your center and see if they work there, as you said the others dont have dedicated woofers

    Haven't tried that yet just cause of how awkwardly my center is connected but I will get to that later today.
    tonyb wrote: »
    Judging by your original post, I want to say you may never have set up the receiver correctly. Just for giggles, take the subwoofer out of the mix. Just hook up the 7's and set the fronts to large in the receiver settings, and speaker levels set to 0 for both. Play a cd and see if you get some sound. Woofers are pretty hard to blow especially since you had a subwoofer in the mix. The chances of a mid woofer blowing on both speakers....you'd have had to crank that puppy pretty good.

    Also, the fact that you said adding the Emo amp made no difference tells me you may not have connected it properly. If you can give us some details on how everything is connected maybe we can spot a problem.

    Tried your advice, no change. How I hooked it up was running unbalanced rcas from the Yamaha's preouts to the XPA's inputs, and speaker wire to the respective speakers. If you want to know anything more specific or different just say the word. DC Trigger connection, and power cord. Nothing turned on until everything was hooked up and plugged in.
    It would seem rather unlikely that all 4 drivers in both speakers are blown. Altho anything can happen. It would seem more like the 810 has gone nuts on the settings. You can try messing with them, with all your equipment still connected. If that dose not work, then you should disconnect everything, start from scratch. Only connect the 7's and a CD player....make sure of course your fronts are set to large. If that works, then you can plug back stuff 1 at a time, to make sure it all works.



    If that still dose not work, since you have no other receiver to try out on the speakers, it's time to pull one of the drivers out. If you have a meter, you can test it. If you don't have a meter. You can just take a 9 volt battery, just touch it to the terminals on the driver. If the driver is not blown, it will move the cone, either in or out depending on how you connect the + and minus terminals.

    If the driver moves, it's not blown.



    At that point, it's more then likely the 810. Since you don't have anything else to hook up to the speakers, that's not 100% guaranteed. You could..if you wanted to, go down to best buy, pick up a cheap stereo receiver that you can return the next day. If the 7's work fine, then you know 100% it's the 810.

    Tried the unhooking everything and starting from scratch with only the 7s hooked up. No change from them. Will try the suggestion about taking a woofer out and testing it with a battery later today. Trying to figure out who I can have bring over a receiver(I live out in the country far from anybody I could ask but working on it).
    rpf65 wrote: »
    Going back to OP's original post, you stated you lost all power?
    The question is did one of your components, or more go into protection mode or did sound quit being produced from one or more speakers?

    None of the components gave me any warning anything was about to happen, and the receiver and amp both continued acting as if nothing was wrong after the event. All speakers lost power at the same time.
    20hz wrote: »
    since you had a sub did you choose (sub out on your avr ) thay would give the mains about 100 hertz and up sound only ) with that you would be able to get more volume out of those speakers , you said not much volume is played , did you set the volume levels on the speakers ?
    I have a pink noise tone that goes from one speaker to the other ( I was thinking all the levels were low )
    If your sub level is to high it will gargle the center and get low output there .
    Well push ligtely and evenly on the woofers ( like they way the speaker moves when music is being played ) if you feal any grinding or its froz they are dead , hopefully somebody has more info on the a7's xo to help ( maybe they have a 12 db crossover and the caps blew ( hopefully )

    (

    I did have sub out chosen and set on the receiver. I previously had the fronts set to a couple dB higher than other channels, but set things to even before hooking up the XPA. I keep the sub set somewhat low, not overpowering by any means. I pushed on the woofers and they move freely and seemingly normally, with no sounds or abnormal resistance.
  • g42
    g42 Posts: 20
    edited January 2013
    Did a factory reset on the Yamaha, and no change.
  • tonyb
    tonyb Posts: 32,962
    edited January 2013
    Let me see if I follow, you unhooked everything, just connected the speakers to the receiver, not the amplifier,, set to large, no sub, and speaker levels at 0, and you got nothing ?

    Would imagine if your receiver went into protect mode you wouldn't be able to do a hard reset. If a crossover resister blew, it's very seldom both would blow at the same time, unless you didn't notice one blew and the other blew later making it more obvious. Possible....take a look and see if you can see anything blown,burnt, blackened on the crossover.
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  • polrbehr
    polrbehr Posts: 2,830
    edited January 2013
    I am willing to bet that something fried inside the speakers, probably not the all the woofers themselves.

    You said you hooked up another speaker as a main and it played OK, so that kinda rules out anything being wrong with your Yamaha (admittedly I thought it was a crossover/setting issue with the Yamaha as well).
    So, are you willing to put forth a little effort or are you happy sitting in your skeptical poo pile?


