I was just noticing my right speaker was sounding a little quieter than my left and I was wondering what the symptoms of an older receiver caps starting to fail. A couple hours later my left speakers driver suddenly started sounding blown. At a closer listen the voice coil is definitely toast and then checked the right speaker and the tweeter was partially blown out of its enclosure. I may have been pushing them a bit hard on the 4th. I called a couple local shops to see what they may have and while I was waiting for them to call back I saw them on eBay... Dynaudio Special 40’s, new in box for $2,000, being the car salesman that I am and a bit of haggling got them for a little less!!! Told my wife I’m going to sell them for a profit but I’ve got a secret plan to keep them. Now to see what it will cost to fix the Focal’s and see what I can get for them as a package deal including the matches center channel. Or maybe I can cannibalize the center and fix the bookshelf’s, hmmm.....
Anybody have any thoughts? Are the drivers in the center the same as the bookshelf’s?
Sent from my iPad using MySpace
Well those speakers look at least as if they have the Dynaudio drivers of old. Dynaudio was sold to the Chinese a few years ago. The company did not move to China, but the Chinese bosses moved to Denmark. The Danish team agreed to stay on, but all eventually fell out with the new Chinese owners and left. All the original crew of any substance have now left. Recent offerings have not been of the quality of the past. However from the picture of those speakers, is seems they have gone back to putting their fine older drivers back in production. The drivers used to be available and I have used them extensively. One word of warning, those drivers are not the most sensitive and do require robust amplification. You won't get the best out of them from receiver amps.
30 years or more ago, there was a falling out among the owners of Dynaudio and half the team went off to Israel and formed Morel. In the split these individuals also had the right to the Dynaudio patents, and their drivers have remained available to DIYers and other manufacturers.
Here is a current Morel driver which shows its ancestry with the Dynaudio drivers like yours.
Morel CAW538 5" Woofer
They are robust drivers and need to be, as they take some driving.
As far as your Focals, see if Focal can rebuild or replace the drivers at reasonable cost. If not those speakers are now junk. No idea if the center drivers are the same, or if you have also damaged the crossovers. You did not give model numbers. No bookshelf speakers will produce very high spl. without blowing up. Having said that you may also have contributed to this by clipping the amp. What were you driving them with?