What's wrong with my speaker?

@steve59 I'm not exactly sure how loud. I don't have a decibel meter on hand. It's not enough to hurt the ears, but I tend to like my music a bit on the loud side. I do know that I do not experience the same thing on the other speaker, so it appears that the midrange composite on that one is definitely able to take the stress. I suppose a replacement purchase is in my future.

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.

More than likely the voice coil is no longer perfectly round because heat has softened the glue, and then when it cooled down again, it had deformed a little. The deformed section is probably at the end closest to the dust cap, and on long excursions it rubs against the walls of the magnetic gap.

" I suppose a replacement purchase is in my future. " 

Probably so.

Duke

@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.