Need some quick advice on these

S

StoleMyOwnCar

2[H]4U
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Picture is worth a thousand words, so first here's a gallery.

http://imgur.com/a/HEjVs

I got these off Ebay (~60 bucks so kind of pricy for this) and one of the speakers' bottoms looked like that. Obviously those two things (not sure what the name is) that are supposed to be connected to the ports aren't supposed to just be dangling off like that. The second to bottom picture shows the other speaker. It looks fine. Also there's a random... solenoid coil? Just dangling around in there. I've read DCM used all kinds of crazy stuff in their crossovers so this doesn't surprise me. Also on the other speaker the bottom woofer looked like it had some yellow goop around the dust cap. Not sure if they had to stick it back on or something. It's made out of plastic so not much room to hurt it anyway. The surrounds are rubber, and they look pristine. A little too pristine.

I hooked these up and didn't really notice much difference. They sound fine. But I don't have a good working pair to compare to. I'm not sure whether to return them or not, considering that the shipping cost is ridiculous and they're heavy as all hell. The seller is definitely not getting a positive rating either way. ATM kind of on the fence between just keeping them and gluing those parts back on and returning them. Leaning towards keeping since they're gonna require a huge shipping fee and whatnot, though I will get that refunded afterwards.
 
The speaker was dropped from high. Broke the reflex tubes off their glue and damaged the bass speaker voice coil. That's why they had to break it open and open the dust cap. You're going to have a hard time re-gluing the tubes and who knows what other damage has been caused.

Doesn't look like you made a good deal this time.
 
Well I just want to note that the speaker that has the yellow goop around the dust cap is not the same one that has the reflex tubes broken off. The speakers both sound about the same, and the bass sounds fine as far as I can tell....
 
I'd listen to 1 at a time with mono signal. If they are pretty similar - can ignore deepest bass, because we expect a difference from the ports - I'd fix 'em up.
 
I tried a sweeping bass test (http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_frequencychecklow.php) and they just sound different. Oddly the speaker with the yellow goop near the dust cap is definitely the one that sounds more messed up. It has some kind of harshness around the 100-190Hz range. There's a buzz to it. Like there's some kind of vibration that shouldn't be there. At first I thought it was nearby objects but I put them side to side and the same thing happened. I also hooked up my current Mordaunt Shorts and they were clean the entire way through. No buzzing. So it's not an issue of the sweeping test having uneven recording on channels.


I'm not sure what's up with these, but they're gonna go back. The seller says to not open a return case and contact them first but yeah last time I did that they just tried to weasel their way out. Not happening. Looks like I'm out the return shipping though. Ugh. I wish I bought the 2 pairs of these that popped up on Craigslist when they did. That's what happens when you hesitate.

At this point I can't really tell if they were damaged in shipping but based on the original screenshots in the auction, I noticed something interesting. The dust near the bottom of reflex tubes wasn't there. Like they had been handled around that area more recently. A few possibilities, but I'm guessing they tried to fix these up themselves and just failed. I should have taken a closer look, I guess. There's another pair that the Salvation Army is putting up for sale for less money (with shipping included). I may try them out.
 
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StoleMyOwnCar said:
I tried a sweeping bass test (http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_frequencychecklow.php) and they just sound different. Oddly the speaker with the yellow goop near the dust cap is definitely the one that sounds more messed up. It has some kind of harshness around the 100-190Hz range. There's a buzz to it. Like there's some kind of vibration that shouldn't be there. At first I thought it was nearby objects but I put them side to side and the same thing happened. I also hooked up my current Mordaunt Shorts and they were clean the entire way through. No buzzing. So it's not an issue of the sweeping test having uneven recording on channels.


I'm not sure what's up with these, but they're gonna go back. The seller says to not open a return case and contact them first but yeah last time I did that they just tried to weasel their way out. Not happening. Looks like I'm out the return shipping though. Ugh. I wish I bought the 2 pairs of these that popped up on Craigslist when they did. That's what happens when you hesitate.

At this point I can't really tell if they were damaged in shipping but based on the original screenshots in the auction, I noticed something interesting. The dust near the bottom of reflex tubes wasn't there. Like they had been handled around that area more recently. A few possibilities, but I'm guessing they tried to fix these up themselves and just failed. I should have taken a closer look, I guess. There's another pair that the Salvation Army is putting up for sale for less money (with shipping included). I may try them out.
Click to expand...
So it seems my guess was correct. Someone attempted to repair the voice coil of the driver and did a botch job. Most likely the voice coil was either bent or the magnet assembly was dislocated through the impact. This makes the voice coil rub on the side of the gap and aside from sounding bad it will make your voice coil burn in a while when the insulation rubs off.
 
Well, turns out I didn't lose anything... They just gave me a refund without even having me ship the item back. I guess I could fix these up. I need to try to find a replacement for that bottom driver in one speaker. In the other, I need to just patch the tubes up and stuff, I guess. They're still not bad, either way. Especially not for free.
 
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