Speaker showing continuity but not working?

[JHZR2]

I had a thread on soldering. But when I was testing out my bad joint, I realized that another Oe speaker was not working.

The rest right. 6 Ohm OE.

Pulled it, tested it with a meter and I get 10 Ohms. But the AA battery test to see if I get noise resulted in nothing.

Yet it shows impedance. I don’t think it wrecked anything because the front speaker is in parallel via a fader.

But is a shorted speaker a thing? Or what’s going on with it? I don’t have much experience with audio, but I do understand circuits.

Thanks!

 

[supton]

I don't know much about speakers, but tapping it with a 1.5V battery ought to pop the speaker cone in (or out). 9V will work too, the battery has a lot of internal resistance and shouldn't blow out a speaker rated in Watts.

Not a good sign...

I wonder if the cone is broken from the winding? meaning, the winding is connected to the wiring, and moving--but not working against the cone.

 

[Elkins45]

Is it possible the coil is broken but shorting against the bore? Or that the coil is still intact but is jammed inside the bore by foreign matter or deformation?

 

[JHZR2]

I don't know much about speakers, but tapping it with a 1.5V battery ought to pop the speaker cone in (or out). 9V will work too, the battery has a lot of internal resistance and shouldn't blow out a speaker rated in Watts.

Not a good sign...

I wonder if the cone is broken from the winding? meaning, the winding is connected to the wiring, and moving--but not working against the cone.

I had a bad front speaker so I replaced both with some I got from Europe. I tested the good OE 6 Ohm speaker with a AAA and it made scratchy noise perfectly.

Nothing from the other one under test that shows 10Ohm.

Is it possible the coil is broken but shorting against the bore? Or that the coil is still intact but is jammed inside the bore by foreign matter or deformation?

Maybe? How would I tell? I recall it working but the car has sat a number of months. Maybe it was intermittent before. There isn’t much of a way to get in there to probe, or particularly to fix, I don’t think…

 

[Propflux01]

If the voice coil itself was stuck on the frame it would read as a short. I would suspect a bind in the voice coil former that is somehow preventing the voice coil from moving. 10 Ohm resistive would be about 6-ohm impedance, so the wiring is testing OK. Sometimes, when I had speakers like that, it was because they were overdriven by an underpowered amp that spiked to cone all the way up, and the coil couldn't come down. One way I would get the VC back on track was to hook the speaker to a strong amp and pass a low bass tone of about 50-100hz, and "jar" it back into place.

 

[Lubener]

Even with a resistance of 10 ohms, the speaker should still produce sound. I always checked the integrity of the cone by slapping the speaker's magnet on the palm of my hand. A good speaker should produce a deep thud noise without any rattles. No thud means the cone is seized.

 

[JHZR2]

If the voice coil itself was stuck on the frame it would read as a short. I would suspect a bind in the voice coil former that is somehow preventing the voice coil from moving. 10 Ohm resistive would be about 6-ohm impedance, so the wiring is testing OK. Sometimes, when I had speakers like that, it was because they were overdriven by an underpowered amp that spiked to cone all the way up, and the coil couldn't come down. One way I would get the VC back on track was to hook the speaker to a strong amp and pass a low bass tone of about 50-100hz, and "jar" it back into place.

Even with a resistance of 10 ohms, the speaker should still produce sound. I always checked the integrity of the cone by slapping the speaker's magnet on the palm of my hand. A good speaker should produce a deep thud noise without any rattles. No thud means the cone is seized.

Can some movement be verified by hand? I can move the paper assembly, it’s free.

 

[Propflux01]

Can some movement be verified by hand? I can move the paper assembly, it’s free.

The cone can be free but the former might be holding up the voice coil from going back down. In other words, (on most speakers) the former is the brown/tan wavy fabric stuff that allows the cone to move, and centers it. The voice coil could be bound up and the former would still allow movement. Your best bet is to just hook the speaker up to the amp or radio you using and simply try it out.

 

[JHZR2]

The cone can be free but the former might be holding up the voice coil from going back down. In other words, (on most speakers) the former is the brown/tan wavy fabric stuff that allows the cone to move, and centers it. The voice coil could be bound up and the former would still allow movement. Your best bet is to just hook the speaker up to the amp or radio you using and simply try it out.

Well that’s what I had been doing and made me realize it wasn’t working.

I’ll put it back in service to see if it wakes up. I don’t play anything that loud. But I’d like the sound to not be lopsided. I’m not an “audiophile”, but I am sensitive to stuff like that.

BTW, this is the wiring setup. What’s missing is the right rear speaker only.

You. A see it has a shared negative back to the amp, positive going from the actual tuner itself to the speaker. Weird. But I’m pretty confident based upon my AAA battery test vs a known good 6Ohm speaker, that it is the speaker itself. Not the amp or anything else.

 

[Propflux01]

In that case, you might just be better off just replacing the speaker. That unit is an older common ground setup. No longer made (all car audio uses floating ground now). Is the speaker an odd size or such? if not, why not go ahead and update all of them to a newer, better aftermarket brand?

 

[Lubener]

Myself , it is easy to substitute another speaker. If sound then can be heard, toss the suspect speaker and get a new one. That is the quickest, most efficient way to solve your problem. Something is obviously wrong with it for having a coil resistance different from the others.

 

[JHZR2]

In that case, you might just be better off just replacing the speaker. That unit is an older common ground setup. No longer made (all car audio uses floating ground now). Is the speaker an odd size or such? if not, why not go ahead and update all of them to a newer, better aftermarket brand?

Odd mounting. I want to say 140mm in a basket. Most aftermarket now is 120mm and an adapter. Don’t really want to touch the other side since the covers tend to be set in place hard and are brittle abs. Plus I prefer the OE sound over newer speakers that are too sharp on the one end and too muffled on the other.

I can find some 6 ohm OE speakers that are OE so I may go with that.

Was hoping to revive this one since I’m pretty sure it worked before and I’m happy with it.

 

[Propflux01]

In that case you might seek out a new (used) driver from eBay or such.

 

[zzyzzx]

When testing a speaker with an Ohm meter:
Open circuit = Definitely bad speaker.
Resistance that seems OK = Speaker can be good or bad. Retest with signal generator.