Found Monster cables inside my Watt Puppy 5.1's

I suppose break in is necessary, but there is absolutely zero bass. almost sounds like the puppy turned into a small PC speaker. That can't be right, could it?

To be honest, I can't figure out when exactly they blew. I suppose it's possible they were damaged before I even bought them, though I like to believe that I would have heard blown woofers. Can an under powered amp cause low impedance speakers (the puppys are known to be down to 2 ohms in the bass range I believe) to blow if played too loud? I know the sound gets very ratty when played too loudly.

As far as risk/return, I hear you. But I didn't realize that Wilson themselves would take them back for repair. Plus, I don't have boxes for them. (I wonder what they would have charged me?) I got the woofers from another dealer that used to carry Wilson as a favor. They never mentioned sending it directly to Wilson, and said that I should be able to just solder them in myself. I only paid about $4k for the pair, so the risk/return wasn't quite as high. What a painful lesson though.

I'm sure they can be repaired. Do they have any fuses or other internal protection. It just doesn't sound as though the signal is getting to the drivers. Be sure also to check the resistors on the crossover going to the drivers if there are any. They may be bad. I have seen resistors blown completely out to where they will not pass a signal. Also make sure these are not Wilson clones. There are some out there.

You probably blew them because you UNDERpowered them - the chief cause of clipping - and blown speakers. Most speaker can handle megawatts of clean power, but 50 watss of clipping will kill almost anything.

As for the bass - sounds like you may have wired the two drivers in each speaker out of phase. That would kill the bass almost completely.

I concur with the masses - have Wilson (or your local dealer) fix these before anything else happens.

you were right, johnmcelfresh! they _were_ out of phase. btw, the folks at Wilson were also very helpful, and deduced that they may be out of phase. i was able to get the speaker out (i just left it on its face for a while and tapped the back. it eventually popped out. i then switched the wires on one of the woofers, and voila! they work beautifully now. the bass seems a tad weak, but i think that is because of break in.

thanks, everyone, for your help!

h

Glad you confirmed John's sensible diagnosis and that your crossover isn't damaged. I thought you were kidding about the 40wpc Proton...get yourself something that can handle the current demands if you intend to play these loud (and why wouldn't you if you got Wilsons?). If money's tight, something like a used Parasound 2200 or 3500 should do the trick for the time being.

As far as the wiring goes, the internal hookup wire in most speakers is just solid core copper in a plain dielectric sheathing, pulled off a spool, nothing fancy. I'll leave the pejorative suppositions about retail Monster products for others to dispute, but I'm sure they can supply such an OEM wire as good as any other.