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  • gce
    gce Posts: 2,158
    edited January 2013
    So did you try hooking up your 7,s to the back's or surround's...you know what, it really sounds like it blew something in the 7's when you hooked up that emo.
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  • PolkieMan
    PolkieMan Posts: 2,446
    edited January 2013
    Is it the crossovers?
    Both speakers at the same time?
    The receiver messed up, front speakers set to small or 250Hz?
    If it was me I would take each woofer out and at LOW volume hook it up direct.
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  • g42
    g42 Posts: 20
    edited January 2013
    PolkieMan wrote: »
    Is it the crossovers?
    Both speakers at the same time?
    The receiver messed up, front speakers set to small or 250Hz?
    If it was me I would take each woofer out and at LOW volume hook it up direct.

    Front speakers were set to small. I tried your tip there, hooking up a woofer directly (at low volume) and it immediately worked normally. I didn't try all the woofers, but the one I did try gave perfect results, obvious even at really low level.
    But I don't know the mechanics of how speakers work(but I'm intelligent enough to learn and to take things apart), so is this good news or bad news?
    tonyb wrote: »
    Let me see if I follow, you unhooked everything, just connected the speakers to the receiver, not the amplifier,, set to large, no sub, and speaker levels at 0, and you got nothing ?

    Would imagine if your receiver went into protect mode you wouldn't be able to do a hard reset. If a crossover resister blew, it's very seldom both would blow at the same time, unless you didn't notice one blew and the other blew later making it more obvious. Possible....take a look and see if you can see anything blown,burnt, blackened on the crossover.

    To answer your question, correct, got nothing, from the woofers. Midrange was normal, tweeters normal.
    Now, where do I look for this crossover you speak of? This is new to me, but I'm capable of learning.
  • naturallight
    naturallight Posts: 689
    edited January 2013
    OK..since you verified at least 1 bass driver works, your probably in good shape. Again, to blow both cross overs in the same way, would be rather remote. Before you go nuts, i would try and find some receiver you can borrow, pretty much anything that works..LOL

    My guess at this point is the 7's will work. The problem lies in the 810.



    The cross-overs i believe are connected to the back plate were the speaker wire connects. So thats 4 screws. I don't think there are any fuses on it. But i could be wrong. I have never taken the RTi's apart. But i also think all the speakers are hard wired into the cross-over, so dose not leave alot of room to really look at the cross-over (at least what i was told, but may not hold true on the 7's)

    Someone who has taken the 7's apart would have to chime in on that.
  • nwohlford
    nwohlford Posts: 700
    edited January 2013
    Did you ever test the speakers without the receiver? This would be the easiest test if the issue is in the speakers or receiver.

    I would hook something that can play music and has a volume control directly to the Emotiva. I usually use something like an iphone or iPod. Turn the volume all the way down before playing anything and slowly bring the volume up once the music starts. if the woofer still don't work, something is going on with the speakers.
  • naturallight
    naturallight Posts: 689
    edited January 2013
    That i would NOT do...At this point the Emo amp is "suspect"..I would not use that.

    If there are fuses in the cross-over.and there blown...the Emo blew them up....if there is damage to the cross-overs at all that somehow blew both sets of woofer controls, again the Emo did that.



    I would again..find or borrow a receiver..try the speakers with just a cd player. If there are fuses in the Cross-over..then maybe they are blown....but somebody with a knowledge of this cross-over has to chime in on this..I just don't know.
  • naturallight
    naturallight Posts: 689
    edited January 2013
    Let me put it this way. You have had the 7's for a year. Works fine on the Yamaha. You want more power. you buy the Emo..... WHAM..your bass drivers shut down.

    Now the high suspect in this mess is the Emo amp.

    Don't use that again.



    If there are fuses in the cross-over..you may be lucky..if there blown. The drivers or at least the one you pulled out works..so hopefully you did not damage them. What may have happened to the cross-over i don't know.

    But pretty much do NOT put the Emo back in your testing. If there are fuses, and you lucked out with that, great replace them...but send the Emo back...tell them it blew the fuses in your speakers
  • Toolfan66
    Toolfan66 Posts: 17,237
    edited January 2013
    IMO it sounds like something was hooked up wrong. I personally have my doubts it's the amp, unless the volume was pushed or the volume was not turned down prior to turning the gear back on..
  • Face
    Face Posts: 14,340
    edited January 2013
    Do you have a digital multimeter?

    I wonder if the emo amp is letting high amounts of DC pass through. Caps in series with the tweeter and mid would protect them, but not the woofers.

    A dmm would also help determine the condition of the woofers.

    Just curious, what do you have everything plugged into, a regular power strip, direct to wall, etc...
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  • naturallight
    naturallight Posts: 689
    edited January 2013
    Well as far as i understand this. He did pull 1 driver and it works fine. So he did not blow the drivers per say. Now it may NOT be the Emo..it may be the 810..but at this point, i would NOT put it back in a testing scene. I would try and find another receiver to test with..beg, borrow or whatever.



