Anybody else caught their speaker on fire?

[Def Leper]

I enjoyed reading about the flooded speaker and got to thinking about my first good pair of speakers, LaScala's, which I bought back in 1975 for club gigs but also enjoyed at home.

One evening listening to music a home, apparently a cap failed in my mixer and I quickly discovered why my Crown amp had the letters "DC" in front of the 300. After a rather unusual and interesting sound, smoke started pouring out of the bass box of one LaScala. Not being very accessible for fire fighting, the speaker was unceremoniously dragged outside and treated to a session with the garden hose. I figured whatever damage I could do with the hose would be less than watching the speaker burn.

With the smoke gone, I dried out the speaker and pulled it back into the house, and dropped the bass box hatch. The only thing left of the cone was a crescent on one side, and the remains of the voice coil and dust cap hung by one spider.

I called Klipsch the next day and explained what had happened. They were so impressed they sent out a new driver in exchange for the old one. The crossover was apparently not damaged and I continued to used the speakers for several more years before installing them in a club. As far as I know, they are probably still there and working fine, but with the fuses I added to protect them.

Anyone else ever torch a speaker?

[Seadog]

I had a car speaker catch fire once. I was listening to Led Zeppelin at the time. There was a strange sound, and then a strange smell.

[Bonzo]

I have done a lot but I have never done that! Should have got out the marshmallows, hotdogs, cold beer and let her burn! How cool would that have been???

Here's a toast to Def Leper, the only guy I know to ever torch a speaker and live to talk about it!

YOU RULE MAN!!!

[Coytee]

I was once at my local Klipsch dealer in 1980 or so (Carlin Audio in

Fairfield Ohio). One of the salesman there had some kind of 6x9

car speaker and a sneaky grin on his face.

He took a cord with plug and attached it to the leads on the

speaker. He then plugged the cord into the wall socket. A

very loud and interesting buzzing sound came out of the speaker for

several seconds. I don't recall if part of the speaker 'popped'

or not but then a bit of smoke and finally, silence.

He & his buddy's just cackled laughing.

[Audiokid]

FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!

When I was in high school in the 1960's, I worked for the local Klipsch dealer doing audio repairs. They sold a house brand of speaker at a very reasonable price. This store was located near a Black church, and the minister purchased his audio equipment from this store. Well, one day I came in and saw a house brand speaker burned... the upper cabinet, grill frame, grill cloth, and woofer cone were badly charred and burned. The story goes that the church used a pair of them as PA speakers, and a visiting preacher was giving a sermon on hell, and was yelling about fire and brimstone when the speakers caught fire!!! Couldn't have been planned any better! True story!

[colterphoto1]

Well our fire was nothing of the audio variety, but nonetheless a cabinet did catch fire. We were in post HS band doing Kiss, Zep and Yes covers. Had the makeup, weird clothes and rudimentary light show for a bunch of kids with basically NO money at all. One guy was really into the KISS showmanship thing, so he got us some of that Flash Powder.

Don't know if anyone here has ever worked with it on stage, but it's two different powders, one 'fast' that gives the flash/bang, another 'slow' type that gives the puff of smoke. You're supposed to mix both into a little pot that has a small wire filament strung through the powder and ignites it when the roadie presses the appropriate button on the board during a high energy moment.

My little bro was our roadie and got it all wrong, so he mixed fast with fast on the flash pot on top of one speaker cabinet, and slow/slow on the other side of the stage. When he hit the button, the flash pot on one side of stage BLEW UP, sending a blinding blast of light and small parts flying all over the top of the speaker cabinet and toasting the side of the face of the guitarist on that side of stage. Speaker top started up in smoke. Other side of stage just started this nasty smoldering and the fire alarms went off in the apartment clubhouse we were playing.

Yes, the Fire Department showed up. That was the end of our pyrotechnic days. But what a BLAST!

Michael

[Bonzo]

Hey Michael,

That would have been a perfect time to do "Smoke on the Water," or in your case, "Smoke on the Speaker!"[]

Mark

[Mighty Favog]

In my basement is a Yamaha NS-W2 powered sub that fried a resistor beyond recognition. I'd fix it but Yamaha doesn't even know what the value was.

[DRBILL]

It was about the time that the first SS amplifiers came out. I was out at the plant and Paul and several of the others were in a huddle about the sudden and unexpected failure rate of woofers. The original thinking was a bad batch. Later it became obvious that it wasn't the fault of the woofers.

People were getting careless about little strands of wire shorting across the output of SS amps and taking out the output transistors which then delivered pure DC to the woofer voice coil.

Fuses were the fix. But those of you who insist on welding cable for speaker leads probably never think about what a fuse does to the circuit!

DRBILL

[DrWho]

At Audio Designs in Michigan, it was part of my job to help threshold test speakers...so many crappy speaker manufacturers wanted us to use their speakers in store av systems so we would test how loud and how long the speakers would last. The tweeters always went first and sometimes it was hard to toast the woofers - though they always went if you gave them enough time [H]

It's interesting because every speaker starts making the exact same sound right before it goes...I suppose if I was brave enough I could demonstrate the sound on a pair of speakers ...[]