Car Speakers – Audiophile Haven

If your speakers have ever stopped working properly then you might have heard the phrase, "the speakers have blown out." When speakers get blown out it is a significant drop in their overall sound quality and audio fidelity. But the question is, can you blow out car speakers? Yes, Car speakers can blow out just like regular speakers. In most cases it is due to accidents, carelessness on your part to take care of them, setting the volume too high, or leaving them on for too long. Ultimately, numerous issues like internal thermal failure can become possible and have a drastic impact on the quality of your car speakers. Several important facts need to be examined when assessing just how you can end up blowing out your car speakers. Especially, because, it's not so easy to get them replaced, and not quite so easy as to get them checked by a professional. So we'll tell you how you can tell and make sure on your own. Related: Do Car Speakers Get Quieter Over Time? What Causes Car Speakers to Blow Out? Several factors can cause car speakers to blow out, and these are not just limited to external conditions of the car speakers themselves, or even issues caused by you the user, but some that are based on factors wholly out of your control. Mechanical Car Speaker Failures With that said, if you're using mechanical car speakers then their failures can happen when components such as the Cone are damaged in some way, shape, or form. Often the cone is moved in such a way that it was not originally designed to do, and this can cause long-standing mechanical issues for your speakers. What essentially happens is that the cone moves into a position that is further than it was originally meant to be, and this stresses the material as a whole, because of additional weight and pressure. With such proximity and the constant bobbing of most cars, there is a likelihood that the speaker will collide. This collision usually occurs against the frame of the speaker itself and can cause components to tear, break, or even become disconnected from the main body, which inevitably causes permanent damage to the entire structure. Thermal Car Speaker Failures There are of course several factors that might influence the issues that can occur to your car speakers, but one of the most common of those is thermal-based car speaker failures. Often what occurs is that your speakers receive a surge of power that they simply are not designed to be able to handle. And this excess power causes failure. To discuss this in more detail, let's discuss the effect of the excess power experienced by the speakers themselves. The excess power directly initiates the buildup of heat within the system of the car speakers. This can often soften or reduce the glue that holds certain components together. With the essentially combining property lost, speakers often get blown. Without a proper structure, most speakers aren't able to produce sound as they once were able to. This is because the production of sound is a very delicate process requiring the exact placement of certain key components within the speaker itself. Without which it becomes muddled, poor, and incomprehensible. A second issue of feeding far too much electrical power to your car speaker is that the excess power can often quite literally melt or burn the delicate wires within essential components. One of these important components includes the voice coil. If your voice coil is damaged it can quite possibly be the most destructive failure your blown car speaker can suffer. This is because you usually won't get any sound at all out of that particular speaker, and this makes it quite difficult to detect the damage that happened, but also essentially wastes that speaker completely. Related: Are Focal Car Speakers Good? 8 Reasons The Common Cause for Mechanical and Thermal Failure? If you would have noticed so far then you would be able to recognize that the common thread between both Mechanical and Thermal failures for your car speakers is either accidents or careless operation. Audio equipment is quite delicate, and if it is not handled with care, patience, and understanding of potential pitfalls then the damage is inevitable. It is often for this reason that certain safety margins are established when using audio equipment and guidelines are provided for best practices concerning them. One of these practices that can be potentially harmful include turning the volume of a car stereo system far higher than the recommended setting. In some instances, you can begin to hear a gritty tone while the system audio is that high which often means that the voice coils in your woofers may have separated from the spiders that were once holding them in place, and this leaves permanent damage to your system. Which often is not something that can simply be repaired. How to Tell If Your Car Speakers are Blown Out? If you believe that your car speakers no longer work, or are blown out so to speak, then they've probably been through a horrendous failure. Those car speakers may not work at all or might have severely compromised audio fidelity and quality. If you find yourself in a situation where a speaker in your car has been blown out then there is a possibility that you may not hear any sound at all. However, there are other cases where you might hear a constant buzzing sound instead of the music or audio that you wanted to have played. We understand that there can be many reasons that your car speakers might have stopped working, and it can be necessary for you to identify exactly the issue that your specific speakers are facing. Additionally, knowing that your speakers have been blown out can also be helpful