    The strange fact that as soon as he put the Emo in the picture...the drivers went south...so kind of leads me to believe the Emo has something to do with it....but could be a wireing screw up also.

    But just to blow out the bass drivers??? That again seems pretty small.



    If anybody knows if there are fuses in the cross- over...please chime in...that may explain alot.

    If there are...and there blown..the only thing that could do that would be the Emo.
  • disneyjoe7
    disneyjoe7 Posts: 11,435
    edited January 2013
    Smell test put your nose to the woofer does it smell?

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  • naturallight
    naturallight Posts: 689
    edited January 2013
    Let me put this in a trouble shooting flow chart for you.



    Now the Op has had these RTi7's for a year..work fine with his Yamaha.

    He wants more power more volume. Buys the Emo. Pretty much plugs in from his Yamaha pre outs to the Emo on the mains. Hooks up the 7's to the Emo. Now even if he some how got speaker wires to cross with the plus and minus.....pretty much any amp would shut down. But thats not the case. It works, but he gets no better sound or volume. Then WHAM..the bass drivers go out. On both speakers...



    Now OK NOT good....first thing would be the Emo...but thats out of the picture now. The Yamaha no longer makes the speakers play right. He has tried to mess with the settings...still nothing.

    He has gone so far as to pull one of the bass drivers....It works, pretty much all the bass drivers will work at that point.



    Now either the Cross-over has fuses in there for the bass drivers, or the Cross-over..in both speakers has had the same caps or whatever blow up. Which seems kind of unlikely. But could happen.



    So the next trouble shooting step would be to get another receiver..of any kind..just play a CD thru it and see if the bass drivers work. If they do..then the 810 is the problem.

    If They don't work..then the Cross-over is messed be it fuses or not. If they don't work, the Emo has caused the problem. Thats about as far as i can go with out knowing what is in the Cross-over.
  • rpf65
    rpf65 Posts: 2,127
    edited January 2013
    Sounds like the OP should contact Polk customer support at this point, and explain the situation.

    I would have to agree with naturallight at this point. If crossover damage was done to 2 speakers, after the addition to any new piece of gear, that piece should be suspect. I would probably pullit out of the chain and contact Emo. It makes no sense wht so ever to tak a chance of destroying another speaker to test the amp. Take the time to get it bench tested by those who do this for a living.
  • halo71
    halo71 Posts: 4,603
    edited January 2013
    g42, where do you live? Perhaps there is a Polkie nearby that might offer to help you out.
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  • g42
    g42 Posts: 20
    edited January 2013
    Face wrote: »
    Do you have a digital multimeter?

    I wonder if the emo amp is letting high amounts of DC pass through. Caps in series with the tweeter and mid would protect them, but not the woofers.

    A dmm would also help determine the condition of the woofers.

    Just curious, what do you have everything plugged into, a regular power strip, direct to wall, etc...

    I have a multimeter somewhere, given to me but I never used it. What exactly do I hook it up to here, and what am I looking for? Also, my equipment was/is plugged into a surge protector. Doesn't have a brand name on it, but I seem to remember it was rather higher end when I bought it a few years ago.
    Well as far as i understand this. He did pull 1 driver and it works fine. So he did not blow the drivers per say. Now it may NOT be the Emo..it may be the 810..but at this point, i would NOT put it back in a testing scene. I would try and find another receiver to test with..beg, borrow or whatever.



    The strange fact that as soon as he put the Emo in the picture...the drivers went south...so kind of leads me to believe the Emo has something to do with it....but could be a wireing screw up also.

    But just to blow out the bass drivers??? That again seems pretty small.



    If anybody knows if there are fuses in the cross- over...please chime in...that may explain alot.

    If there are...and there blown..the only thing that could do that would be the Emo.

    Still having trouble lining up another receiver to try but working on it. You'd be surprised what a bunch of luddites the people around me are.
    disneyjoe7 wrote: »
    Smell test put your nose to the woofer does it smell?

    No scent that I can discern.
    rpf65 wrote: »
    Sounds like the OP should contact Polk customer support at this point, and explain the situation.

    I would have to agree with naturallight at this point. If crossover damage was done to 2 speakers, after the addition to any new piece of gear, that piece should be suspect. I would probably pullit out of the chain and contact Emo. It makes no sense wht so ever to tak a chance of destroying another speaker to test the amp. Take the time to get it bench tested by those who do this for a living.

    I will be contacting Polk. But of course this happened early on a friday evening, and I was just hoping the unlikely hope that someone could get me some music going for the weekend...a whole weekend(and more) without the stereo...damn....
    halo71 wrote: »
    g42, where do you live? Perhaps there is a Polkie nearby that might offer to help you out.

