bad Speaker... how do I tell what's wrong?

[GenoBluzGtr]

Just got a new amp in the mail...

Speaker is shot... it plays, but there is very little volume, lots of grit and rattle, and very fizzy.

Played the amp through a different speaker and it's fine. Played a different amp through this speaker and it's all fizzy, gritty, flubby, rattly, and low volume.

Troubleshooting 101 tells me that the speaker is shot... now.. what's wrong?

Dropped voice coil? Shipping could have done it? Worked fine on the other end before it was sent to me. Tubes seem fine (all NOS).

BTW, amp is a 5E3, speaker is a WGS Veteran 30.

[slider313]

Could have happened in shipping.

[thilton59]

Have you examined the cone to see if there are any punctures or tears? Are the leads on the speaker well connected?

[GenoBluzGtr]

Yes to both... and nothing obvious

[SatelliteAmps]

Could easily happen in shipping. You can check it with a multimeter to see if the voice coil is shot. You can also check with a straight edge across the frame to see if it got bent out of whack. Could also be a magnet issue. Magnets can break.

[strat a various]

Speakers can 1. have a shifted magnet alignment, 2. Get bumped really hard and that can actually mess up the magnet strength, 3. Get momentarily warped, flex back, but the coil gap is farked. I just had TWO speakers die in shipping last month. Ouch.

[davemccarthy707]

+1 on shifted alignment causing rubbing.

[audiozone]

if you put it on a flat surface, like a glass topped table, it should not wobble. if it wobbles it has a bent frame. if you are the curious type, and you're sure its bad, cut the cone and the spider around the outside edge and pull the cone out of the frame to see if the coil looks burnt. then you can also look at the voice coil gap to see if it looks unusual.

you would be surprised at things that can happen. i bought an electro voice evm-12l on ebay to recone that was sold as blown. it rubbed and i thought to myself, yup its blown. i cut it open and the little aluminum screen in the magnets vent had gotten pushed in under the dust cap and got wedged in the voice coil gap. if i had known that and had been able to get to it,,, it might have been a good, working speaker. i kinda kicked myself on that one, but i have the parts and bought it to recone anyway.