RT35 Speaker Problem

skoerner

I have a pair of Polk RT35 speakers which I purchased in 1998 (not sure of the exact purchase date, but the assembly date listed on the driver is 24-June-98). I love the speakers and until recently they have sounded great. A few weeks ago I noticed some distortion coming out of the driver in one of the speakers at medium to medium-high volume levels. It only happens to one speaker and I tried connecting the bad speaker to the other channel on my Yamaha receiver and the distortion follows the speaker, so I’m fairly certain it is not a problem with my receiver. One interesting thing I noticed is that if I take the driver out of the cabinet, the problem goes away. As soon as I slide it back into the cabinet I hear the distortion. I checked for any loose material in the cabinet but this doesn’t seem to be a problem. I can only assume that the driver is bad and for some reason the problem is most noticeable when it is in the cabinet (possibly because of the limited air available in the cabinet requires more power to drive the speaker?).

Is it possible to get a replacement driver? Is it out of warranty now? The part number listed on the driver is MW7011 (it also says BD7011 in smaller letters), but I don’t see either of these numbers on your parts list.

Thanks in advance!

Scott Koerner

VR3

Well, if you notice if you take the driver in and out of the cabinet.........the bass and lower mids will kinda.....errrrr.......fade in and out (actually has a pretty cool effect).

It takes an enclosure to make bass, my guess is - when it is asked to make bass, it distorts.

Take your fingers, press evenly around the dust cap, if you hear rubbing, you blew the voice coil. Call Polk CS if thats the case