Anyone have home/car speaker experience?
A little. I have installed a stereo system and other electronic gadgets in various cars and at home (mine and those of friends and family), and done some troubleshooting as necessary. No "formal" training, though . . . mostly I just open up the back and tinker until either it starts working or I short something out and blow a fuse or trip the main breaker. ;-) (The good news: as yet, no houses or other buildings have burned down as a result of my attempts at electrical repair.)
I thought I did, having worked in a stereo store for three years. Am I wrong or was I the victim of gross incompetence?*
I have low-mid level car stereo rated at 40 watts. Because of the car I have to turn the volume up to hear it at all. I had put in new speakers because the old ones were blown when I bought the car. During a thunderstorm both the speakers went out, just completely dead. I was listening to AM. I thought it was the head unit. (I have water trouble during very heavy downpours, or driving fast in lighter rains.) So I drove for another hour with the radio off.
The next day I could hear one speaker okay but the other one was blown. (I did some testing and both were blown, one halfway and the other was completely gone).
By "testing", do you mean you removed the speakers and tested them, then tested all the connections, or just that you turned the volume up and ran the balance control from one side to another to see if sound came out of both speakers? If the latter, you might first test all your connections (are they soldered, screws, or quick-connects?) to make sure the problem is not there.
I went to Circuit City, where I bought the radio and speakers together, to ask why a 40-watt stereo would blow 40-watt speakers. The answer I got, no lie:
"Well the radio says 40 watts but it's really only 20 per side and that's only 16 RMS (root mean square). Since the speakers are 40 watt speakers they need an amplifier so the speakers each get 40-watts."
I said, "You don't know what you are talking about."
I suspect that you are correct in your assessment. ;-) The people who work at such establishments are generally sales people, not technicians. :-(
He then said, "No really. See when the speaker is underdriven the voice coil has to move more to produce any sound.
Now, as I said, I have no formal training in the stereo field, but AFAIK if there is not a large enough signal reaching the speaker, the speaker will move _less_ than normal, producing less sound than it should. The motion of the speaker cone moves the air molecules, producing the vibration which your ears perceive as sound (and in the process of getting a degree in physics, I did learn a little bit about sound).
Even though you had the radio turned up it isn't enough to drive the speaker. It had to over-work and that's why it blew"
I said "Is there anyone else I can talk to?"
He said no so I left the store.
Kevin T.
Laughed all the way home.
While obviously neither I or anyone else can diagnose the problem over the Internet (unless maybe you have a test bench set up there that you can put your system on and which is hooked up to your computer to send the test results over the 'net . . . No? I didn't think so. ;-) ), I do know that there are problems which occur inside the radio itself which result in blowing the speakers as well, and my very uninformed guess is (unless it is a loose connection, as described above) that you may have one of those (perhaps caused by the water, perhaps not). If the system is still under warranty, you might ask if they will repair or replace it. If not, you need to either find someone in your local area who has experience in working on car stereos and have him (or her) look at it and see if it is repairable, or simply cut your losses and get a new stereo and speakers (perhaps from a source who knows what they are doing and will stand behind the system).
Sorry, I don't know of anything cheaper that you can do (unless by luck the problem with the stereo turns out to be easily repairable, and even then it sounds like you may still need new speakers).
Good luck!
P.S. If anyone else here knows more about the topic than I do and is ROTFLOL at my ignorance, please jump in and correct me!
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