Car audio people, help me!

Foolio · Post by **Foolio** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 2:59 pm

I thought I might try posting this here, and see if I can get any help.

My left front speaker worked untill a few days ago. I turned on my car one day, and it simply didn't get any sound out of that speaker. For the few days after, the sound would sometime cut in on that speaker, work for an hour or so, but then stop again. Now it's to the point where it won't work at all.

I took the speaker out and tried to see what was wrong. It's not blown for sure, all connections are good, everything looks normal.

However, when I "push" the backend of it, thereby raising the woofer (midrange) a millimeter or so, the sound comes back in. When I let go of it, no sound again.

I really hope it can be fixed, because I can't afford new speakers right now.

Viperoni · Post by **Viperoni** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 3:50 pm

It seems like one of the braided wires going from the termianl to the cone (and to the voice coil) is loose at one end; happened to me with a sub I had.
You could try resoldering it...that's about the only real fix.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 4:27 pm

Ditto. If you're lucky it's a cold solder joint at where the wire from the cone's coil attaches to the terminal strip mounted on the back of the speaker. Just heat the connection with a soldering iron enough to make the solder melt and when it hardens check to make sure the wire if firmly attached.

If you're unlucky, the solder joint is broken where it attaches to the cone itself. This you can sometimes also solder but VERY carefully (I wouldn't do it unless you're an experienced solderer). You'll need to burn some of the hard wax coating off of the spot on the cone where the wire attaches to it - there shoudl be a small metal ring mounted in the surface of the cone with a hole in it that the wire's attached to. Heat it up with a low power iron and you may need to apply some solder to it (ELECTRONIC SOLDER NOT ACID BASED PIPE SOLDER!).

Jim Z · Post by **Jim Z** » Wed Oct 03, 2001 6:43 pm

or the voice coil itself has an open somewhere. Though the tinsel leads sounds like a good place to start. The only problem is that oftentimes the tinsel leads poke through the cone and are sealed with a bit of glue. Soldering that stuff is just gonna make smoke and won't fis the speaker.

Basically, if the problem isn't obvious then just replace the speaker.