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Popping on SW-12


VMUSA1

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New to the forum here and I was glad to see that I wasn't the only fanatic about the classical line of Klipsch speakers. Back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, I did a lot of buying/trading/updgrading of my Klipsch speakers at the Good Vibes Store in Champaign, IL. I lucked in to a deal where Good Vibes bought up the last few sets of Chorus II's made...the factory had a few spare parts and did a special one time assembly of them. I bought a pair of them and an SW-12 at the same time and they have produced hundreds of hours of awe inspiring music and home theater experience ever since.

Recently, my SW-12 subwoofer has started making a loud popping noise when watching action movies with the volume turned up. I initially suspected it's the voice coil shorting out at full extension of the cone, but I'm not for sure. I've called Klipsch technical support in Indy, and while they were very friendly, they didn't seem to know what the problem might be. They suggested calling back the next day when the parts department was open and thought they might have a few K-26-K drivers left. If it was the amp, they were pretty certain they were no longer in stock.

I've read some on this forum about replacing the capacitors and I've done some board level work, but I've not quite figured out why they need replaced. Before I order a new driver, is there a possibility the caps have deteriorated enough to cause the amp to clip causing the popping?

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It is very possible that you have the gain level on your subwoofer turned too high or the subwoofer output level on your receiver set too high. On most subwoofers that have gain levels that go from about 7 o'clock at the lowest level to 5 o'clock on the highest level, you'll want to set the gain knob to about the 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock position.

Check the subwoofer output setting on your receiver to make sure it isn't boosted higher than it should be.

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I had a similar issue on my SW-10. It was diagnosed as a fuse holder, so I replaced that. Didn't fix the problem, volume always at 10:00 position. A couple of months later, no output at all. If the capactitors can be replaced to fix this, I would like to know as well. On mine, the driver itself is just fine. I can run it as a passive sub from another amp, and everything's perfect.

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  • Klipsch Employees

My guess is the passive. You must not have talked to Steve Phillips.

Also, IF you have used the sub with a "new" HT receiver, you may have over driven the sub causeing damage to the woofer.

No matter, if the woofer or passive has a problem, you are in the market for a new sub. The parts are NLA.

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Thanks guys, appreciate the comments.

Trey, you are probably correct that I probably overdrove it. I have a Denon AVR 1803 receiver that I connected the sub to via the LFE channel. I have always left the knob on the sub at about the 10 o'clock position, but I do crank the master volume on the receiver to -13 which is pretty loud. The sub only makes the popping sound on a heavy bass passage like when a cannon fires and it really extends the speaker cone. The pop noise that the speaker makes is like a gunshot noise, like something is arcing inside. That's why I wondered if the voice coil may have rubbed the insullation off and is shorting out on extension of the speaker cone. I did take the speaker driver out and looked it over for any obvious damage, but did not see any.

I'm not sure who I spoke with, but I may try calling back tomorrow and ask for Steve Phillips. I did talk to someone in the parts department and they said the K-26-K driver is still available and they had several left. They quoted me a price of $149 plus shipping. They did say the amp was no longer available and I didn't think to ask about the passive.

If I knew for sure this would fix the sub, I would would spend the money and buy the driver. I know there are newer subs out there that may be better suited for HT, but I bought the Chorus II's and the sub together several years ago after I payed off my student loans and they are pretty sentimental to me. My wife and I have listened to hundreds of hours of music & HT played through them and as corny as it sounds, they are like part of the family standing proudly in their places and we have thoroughly enjoyed them. If it's time to move on to a new sub, I will, but I would like to give a shot to fixing this one first.

Again, thanks for the comments.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • Klipsch Employees

that sound is the coil former hitting the back plate on the passive or active.

Push on the center of the cone, (not denting the dust cap) and try to make the sound. Does one of the drivers bottom out?

Call me if you want to talk about it. Steve is out today and Friday.

1-800-554-7724 ext.8520

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  • 11 years later...
  • 3 years later...

You guys are having an interesting convo here. I came because my brand new SW12 is making the same POP noise only at certain frequencies and only certain movies however I found that my crossover was set to 50 on my receiver and I had it set to 100 on the sub itself. I set both to 80 now and so far that seems to have fixed it but I can't say for sure. I also lowered the gain a bit as well it was a bit too high the dial was at 1pm I dialed it back to 11 position it doesn't seem to be making the POP sounds anymore. Fingers crossed. 

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7 hours ago, intramorph said:

You guys are having an interesting convo here. I came because my brand new SW12 is making the same POP noise only at certain frequencies and only certain movies however I found that my crossover was set to 50 on my receiver and I had it set to 100 on the sub itself. I set both to 80 now and so far that seems to have fixed it but I can't say for sure. I also lowered the gain a bit as well it was a bit too high the dial was at 1pm I dialed it back to 11 position it doesn't seem to be making the POP sounds anymore. Fingers crossed. 

Keep us advised on whether your fix worked. It sounds like the woofer was bottoming out due to being over driven at a certain frequency. Since you mention it happening with movies, it was likely at very low frequencies below the typical audio content which would be roughly 35-40Hz, or in your case sound effects range. But if the crossover on your electronics was set to 50Hz I would have expected the noise you heard to be coming from your main left/right speakers rather than the subwoofer. In that instance too much low frequency information was being sent to your main speakers, over-driving the woofers. The electronic crossover is designed to limit that potential problem and hand off all that low frequency information to the subwoofer which should be able to handle it, unless as you may have found out, the subwoofer level was set too high. Let us know what happens.

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