blown crossover?

[Sharpola]

Hi guys, my monitors are NS-10m's, I'm getting very noticable distortion on one of them tweeter & woofer, I've traced back the wiring and all that..

Also, if I listen at low volume all sounds good, as soon as I give it listening levels it starts to fuzz out

if your crossover's cooked would it still sound?

Monitors suggestions?

Ray                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

[NickT]

Ray,

Switch speakers left and right. I believe the ns10's are passive. Does the problem follow the speaker.

yes - internal crossover component.

no - speaker lead or amp channel transformer.

Could be the output from your soundcard.

Try that first!

Nick

[Cary]

I believe it would be harder to blow the crossover before the actual speaker.  Unless you had a major event at your place, I don't think you blow both the woofer and the tweeter at the same time.  Anything is possible though.
Follow Nicks troubleshooting advice.  If it's one of the drivers, replacements may be hard to find.

Recommendations?  BIG can of worms...    There are a ton.  For passives, Event 20/20s come to mind.

[Sharpola]

I switched my output cables from my mixer which are xlr's and its the same speaker that distorts
I might take a look inside to see if there's a fuse or not, night get lucky

Ray

Ray,

Switch speakers left and right. I believe the ns10's are passive. Does the problem follow the speaker.

yes - internal crossover component.

no - speaker lead or amp channel transformer.

Could be the output from your soundcard.

Try that first!

Nick

[Gerk]

If you're getting noise in both the woofer and the tweeter I'd check that you don't have a cold solder/funky/loose connection somewhere inside the box -- from the connector through the crossover through the drivers themselves.  If it was a crossover it would likely be just the horn (coils as used in passive crossovers for lows don't generally do that).  I have seen almost that exact problem when the whole crossover unit had come unhooked from the cabinet and was hanging freely though . . .

Let us know how it works out!

Mark

[Sharpola]

Ahh, I just pushed on the woofer to see if I'd hear & feel anything, and I do

Well, since x-mas is getting close I'll have to wait till the new year to get new monitors... I'm going to go active monitors next time around

Ray

[dogbizkits]

Just a quickie on this, Ray...  I'd tend to go with Cary on the woofer going before the crossover unless the amp had a severe D.C. fault (which would take out everything). Swapping the speakers around as Nick suggests will tell for sure if it's an amplifier channel problem - or an internal fault with one of the monitors. You could even swap the woofers around (leaving the "suspect" X-over in it's own box) and check that too. Alternatively, the small crossover board will be easily removable and you could swap them around to see if the "fault" goes to the other speaker. If you have a problem with the amplifier, a dual-trace oscilloscope will reveal problems that may exist when listening to a swept-frequency test. If it is in fact a crossover fault, you'll most likely find that when you approach the frequency set for the choke/inductor on the affected speaker, you won't get the characteristic "warbling" sound as the choke/inductor tries to work out which frequencies are to High-pass and Low-pass. Using a swept frequency test would be good enough to tell by ear if there's a major fault with the crossover.

Hope this helps a bit.

Rab