is something blowing my speaker?

Okay, this may sound like an off-the-wall question. Some of you might think I crank my music up too high and just pump too much bass into my speakers. Not so fast! I'm not a teenager just learning his lessons about car audio the hard way. I'm almost 56 years old and have been into car audio and security since my late teens. Sure, back when I was young I blew a couple Spark-O-Matic 6x9's pumping up my Kraco booster-equalizer. LOL! But those days are gone. So, here is my situation that is baffling me: Since I installed my present Boston Acoustics 4-channel amp, it seems my right rear speakers keep blowing. Not instantly, but within a month or so. NO, it's not that my gains are set too high or my bass is turned up too much. In fact my gains are set to about 1/3, and my bass settings are all at 0 on my head unit. Even my lowest bass knob on my equalizer is set at flat. This is puzzling me! First, I had this problem with my old Kenwood 6-1/2" 3-ways. Right after I put the amp in, the right rear speaker started sounding like it was blowing. You know, that sound where it seems all fuzzy or cutting out until you turn the volume way up and "pop it back to life". Figured they just weren't up to the task of the power the amp was sending them them. Funny... I had the exact same speakers in the front doors and neither of them did this! So I replaced the rear Kenwood 6-1/2's with Audiobahn 6x9 3-ways. The right channel did the exact same thing, but within hours! I tolerated it for a month or two until I finally replaced them with sweet Clarion 5-ways that handle 600 watts per channel (100 wpc RMS). Sure enough, it's only been just over a month and once again, the right rear is sounding blown! Anyone have any idea what might be going on? Is there maybe some inaudible frequency or tone that is being sent from the amp that is causing one channel to not handle loads very long? I never had this problem with just the deck, even with the stock speakers! Then once I replaced all the stock speakers with Kenwoods, still no problems. Then I added the Clarion 7-band EQ, with no problems. But the day I installed the Boston Acoustics 4-channel amp, the problems with the right rear began! Thanks. I know, this sounded a bit corny. Maybe a little TMI. But I have to figure out what is blowing my right rear speakers! I can't afford to keep replacing speakers every month! Gotta use my money for all the other electronics I can't stop adding! :)

Sounds like you have already figured out the culprit. Everything worked perfect until you added your amp. Now you keep blowing that speaker. So either you have a bad output on the amp, you have speaker leads touching or maybe something else. Sounds like you need to change your left and right rear output and see if it blows the other if so you know what the issue is.

Yeah, that makes sense! I will try that. Let me go ahead and blow a second Clarion! LOL! But yeah, I never thought to try that. I think I will check my leads first, then try another speaker on the other side after I switch sides with leads. Thanks.

How did you set the amplifier gain and are you using any crossovers?Support the12volt.com

I set the gains the old fashioned way. With amp gain at lowest setting, I just set my deck volume to about 3/4 volume or so. Then I slowly turned the gain knob on the amp until it started to sound like crap (oh, I mean until I heard clipping), then backed it off a hair. It sounded awesome when I first set it. Also sounded awesome each time I installed new speakers. It just never takes long before that right rear starts to sound like it's half blown. As for crossovers, there are some controls on the amp. I have front and rear set to full range, but have the high pass filter set to wear very little bass goes up front. I do have bass blockers in my tweeters, and I'm running the tweeters and the door speakers in parallel. Not one problem so far from the front! It's that pesky right rear every time! I do have a Clarion 7-band equalizer to control a little bit of frequencies. Like the last guy suggested, maybe it's the amp's output on the right rear channel. I'm just not familiar with the internal workings of amps. Oh sure, I know what mosfets are and all, I just don't know enough about circuit boards and testing amps to figure out if an output is bad. Is there a way an electronics repair shop could test an output for me? What would they look for? These are the controls on my amp. This is NOT a picture of how I have anything set, it's just a picture I saved from a google image search before I bought it. Oh, and I got it on ebay. That might be my problem right there! LOL! My head unit and equalizer in daylight: Cool blue lights at night! BY THE WAY: I'm starting to look for another 4-channel amp! I can't figure out the issue here, so until then I'm going to assume it might be something in the amp that I'm hearing, not the speaker itself. Until I test another speaker or switch the wires around, I think it might be easier to replace the amp.

id use simple process of elimination to rule out a few things before i just go assuming its the amp. for example, have you checked to make sure the speaker hasnt worked itself a little bit loose from the mounts from the vibration? it will sound fine when you install a new speaker but over tine it will work itself loose enough to rattle on certain notes.