I would appreciate some education

N

Nemick

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Jun 30, 2018
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Hi all,

I have an original pair of Avantgarde Uno's, apparently imported into the US in 2002. I have enjoyed these speakers immensely but recently experienced a problem that I want to make sure I don't repeat.

I recently damaged/lost one of the mid-range horn drivers. The system was turned on, but I was not actually using it at the time this occurred. Basically, I was in a different part of the house when I began to hear what sounded like a jet engine and some seriously loud crackling and popping. I didn't even know what part of the house this noise was coming from, but I eventually narrowed it down to the aforementioned mid-range speaker.

I am not particularly technically minded, but can anyone help me understand how a driver can fail when nothing is even playing. I am concerned that simply replacing the damaged driver will result in a similar failure if nothing else is changed. Can anyone give me any insight as to what other components I should be checking over?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Neil M.
 
jadedavid said:
Can you describe the rest of your systems electronics? Tubes or SS?
Any power conditioners ETC.
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Of course. My apologies for not having done that in the first instance. Primary front end is Linn LP12, Lingo, Linn Majik Kontrol, Linn AV 5105 amp (100 WPC into 8 Ohms), Avantgarde Uno's. I have previously used and still own a Wavelength Duetto 300B stereo amp, but it is currently out of commission and has been for some time ( I think it is 9WPC). I have no power conditioners
 
I would really recommend some power conditioning, if not for sound improvement, at least to prevent voltage dips and peaks from harming your gear. There are reasonably priced outlet banks with those that don't limt current from the likes of PS Audio.

I understand your concern, that's a head scratcher for me. My friend had something like that happen that took out an amp and a sub. He's not positive what caused it either. He has large power conditioners as well. In his case the theory is a tube gone bad. I can't buy that, but, can't disprove it either.

In your case, can't blame tubes. Is all your gear still functioning properly after the incident? I don't know much about the inner workings of compression drivers, I do wonder if it might just have been that driver went bad.

Welcome to the forums.
 
How long did the crackling/popping last? Did it end on its own or did you do something to ultimately make it stop? Have you dared try powering everything back up again?

Could it be a capacitor discharging (failed/failing) from something that was in standby? :hmmm:

Just trying to gather more information. Welcome to the forum!
 
MikeCh said:
Could it be a capacitor discharging (failed/failing) from something that was in standby? :hmmm:
Click to expand...
Agree, possible passing DC would be my suspicion. Maybe source component or preamp.

Nemick, is the only connection to speaker via speaker wires from amp? I think the AG's have powered subs, but unsure whether has both high (speaker/banana)/low (rca/xlr) level inputs.
 
It's a bit of a mystery isn't it. The noise lasted about 90 seconds, maybe 2 minutes. Nothing was playing at the time but everything was turned on. The volume of the dying speaker was not affected by the volume control on the preamp and it was quite loud. The only things connected to the speakers are the speaker wires and the power cords for the subwoofers. on these speakers, the speaker cables come in from the amp and then they are separately daisy chained from input, to mid-range, to tweeters. The driver failed before I could adequately do any systematic trouble shooting unfortunately. I don't understand the crossover network well enough to guess whether it could be failing and thus causing the problem. Although I do not use any power conditioning, I do use a surge strip and this did not trip and nor does any other equipment seem to be affected by this.

After all was said and done, I went about narrowing down what I could find and the only thing that isn't working correctly is this particular driver. The driver will still make some extremely distorted and scratchy sounds but all the other drivers seem to be functioning normally. If I was having a temporary amp failure and feeding DC or whatever via the speaker cables, I would expect more general damage? Im not bi-wired, bi-amped or anything like that.

I just don't know what to look for.
 
Any way you can look inside at the crossovers to see if a cap is leaking or bloated? Do the horns even have crossovers?
 
Mechnutt said:
Any way you can look inside at the crossovers to see if a cap is leaking or bloated? Do the horns even have crossovers?
Click to expand...

I think I can pull the amp out of the back of the offending side and presumably the crossover will then become apparent. Any description of what I should be looking for?
 
Nemick said:
I think I can pull the amp out of the back of the offending side and presumably the crossover will then become apparent. Any description of what I should be looking for?
Click to expand...

Bad caps can partially explode or look puffed out, they can looked burned or they can leak. Other times they look normal.
Also check to make sure there are no loose or broken solder joints. It certainly is worth a look if it is relatively easy to do so.

Also, check your RCA interconnects. I lost a tweeter on a PSB bookshelf because a wire broke at the connector on an AQ Coral IC.
 
Nemick said:
I think I can pull the amp out of the back of the offending side and presumably the crossover will then become apparent. Any description of what I should be looking for?
Click to expand...

I have had two subwoofers start making weird noises. The problem was a failure of the internal amps. I do not know what failed. I shipped them to a repair facility and had them fixed.

Based on your self acknowledgement of your limited technical abilities, my advice Is to refrain from messing with the unit and instead take it or ship it to an authorized dealer. Just my 2cents.
 
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