Speakers have gone funny

breadmonkey

Sorry if this is the wrong place, I couldn't really think of anywhere else to put it.

My computer speakers seem to be acting up a bit of late. When listening to music, the bass drum seems all messed up. I hear these weird, unusually loud, thumps during songs. They almost sound offbeat as well. It's quite annoying. I thought the bass was set too high on the sub woofer (sp?), so I messed around with that but it didn't do anything.

I have all the settings on maximum (Sw Smith, Wave etc..). Any ideas why this is happening all of a sudden?

Thanks

mp3guy

no idea... explain more? Maybe record was you're hearing on a mic or something.

jozi

Do you play your music loud?
Could be that you blew the speakers.
Try lowering some of the volume setting and see does it still happen.
Any chance you can try using other speaker to see if its hardware related?

duridian

If you have the settings in the mixer too high maybe what's happening is the sound is distorting. Try lowering the level of your 'Wave/Synth/CD' in the windows mixer and see if it helps. The output from your pc may be too high and causing an overload in the input of your speakers. Another possibilty which I think mp3guy mentioned, is if there's a microphone plugged in to your soundcard then make sure this is muted when you play back music/video or whatever because if the mic is not muted then you may get 'feedback' which can be anything from a high pitched shrieking sound to a low rumbling growl (if you are familiar with Jimi Hendrix then you will know what I mean, he used to make feedback a part of his musical style)

Lump

I'd say you've blown the Sub unit in the speaker... assuming they have Tweeters and subs. The Large area of the sub, being damaged would give thump sounds....

John

breadmonkey

Ok, thanks for the replies so far.

I play the music very loud on occasion. I have 2 speakers and a sub woofer. Could playing music loudly wreck the speakers? I mean, isn't that what they're designed for? (They are quite old though, maybe more than 6 or 7 years, but they've never let me down before))

I've tried fiddling with the various volume controls but it has no effect. Also, they're set the same as they always were, so I don't think that's the problem.

Looks like I broke the speakers, arse

stevenmu

breadmonkey wrote:

I hear these weird, unusually loud, thumps during songs. They almost sound offbeat as well.

Have you got some kind of after-processing enabled (eax,srs etc) ? What's the sub sitting on ?

breadmonkey wrote:

I play the music very loud on occasion.

Do the thumps sound in any way like the noise you might expect from a broom-handle being banged against your wall

Gilgamesh

would say 6 to 7 years is a good time to replace the speakers imho, sounds defo that the sub was killed

having a sub doesn't mean you can turn them up to full power all the time, unless you are trying to prove the PMPO wattage of the speakers, LOL

woudl recommend the following, keep the windows volume settings at mid level on everything, and use the speakers own volume control to do the rest,
in my experience, the only soundcards which have their own volume control (like the Audigy soundcards) can actually turned up to the max.

Lump

breadmonkey wrote:

Could playing music loudly wreck the speakers? I mean, isn't that what they're designed for?
Looks like I broke the speakers, arse

Yes playing loud music can wreck the speakers, if you buy too much power into them. If you turn everything up to the max it'd probably blow the speakers, unless you have a small amp feeding large power rated speakers, like a 50 Watt amp connected to 500 Watt speakers.


Yes, it looks like you broke the speakers.

John