subwoofer problem

I just installed a brand new subwoofer and it sounded great at first, but after maybe the second or third hour of play the sub now sounds horrible... every time I turn the volume up a little now the sub has a rattling sound... What is the problem? My first reaction is the subwoofer is blown. Any help appreciated.

My first step would be to take the sub back out and use a multimeter to check the resistance across the coil(s). If is still what it is supposed to be probably either 2 or 4 ohm my guess would be that the sub isn't blown and that perhaps it's a mechanical problem. Just a thought I am sure others will post more.

 Sounds like you have blown the sub. What did you have it connected to & how? Also what kind of sub? What type of box? What kind of amp? How did you set your gains?

-------------

The sub is a 10" Orion H2 dual 2 ohm and I had it hooked up to an Orion 1200 mono D amp. It is in a subzone vented .75 cubic ft enclosure. The sub's voice coils were wired in parallel.

-------------
Do whatever makes you happy in life without diminishing the happiness of others

You most like sent aclipped signal to the sub causing the voice coil to fry. Do a search on this forum for proper gain setiing. There is alot of useful info that will prevent this from happening again.

-------------

Whenever I listen to the sub it still plays bass, but with a crackling noise too. This kinda leads me to believe that there is either a bad connection with the wiring to the sub, or only one of the voice coils is blown and the other one is still fine. I will check it out and see if I can find out what's wrong.

-------------
Do whatever makes you happy in life without diminishing the happiness of others

I took the subwoofer out of the enclosure to investigate this problem. I am at a loss here... I checked the voice coils and they are both still working. The connections are also good. The only way I can make this 'rattling' sound go away is to turn the amp gain way down, and turn down the bass on my head unit. Of course the rattling is going to go away then because it is hardly playing any bass. This rattling sound seems like it's coming from the cone of the woofer, almost as if it is a "backfire", so to speak, from the subwoofers movement. Could it be possible that this sound could be caused from the sub being in a vented enclosure that is way too small. The owner's manual calls for a vented 1.0 cubic ft enclosure. (That's the net volume excluding the basket and port displacement) The net volume that the sub is seeing now is only .47 cubic ft. I know for a fact that this sub should be hitting extremely hard and for some reason it isn't. I even considered that maybe the sub I have might possibly be defective or something...  I would certainly love to hear any opinions as to what the heck is going on here.

-------------
Do whatever makes you happy in life without diminishing the happiness of others

Sounds to me like the cone came loose from the voice coil former (the part the cone connects to).  Move the cone up and down and see if it slides on the former.

it doesn't

Lead slap, partially unglued wire WITHIN the voicecoil windings, voice coil came loose from one of it's connections...

Whatever it is, the woofer is bent. You'll have to return it and have it replaced.

-------------
It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

Can orion fix this woofer or will I have to get a completely new one?

-------------
Do whatever makes you happy in life without diminishing the happiness of others