Anders Nilsson

I swapped the woofers and distortion remains in the same woofer. No longer any doubt there is a problem with that woofer. The return speed is faster (but still acceptably slow) of the bad sounding woofer, compared to the good one when depressing the cone. I have made sure the periphery of the woofer is airtight. Attached video is well describing the distorted sound. It´s like the cone is not stiff enough and start to resonate at certain frequencies. 20200725_160032.mp4

Thanks Roy, That is valuable information to me. The badges are marked AR-3a improved, and they were advertised that way. My guess is the speakers are built in 1975 in England. Is it possible to tell the manufacturing year from the serial number 03060? /Anders

Thanks Bill! In Sweden where I live, I know of a well reputed speaker service company. I will contact them if needed. I agree it would be best to have the original rebuilt. https://www.hogtalarservice.se/

Alright, I see! The masonite ring seems firmly attached. Cabinet seems airtight when pushing the cone of the woofer. Relaxation time of the cone is long!

I did not notice any spacer ring on my woofer. Where is the spacer ring located?

Where do I find a replacement woofer, in case it has gone bad? Is it possible to find an exact match?

I now resoldered the litz wire from the voice coil at the terminal area, and have also applied a music signal directly to the woofer, outside of the speaker cabinet. I think it is more difficult to judge the distortion when the woofer is outside the cabinet, but outside the cabinet and already at moderate volumes, the woofer starts to sound bad, almost like a cone breakup. No visible problem with the spider and no voice coil rub. Tomorrow I will try the woofer in the other speaker cabinet to see if there is a difference. Could the problem be related to a bad crossover capacitor?

Thanks! That was also my thinking, but I could not notice any voice coil rub or loose spyder upon inspection.

Thanks! I will check that. Do you mean the soldering in the terminal area like on the picture?

Hi! I am new on this forum and recently bought a very nice pair of AR-3A improved. I have limited experience and knowledge of speaker troubleshooting and would appreciate your help. There is something wrong with one of the speakers as it sounds distorted already at a low volume and terribly distorted at higher volumes. I have attached a short video clip of the terrible distortion. Midrange and tweeter are disconnected in the video clip. The crackling, distorted sound comes from the woofer as it remains when I connect the speaker in the subwoofer configuration (removing the tweeter jumper on the backside). According to the seller, the speakers worked perfectly fine before they were shipped to me, but that is of course difficult to prove. Where should I start the troubleshooting? What are the most likely causes to the distorted woofer sound? To exclude a problem with the amp, I already reversed channels of the amp, and the distorted sound remains in the same speaker. The amp is a NAD C320 BEE known to be very stable also at low impedances. Greetings from Sweden! /Anders 20200725_160032.mp4