From rockkey@sbcglobal.net Tue May 10 06:23:14 2011
Subject:Re: OT: Speaker troubleshooting-Xovers Failing

Hi Walter, Randy and All,

Although it's not often at all (rare is more like it), I have seen crossovers go bad.

Once in a Leslie, one cap section shorted. I took it apart and I could actually see where the dielectric was punched through.

One other time, in a PA cab, one of the crossover caps had an intermittent connection right where the lead is welded to the component, must have been a mfg defect.

In a two way monitor, the light bulb had failed but by this time, the tweeter was already blown so I guess the bulb didn't do it's job very well.

One thing I find useful for speaker system TS is a sweepable audio test oscillator. I have a LofTec that manually sweeps the entire audio range with one knob. It's very good for finding resonances, rattles, intermittent failures and locating and confirming blown components. That's how I located that cap with the bad lead. For that matter, it's darn useful for just about and audio work. Even if you're only a hobbyist, an oscillator (and a scope) can really come in handy... and fun too.

Cheers,
Rock