Tinsel Leads

[Twista89 10+ year member]

OK I have a couple of questions about speakers. I had bought some MB Quart 5.25 speakers 4 months ago and installed them in my door. 2 months later my passenger door speaker stops playing and I take the door off to find the speaker at the bottom of the door, magnet stuck to the metal in the door. Ok Ill say the reason that one stoped working was on a bad install on my part, but I just installed a Pioneer headunit not more than 2 weeks ago and 5 days later my driver side door speaker stoped working. Both of them with the same problem I think which was broken tinsel leads. Now my questions are how can they break if the speakers were able to take more watts RMS than the headunit was putting out. Also what does broken tinsel leads look like....are they actually broken??? Because I can push up on both speakers tinsel leads and it will start working until i take my finger off. Also is there anything I can do to stop this breaking on leads? Because all my factory speakers went out because of this and now my aftermarkets are starting to do this. Also Ive read up on some speakers where it will state that it has the tinsel leads sewed into the speaker cone ( polk audio mostly) is this proven better than tinsel leads that just hang? Because I installed some db 6x9s the same day as my headunit and since my mb quarts are dead I was probably going to get there 6.5 and install those if they wont break on me also. Thanks

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[xtremekustomz 10+ year member]

The drivers could have been extended to ther mechanical limits. I've seen it happen on subwoofers and you don't need extreme power to do it. Also remember that when you have less power you will tend to turn the volume of the head unit up increasing distortion. Distortion will kill a speaker.

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

hmm I can understand that with my factory stuff in place because It was hard trying to get good sound out of a ipod to cassette tape adapter but with my headunit I usually turn it up to about 8/10ths of its max range and it sounds clear as day, no distortion from what I can hear at all. But thats also weird that you can still destroy a speaker when slightly underpowering them and they still sound clear.

 

[xtremekustomz 10+ year member]

I'm not saying that underpowering them is killing the driver. I'm saying that if you don't have enough power and you start to crank the volume knob distortion increases. A head units internal power amp will start clipping. I don't know for sure what head unit you have but usually the rule of thumb is 3/4 volume before clipping. Remember that a head unit that says 50 or 60 watts x 4 is a maximum output number. It's really anywhere from 18-22x4 RMS. And a factory head unit is even less. Anyway.....is there any way you can get some pictures of the back of the drivers?

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

Oh Ok yea my next step was going to be buying a amp for the speakers and then move on to subs but I also had another question. Is it possible to buy like a 2 channel amp and bridge it to run all 4 speakers or do i have to definatly buy a 4 channel amp? Also Im running a Pioneer DEH-P6900UB

Also here some pics, I couldnt get good ones since the speaker is so small lol.

 

[xtremekustomz 10+ year member]

My first thought would be to say that maybe it was a defect in the speaker because if I'm seeing right the tensil lead is breaking on the cone? But you said it is doing the same thing on a different set.

As for the amp. Technically you can buy a 2 channel amp and run all 4 speakers off of it but it isn't necessarily right. You would just run both front and rear left to the left side of the amp and both front and rear right on the right side. That should give you a 2 ohm stereo load which most amps are made to run. Like I said...it will work just fine.....but the rear could be louder than the front and you really have no way to lower the volume on them unless you do some type of L-pad Realistically you want all your sound to come from in front of you and not from the rear. 4 channel is the better way to go so you can control from and rear gains and possibly levels through the head unit. I don't know much about the one that you have. Another thing you might want to do is filter the speakers. I'd say not to run those lower than 80 hz.

 

[Gary S 10+ year member]

Yes, sounds like you are clipping the head unit. I would get a four-channel amp and use the front two channels for door speakers and use the rear channels for sub(s).

It's possible to run everything off a two-channel amp (tri-mode), but it won't really save you anything... you would need at a minimum passive crossover coils the size of soda cans and it won't sound as good or be as flexible as a four channel with the built-in electronic crossover. And four-channel amps are cheap these days... you can get a true 700 watt RMS amp for around $100.00 dollars today. Back in 89', I paid $500 wholesale for my first 4-channel amp.

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

put some electrical tape around the tinsel leads if you get any of that rubbing sound from the cone it will deaden the sound if that happens.

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

Hmm im starting to get a little confused. Is it possible to run the wiring from the HU to the amp at 4 ohms and then run wiring from the amp to the speakers at 2 ohms? How many watts could be produced like that? Lets say since my HU puts out 22RMS at 4 ohms and combine that with a amp that can put out 80 watts RMS at 2 ohms would the speaker be getting 102 watts at 2 ohms or something? Would that power be cut in half if i was running two speakers on one channel? Also who makes good 4 channel or 2 channel amps that arent going past the 200 dollar range?

Edit: Will the tape temporarily fix the speakers? because they dont work at all right now lol Just the tweeters

 

[Gary S 10+ year member]

Hmm im starting to get a little confused. Is it possible to run the wiring from the HU to the amp at 4 ohms and then run wiring from the amp to the speakers at 2 ohms? How many watts could be produced like that? Lets say since my HU puts out 22RMS at 4 ohms and combine that with a amp that can put out 80 watts RMS at 2 ohms would the speaker be getting 102 watts at 2 ohms or something? Would that power be cut in half if i was running two speakers on one channel? Also who makes good 4 channel or 2 channel amps that arent going past the 200 dollar range?
Edit: Will the tape temporarily fix the speakers? because they dont work at all right now lol Just the tweeters

- The separate amp defeats the power of the radio, the power does not add together.

You want a radio with pre-amp outputs (RCA's) ... you'll get better sound quality from a separate amp that way.

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

Yea my radio has 3 sets of pre outs at 4v a peice, so im ok on that. But im still wondering if I was to buy a two channel amp and hook up two speakers to one channel will the wattage be split in half for both speakers or will they both recieve the RMS wattage?

 

[Gary S 10+ year member]

two - 4-ohm speakers wired in parellel = 2ohms.

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

Oh Ok sorry im new at this stuff still so if a amp was rated at 50w a peice at 4 ohms and 100w a piece at 2 ohms both speakers would recieve 100w? Or would they split the power?

 

[xtremekustomz 10+ year member]

the power splits. Each speaker will receive 50 watts rms

 

[Twista89 10+ year member]

Thanks alot for answering most of my questions guys but I have one more lol. If a amp is rated for a certain amount of watts RMS and a certain number peak, does that mean that if you turn it up to the max that it wont go over that peak number or will it and is that when music starts to clip?