Speaker blow out/Receiver recommendations

[btomarra]

Hi,

While playing a DVD movie where there was a lot of bass, my left speaker blew out (Realistic). Interestingly, on my receiver the left connectors are now the only ones that will work (the right ones are dead). I would have thought the left ones would have suffered.

Question: Any recommendations for a modest priced receiver (mine was an old Onkyo I had for 16 years). I found another pair of surround sound Realistic speakers from 1969 that work real well. But do you think I may need to buy new ones?

Thanks,

Brian

[Richard Feirstein]

Likely the rubber surround gave way or the coil burned out. Also a fuse may have taken a hit. Since these were not likely high quality units and not new you may find that speaker technology has taken some real steps forward at the low end and can upgrade your sound without paying too much. There are some quality 5.1 receivers out there for around $200.00; hard to believe.

Richard.

[Ronald]

You can probably purchase a replacement driver at Radio Shack or partsexpress.com for the loudspeaker. Drivers are pretty cheap these days. You may also want to consider looking for a fuse in the speaker enclosure itself, although I doubt a Realistic loudspeaker would have a fuse. If it is blown, it may be resettable or can be replaced. A fuse would be cheaper than replacing a driver.

If you want to be sure all is okay and you want to keep the speaker, take a look at the crossover and see if a capacitor has blown up. If a cap is blown you will see the either a cracker or destroyed metal cylinder.

The receiver most likely has fried a transistor. Unless you can identify which one is done, I would recommend throwing it out or donating it to the Salvation Army.

As for receivers, they are a dime a dozen. You can get a lot of receiver with DD, DTS, 5.1 for under $200.00 at Costco, Sam's Club etc.