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Can you smell your speakers when youre rockin out?

Lol, I know this a funny question, but whenever I'm listening at loud volumes, I can smell my speakers. It's always the same smell no matter what speakers I've had. It's not a burning smell, more like the insulation used in the boxes. Is it the air blowing through the insulation and then out the port, or cooked voicecoils? Like I said, it doesn't smell like burning electronics but I 'm not sure what it is. It kind of smells good; like new rubber in a bike shop or race gas smells to me. It's the association of good times :-)
128x128b_limo
martinmobile
84 posts
 
Back about 10 years ago I had a pair of Martin Logan Quest Z's that didn't agree with one of the preamps that got "rotated" in one afternoon during a preamp "shoot-out" and something went terribly wrong...fried a bunch of wiring and resistors and stuff on both crossovers. But that sure as hell didn't smell too good. Smelled like $100 dollar bills going up in flames! Ha Ha Ha! (which it really DID end up costing multiple Benjimin Franklins to get my speakers fixed). Oh the joy....
philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,306 posts
 
maybe that smoke you smell is from something else...

;^)
sfstereo
215 posts
 
You are probably smelling the varnish from the voice coil heating up. If you can smell it, you are driving your speakers way too hard. The voice coil will eventually open if you keep it up.
noble100's avatar
noble100
2,419 posts
 
B_limo,

So what your telling us is your speakers may smell but, as anyone who has heard them knows, they certainly don't stink.

Next time it happens, you may want to touch the speaker surrounds to make sure they aren't heating up. But I think you'd have to play some awfully powerfull music at very high, and sustained, volume to make the surrounds heat up. Unlikely, but you could rule it out easily enough. Good luck.

tostadosunidos's avatar
tostadosunidos
1,197 posts
 
I like the voice coil theory, also perhaps could be crossover heating up?
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