Taking care of speakers.

[Kazkox]

I've got a mackie mk2 mr5 studio monitors and for some reason I have damaged the speakers bass amplifier or what ever you call it twice and I dont know what exactly caused it.

The first speaker I had was damaged due to very loud music I used to play and later the bass just dissapeared. Then I got them replaced with the new ones and tryed to keep sound level's not too high, but later on one of the speakers started to pop and crack and it was the Bass, which dissapeared later on as well, ofcourse I'm getting them replaced.

Now what I want to find out is how to determinate how loud I could play the speakers on. For example I got a denon x1600 mixer and I can see the level's of db on every channel I play a track or any sound, and there is a main limiter who shows how loud in db's the sound is being played overall. Most of the time I was using these speakers on around +2 to +4db and maybe that caused the problem.

Since I cant play them out loud, after I get the replacement with new one's I might sell them and get something louder or more stable atleast.

Thanks for the feedback. Some of you might experienced this.

[makar1]

Studio monitors are not designed to play music loud, especially at that size. Some Hifi speakers might suit your needs better.

[brocklambert]

You are obviously trying to get too much out of 5" woofer. It doesn't recreate bass, so you either need larger speakers or a subwoofer. They also aren't meant for gigs or house parties. They are for monitoring music in your home.

[Kazkox]

So the search continues and I came across this quote on Behringer spekers 'they arrive ready to push it to the limit without putting their high-or low-frequency drivers in danger.' Well yes, I probably pushed these to the limit.

Baiscally I will be able to 'push to the limit' with any 12" speakers without a fear of damage? I am thinking of Behringer or Qtx speakers. Tomorrow I'll take a visit to local guitar center to test some of them if they are available there.

[dripstep]

Get a subwoofer. If you try to push the bass out of any studio monitors, you run the risk of blowing them. Once you are set up, keep that VU out of the red, and better yet, don't even let it get close to the red. You can be loud without over-driving your speakers.

[Polygon]

Most studio monitors have safeguards in place to protect the voice coils from blowing. Your problem might be bad capacitors inside the amplifier.

For loud monitoring, i'd suggest the krk rp10-3. Even tho they only have 140w, they pump out some serious bass thru that 10" woofers.
Other than that, stage monitor speakers aren't nearly as accurate as studio monitors, so that's a thing to remember if you're producing.

[the_bastet]

What kind of power conditioner are you running in your home setup? Have you verified that there are no ground issues in your home's wiring? Do you have any other heavy amp equipment running on the same power chain (washer/dryer/ac/stover/etc.). All these can cause voice coils and amps to short and/or surge.

[Deejay Assasinn]

It could be a design flaw with them particular monitors, I have the JBL LSR2325P's which also have 5" woofers and had the KRK RP5's before them and both sets could take some power.

[Kazkox]

The wiring is ok, as I use most of my devices on a separate multi-socket adaptor which surge secur sockets.
Now I have got a m-audio bx8 speakers and they running flawlessly. They also got safeguards built in.

[mdcdesign]

If either the woofer/tweeter stops working entirely in a speaker, it's USUALLY a symptom that the crossover has blown, not the speaker itself. The good news is, that's usually an easy fix. Still, personally I never run more than about 1/4 volume on anything I use.