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When a speaker does not sound right, how do you know which part is wrong?

I bought Polk LS50 from craigslist for my kids. One speaker produces some static noise and it sounds much weaker than the other.

It has one 1" dome tweeter and two 6 1/2" drivers. How can you test which went wrong? Tweeter, driver, or crossover? Or, something else? Is there a way to tell what went wrong by just listening to the sound?

 

128x128ihcho
yogiboy's avatar
yogiboy
5,486 posts
 

Swap each driver one at a time to the working speaker. That will verify which driver is the culprit. If the drivers are good then you will know that it is the xover!

russ69's avatar
russ69
3,360 posts
 

Put your ear next to the tweeter, 95% chance the tweeter is blown...50% of the time. 

ihcho's avatar
ihcho OP
609 posts
 

Thanks for excellent ideas.

dadork
632 posts
 

Bad tweeter and they are good about parts.

holmz's avatar
holmz
2,328 posts
 

REW and a UMIK microphone would be an objective way to start.

Sniffing the cross over parts with the nostrils will likely need to happen at some point. But it be a driver.

One could swap the crossover between left and right. If the problem moves sides then it is the passive XO. If it is not moving then it is a driver. And it could be a bit of both.

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