I just felt like saying that! lol


seriously though. You pump thumping bass into a 6.5" speaker and it's going to fail. They simply can't handle it even though they're rated down to 40hz. This is where the crossover of the amp comes into play. If you're going to be playing this kind of music it's probably a good idea to set the crossover switch to HP on any of these amps and set your crossover frequency to about 100hz.

 

Regarding adding distortion, I turned off the EQ in my IPhone and relaxed its volume setting to about 80%. On stock HU bass is set at about 3 bars past center flat mark. AVC is at 2 bars. Amp gain came out around 10:00. This config seems to run without strain on my stock HU, SS amp and mm651's front and rear. Classic rock pounds out just fine at 80 into a stiff headwind.

 

I wouldn't hit the panic button yet. I'm sure there was operator error there on my part, just trying to figure out what is was so I don't f*up again.

Would a bad connection on one speaker cause a catastrophic overload on the other? All crimps were solid, as the wire wouldn't pull out (and worked on static and short mobile tests). But as I mentioned after my trip, the main on the left side would only start working when the input crimps were jiggled. All crimps were heat shrinked and wrapped in electrical tape, so no shorts. All input wires had good insulation, so no shorts. It's a guess, but maybe I put the tiny input connector wire too far in the splice and crimped on the insulation instead of the wire?

Gains were set using UN's 1000hz downloaded and burned to cd, original 320 bit size. I believe the voltage setting for a DMM was @24.43Vac at 13 volume bars on stock HU using 2.7ohm speakers. Treble/bass were set to flat. I set it to where it was going back and forth between 24.4 and 24.5 on my basic DMM. I did have a varience between the front left and right, with the right side being @0.5V lower than the left. I'm no audiophile, but the music sound clean with no distortion. AVC was on 3 bars.

 

Just wondering what you listen to ?? CD's, IPOD, Flash Drive ??

Just wondered if the wife's source had bad files......... When you run across a 'bad' audio file, it can do damage..

 

I use my iPhone with all my music downloaded off of iTunes. Ran through blue tooth to stock HU. EQ on phone off. AVC off. Bass on HU at around half but I even backed that way off but at that point it was to late. Treble at around three quarter bars. I dialed in the amp with my style of music with the settings on the HU with my style of music. Led Zeppelin, Super Tramp, ELO, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Who, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Steve Miller........ This music is based mostly on vocals, guitar, snare drum, and single bass drum beat. Todays rap/hip hop music is mostly comprised of vocals and that irritating rolling bass. Speaker damaging rolling bass. That is what sub woofers are for. Not 6-1/2" speakers.
To compare AC/DC to Metallica is ok but again two different music styles. AC/DC still has a classic rock format. Vocals, guitar, very minimal bass guitar, and single beat bass drum. Metallica as a strong bass guitar and with their most recent stuff(minus the Saint Anger crap...LOL) they have a lot of double bass drum rolls and back fill tracks. Listen to Disturbed or Five finger Death Punch on a system that is EQ'd on a more easy listening set up.
On a side note.... I received email back from Polk late yesterday afternoon and Kim Jasper from their customer service department advised me to box them up and send them back to their service department for exchange. That was good news. I have already ordered a new pair so I guess the second pair is going in the back speaker pods.

 

Something that is being overlooked here. The majority of speaker failure is from under powering them, not over powering.

Shakey

 

Sorry not trying to be a smart a$$, but why should I expect a different result by doing the same thing? Pulled the rears and both of those have leaning tweeter stalks too (but not as bad as the front one). Cone is rubbing on the center stalk on the three which still work.

From what I've read, they were set at the correct voltage and I was not getting any distortion but I still ended up with this...

 

Glad to see they took care of you. I guess I'll give them a call, too.

 

The speaker that went bad in my Street Glide had the same angled tweeter post, but not as badly angled as yours. Wonder if this could be part of the issue? I never dropped or damaged them in anyway. The post was angled bad enough that the Polk speaker grill wouldn't fit.

 

I guess I have a case of "Buyer Beware" as this was my response from Polk:

Subject: RE: Warranty on damagedspeakers
Matt-

I am sorry to hear about your issues with your MM651’s. This is not a normal issue with any of our speakers. If concerns me to see that the posts are damaged- that does not happen especially within a month of purchase. It makes me suspect that there was a previous issue with these speakers that was not visible when you installed them. Upon inspection of the receipt, I noticed that they were purchased from a “company” called “Fireball.” Unfortunately they are not an authorized retailer of PolkAudio products and as such, there would be no manufacturer’s warranty associated with the purchase.

We certainly do appreciate your business but be very careful with sellers, especially internet sellers. It's extremely important to make sure whomever you are buying it from is an authorized dealer. We are not the only manufacturer who has a policy such as this, I invite you to check with other manufacturers as well and you'll see this is an industry wide practice.

The reason is, the authorized dealers have spent a considerable amount of time and effort to become authorized dealers. They must pass certain quality checks by us, have the product knowledge and service capabilities to carry, present and sell our items the best. These unauthorized dealers get the merchandise from unknown and unauthorized means, thus undercutting the legit dealers. Not only that, we do not know where these "gray market" items come from, they could be B-stock, used, stolen or even cloned.

We do have an authorized and unauthorized list. They can befound here:

Authorized: http://www.polkaudio.com/dealerlocator/online.php

Unauthorized: http://www.polkaudio.com/dealerlocator/unauthorized-dealers.php


Regards-

AlexLemaire
Customer Service Representative - Technical Support




Its seems that they acknowldge they is a defect here. Purchased new in box through Amazon vendor, maybe they can help...