Speaker wiring question; partially working speaker?

RandomGecko

I've done some speaker swapping over the past week and whilst I think I know the answer to this, as long as the terminals are hooked up correctly with a solid solder joint, there's no way that a speaker can work kinda "partially" is there? It's either working or it isn't? On or off.

I ask because I switched a speaker at 3am (didn't enjoy my Creamback on a gig) and had to leave early for an afternoon gig today. All looks fine, solder joints are solid etc.

ICBM

Not quite.

If the speaker is damaged it can work partially. If it was fine before you connected it it will either work or it won't, assuming the solder joints are good.

RandomGecko

Nah, speaker was fine

Bygone_Tones

Probably just wired up incorrectly.

I dont think a speaker can partially work personally. It's only a single wire, so it's either complete (full circuit) or it's broken (dead speaker). Some people seem to think the impedance can increase or decrease and that shows the health of the speaker on a multimeter,  not sure what the science behind that is, but it does sound a bit like cobblers to me.

ICBM

Bygone_Tones said:

I dont think a speaker can partially work personally. It's only a single wire, so it's either complete (full circuit) or it's broken (dead speaker). Some people seem to think the impedance can increase or decrease and that shows the health of the speaker on a multimeter,  not sure what the science behind that is, but it does sound a bit like cobblers to me.

You can have shorts in the winding which will give too low an impedance and a weak sound, but the speaker still 'works'. I had a customer with one like that just last week - it was some sort of cheap Chinese speaker, meant to be 16 ohm but metered about 6 and sounded odd compared to the other one in the cab.

It's pretty rare though. Normally they either burn out completely or distort the coil former so it jams in the gap - they normally meter more or less correctly like that, but the cone either doesn't move at all which gives a very quiet buzzy sound, or it moves but sounds scratchy.