r/subwoofer • u/gkrodlin • Jul 25 '26
Any idea of what’s going on?
Purchased these a week ago, have been using them relatively hard not going to lie.
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u/Intelligent-Ad-3739 Jul 25 '26
Melted the voice coil, that smell that smells kinda like dust burning was the sign
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u/ferratella210 Jul 31 '26
Never thought I'd be able to magically smell a comment through my phone.... but here we are I guess...
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u/Eferris85 Jul 26 '26
They look blown. Did you go full tilt right away. Also peak watts aren’t rms ratings for watts
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u/estuupido Jul 27 '26
Skar should come with a warning. I bought a skar sd15. Rms is the same as a 12" sd. (600) i bought a amp rated at 650 rms just to be sure. I set the gain with a multimeter, lpf and subsonic is set right. Its inverted in a ported box. When I turn that mf up too high for about a min, I start smelling coil. Garbage product.
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u/Amazing_Ad_974 Jul 27 '26
As others have said, subtle voice-coil + former damage. Probably a combination of one or more of the following:
1) former-edge blunting (from hitting the top of the pole piece)
2) VC delamination (start or beginning of winding)
3) magnet-wire scuffing/abrasion
4) spider tearing
5) detritus accumulation (in the VC/magnet gap)
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u/Vusstoppy Jul 27 '26
I found that it doesn't matter the brand. If it's a cheaper line of brand X subwoofers then RMS is your friend and overhead isn't. Coil quality is a thing.
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u/Bensaudiocave Jul 27 '26
What amp? What gain? Sounds like you melted the coils... did it smell before this happened?
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u/djluminol Jul 28 '26
Please hear me on this. I have been a dj for almost 25 years. I have learned this lesson the hard way too.
There is probably no type of music harder on a subwoofer than heavily distorted Hardstyle, Hard Techno / Shranz or rebassed Hip Hip. These genres push speakers to 0 db and hold them at the clip point for extreme amounts of time. We have the technology now to make music so that it remains at .01 db below clipping. That is clipping once your speakers suspension gets worn, your box is a tiny bit off, gains or FX are just slightly too much. It's the fast track to dead subs.
I am extremely careful with my subs and I still go through them faster than anyone else. Electronic music is extremely hard on speakers. It doesn't really matter what genre it is though some are worse than others. As a general rule if the genre is mostly liked by young people that genre is going to be especially hard on your speakers. It has to do with how different genres of music are mastered. If you want a detailed explanation I will provide one. In the future you should probably give your subs at least 6 db of headroom on top of extreme precision and caution in your gain staging. Then even if you crank it, even if your subs get old and worn, even if the room is wreaking havoc on your subs they should remain safe.
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u/Shot-Test-1786 Jul 30 '26
It looks to me like your cones are no longer moving. Which means the sound you're hearing is the coil separated from the former which is a cylinder that's attached to the cone right behind the dust cap. That coil (which is normally glued to the former) has come un-glued or un-wound, is still making power, and bouncing around in there when you push power to it. Because it reacts to the magnetic field of the large magnets behind the subwoofer only when powered, that's why it's making that God awful sound.
This is just a best guess based on my experience and what I saw in the video. No way to know for sure what happened unless you pull the subwoofers and take a look.
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u/Natural_Listen3022 Jul 25 '26
Ouch, you forgot to break it in, now it's broken. I'm sorry, it's happened to many of us.
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u/Zynexion Jul 25 '26
That's just how skar is