    I live in rural Manitoba, about halfway between Winnipeg and Brandon.
  • fossy
    fossy Posts: 1,378
    edited January 2013
    Toolfan66 wrote: »
    IMO it sounds like something was hooked up wrong. I personally have my doubts it's the amp, unless the volume was pushed or the volume was not turned down prior to turning the gear back on..

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this .......

    .it is very important that everything is hooked up right , obviously .. hook up is where i would start .. if your kinda new to hooking up all this stuff , it can be just one little mis-hook that can screw things up
  • naturallight
    naturallight Posts: 689
    edited January 2013
    Wow..I have no clue where you live..but anyway...if Polk can not verify that the speakers are the problem..they can not do too much for you. If you have a best buy or someplace..any place that you can just go buy a stereo receiver..for cheap..I don't care if it puts out 20 watts...and something you can return the next day..thats fine. If the 7's bass drivers work...your speakers are fine...IF NOT..from what you have said..your cross-overs have a problem...again..if they have fuses..maybe a quick fix..and the Emo amp is the problem. If the cross-over is still the problem as with blown up stuff..the Emo amp is still the problem.



    If the speakers work.....then you have a problem with the 810...Thats about all i can figure out at this point......
  • g42
    g42 Posts: 20
    edited January 2013
    fossy wrote: »
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this .......

    .it is very important that everything is hooked up right , obviously .. hook up is where i would start .. if your kinda new to hooking up all this stuff , it can be just one little mis-hook that can screw things up

    I really hope it's something as simple as that, and by all means, If I've been an idiot I'm willing to admit it. I'll sacrifice my ego to get the music back. But I'm pretty certain I hooked things up right. It's not terribly complicated - my Yamaha has rca preouts for an external amp. I hooked up one rca to each channel I was going to use, labelled each cable on each end with a piece of masking tape, hooked up the speaker wires, double checked polarity(speaker wires also all labelled with tape). Power cord and DC trigger are obviously easy and not going to fit into any wrong slots. Double/triple checked everything. I even pulled the stand well away from the wall so I could easily go behind it to work and see everything clearly, no feeling around or guesswork in the dark or any of that. Started at very low volume, because I was eager to hear the volume difference when hooked up.

    Anyway, took off the back cover where the speaker wires attach and found this. Is this as wrong as it looks to me?
    This.jpg
    This.jpg


    Another view of same piece:
    This 2.jpg


    Same piece, other side(other side of the exact same piece, not other side speaker):
    Comparison.jpg
  • Tornado Red
    Tornado Red Posts: 939
    edited January 2013
    g42, I'm about an hour east of you in Winnipeg. If you want to load up one or both of your speakers, I have a Yamaha RX v371 I'm trying to sell that I presently don't have connected. It's not a power monster but it certainly will tell if your A7's are working or not. You're welcome to come and try your speaker(s) here, let me know...
  • Tornado Red
    Tornado Red Posts: 939
    edited January 2013
    ...Though now that I look at your pics, something appears fried. Hope someone with experience here chimes in...
  • disneyjoe7
    disneyjoe7 Posts: 11,435
    edited January 2013
    I'm suspicious about that resistor but not sure, you going to need a meter to check it the woofer and resistor.

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  • g42
    g42 Posts: 20
    edited January 2013
    g42, I'm about an hour east of you in Winnipeg. If you want to load up one or both of your speakers, I have a Yamaha RX v371 I'm trying to sell that I presently don't have connected. It's not a power monster but it certainly will tell if your A7's are working or not. You're welcome to come and try your speaker(s) here, let me know...

    Thanks, I might just take you up on that if I can't come up with something local. Won't be right away, I'm horribly busy during the week.
  • Tornado Red
    Tornado Red Posts: 939
    edited January 2013
    g42 wrote: »
    Thanks, I might just take you up on that if I can't come up with something local. Won't be right away, I'm horribly busy during the week.
    Sure, just let me know. You can PM me and we'll set something up...
  • F1nut
    F1nut Posts: 50,548
    edited January 2013
    g42 , you've blown caps in both speakers. The resistors appears to be fine, but should be tested as well. It would seem your new amp is allowing too much DC pass through as stated by Face. Do not use it again until it is fixed. You'll have to send those boards somewhere for repair.

    Hey Jhayman, told ya emo sucks. :twisted:
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  • Jhayman
    Jhayman Posts: 1,548
    edited January 2013
    First off your reported AGAIN..
    Second How can you be 100% sure it's the Amp?
    Third never seen this issue over at the Emo forum except from g42
    F1nut wrote: »
    g42 , you've blown caps in both speakers. The resistors appears to be fine, but should be tested as well. It would seem your new amp is allowing too much DC pass through as stated by Face. Do not use it again until it is fixed. You'll have to send those boards somewhere for repair.

    Hey Jhayman, told ya emo sucks. :twisted:
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