What's wrong with my speaker?

@audiokinesis You're probably right about the overheating hypothesis. I think I may have damaged it via clipping. These are 4 ohm speakers, and I had been driving them with a Marantz PM7000. Marantz says to not drive speakers with impedances less than 8 ohms with the PM7000. I recently upgraded to a Peachtree Nova 300 which seems to be driving them better, although I think I like the sound quality of the class AB amplifier better than the class D which is the Nova.

You could try rotating the driver 90 degrees so that the problem area is at 12:00, and MAYBE gravity will help. If that doesn’t work, you could also try it with the problem area at 6:00. This is a long shot.

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I been rotating drivers for over 35 years but 180. A guy told me to do it every couple of years, and do a batting inspection on the drivers. His drivers were larger than most, but with care and rotation, 40+ year old drivers used all the time, are still sounding wonderful..

Check and make sure something behind them hasn’t come loose, like the batting membrane, or the securements coming loose.. Even floppin wires vibrate on the enclosure, drivers... LOOK..first

Happy hunting, hope it’s something simple like, SOMETHING simple.

Regards

I had a pair of Polk Audio towers years ago. I noticed the same thing and it was “fixed” basically the same way. In my case, the surround had essentially delaminated from the basket. New driver time for me. Try the rotation trick, but that driver is most likely toast.

I brought the nova 300 home for my beethovens and returned it. A used H160 would sound great and probably not cost too much used you lose the wireless streaming tho’.

I just looked at the pic. Could you reglue it?

almost certainly a broken voice coil assembly.  Replace.
Vienna drivers are costly!  But the speakers are great. I have Mahlers ....