and potentially save you hundreds of dollars. If your car's speakers have only partially blown rather than altogether entirely been compromised then you'll still be able to hear some sound from them. However, the sound will be largely distorted and difficult to accurately place. Hissing, crackling, static, or fuzzy distortion may especially be prevalent in such a case. Often the failure of the car speakers falls into two categories that we did describe more generally above, but essentially they are mechanical and thermal problems. Both of which can d damage your speaker. However, anything that does permanent and lasting damage is known to be a factor that blows your speakers out. Our major tip to keep your audio setup as good as possible is to avoid operating your car's sound system at excessive capacities both in terms of duration as well as volume. If you do this, you should be able to extend the life of your speakers by a significant amount. Now let's move on to the tell-tale signs that you can look out for to know if your car speakers have blown out or not. 1. Distorted sound and hissing If you suspect your speakers then we suggest that you set the volume of your device to low. Not removing it completely, but keeping it at a medium level instead. Do so and attempt to listen to the distortion. A good method to know if there is distortion is to listen to a CD or MP3 player, in most instances, you would want to avoid the FM radio as there is a chance that there is normal static that might interfere with the test. If you hear any hissing or fuzziness, and if turning the volume up increases the distortion that you sensed, then there might be a problem. A good way to complete your test would be to use the fade and balance settings on your player to isolate the issue of your speaker. However, we know that in most cases, you'll find that one or more of your speakers has loose or damaged voice coils. This is what is causing the problems to begin with. 2. Popping or Rattling If you don't hear your music at all, and instead hear the speaker make various unpleasant and unappealing sounds or noises then it's probably blown. The common unpleasant sounds that are heard in this instance sound like popping or rattling, and it is a major red flag. 3. Lack of Bass, Treble or Mid-Tones Another major way in which you can tell if your car speakers have blown is by noticing a sudden and often drastic reduction in the bass response. This is one of the better hints in finding out if your car speakers have blown out or not. And can be useful to check first before checking anything else. We suggest that you try using equalizer controls on your car radio or another music device, and if you can, notice the complete lack of bass, treble, or mid-tones, and if you do then you probably need new speakers. It's as simple as that. 4. Lack of Vibration From Speakers Most music experts can tell if you have blown speakers or not depending on the vibrations that are produced. Although this might also be caused by wiring, so we suggest that you keep an eye on this issue if you notice it. If you place your hand in front of your speaker grills and cannot feel any vibration, then that could be an issue. 5. Checking Car Speakers For Impedance This one requires the use of an additional piece of equipment known as a Multimeter. Secondly, you should be able to remove the grills of your car speakers. Once that is complete check the impedance of each of the suspected speakers. Most speakers that are working properly will typically lie between 4 and 8 ohms. If you find, however, that your speakers do not meet that criteria then you might need new speakers because your speakers are blown. Related: Can Car Speakers Damage Hearing? Important Facts What to Do About Blown Car Speakers? Although we believe that it is possible to repair a blown-out car speaker, it is often simply not worth the hassle that you will have to go through. This is because repairs for a blown-out speaker require skill and are costly endeavors in comparison to simply going out and buying a new speaker that would meet expectations. However, there are certain exceptional circumstances where you probably want to repair the speakers or want to repair them yourself. First, it's often possible to fix your speaker if it simply has a dented or damaged speaker cone. In this situation, you should be very careful, and use handles even small tears that might occur. Although we believe the sound quality will never come back to what it once was, however, proper work and following a guide might recover some of the devices. If you find out that the voice coils of your speaker are blown, however, then that can be a more difficult ordeal and is often quite expensive to get dealt with. If you opt to pay someone for these repairs then prepare to empty the vault. Although doing them yourself largely is based on whether you find the process comfortable to perform. Get hold of re-coning kits online and you can find replacement voice coils, spiders, dust caps, and gaskets. With these tools, it's simply a process of learning where what goes and how you can fix them together into one place. If you have a stock sound system, then you should be safe upgrading the blown speakers with direct-fit aftermarket replacements. The new speakers should work just fine if you keep the volume low enough to avoid distortion. To summarize, yes, you can blow out your car speakers just as you can damage regular speakers. Several causes of this can fit into the mechanical or thermal category. We've listed over 5 tell-tale signs for you to figure out if your speakers are blown, and given you some tips to repair them. Hope this helps and see ya next time!