I got a weird Kicker L7 problem, for those who are L7 owners. I bought two kicker S10L7 DVC subs off of ebay, and they are immaculate. Looks like they were never installed. I hooked them up to an amp and I hear a smacking noise when the cone was in full excursion. I put my finger on the wire leads to the voice coil, and it stops, and the woofer even sounds good during a Boston Acoustics test cd I have. SO, I put a cotton ball around the wire lead and the problem goes away.. Now I know this isnt the best thing to do, but anyone got any ideas? suggestions? here are some pix :





help!

snoopdan

 

I am curious how you could put your finger on the lead while it is in the enclosure? Do you have the sub inverted? As for the cotton ball...it can cause no harm and is a good idea for an insulator. I would either leave the cotton ball or check the mount where the lead connects...might be bent.

 

I looked over the speaker VERY carefully - no bent or damage anywhere! I just seems that the voice coil wires are just too long, and slap the bottom of the woofer cone during play. I originally noticed the slapping from when it was in a enclosure, then when I took the speaker out, and put it on my test bench, I noticed what was happening THEN put the cotton in to buffer between the wire and the bottom of the cone. Worked like a champ as far as "rigging" it to work...I dont know what the proper wire lengths to the voice coil should be, and I have nothing to compare it to. On a dumb chance someone has one here not installed yet, id love some sort of compairison...even if it is a L5. I just hate having to rigg a speaker to work, and who knows how long my fix will last

snoopdan

 

be very careful with those leads, it is easy to screw them up

 

Lots of guys put a small piece of thin foam weatherstrip tape on the back of the cone where its slapping to prevent it.

 

ok - good to hear im not the only one.

snoopdan

 

thats one of the design flaws of those kickers
the weather stripping should work though

 

ok, im off to the hardware store then!

snoopdan

Oh, for all you guys out there who like speaker ****, there is two sites worth checking out, as so you can add your own avi or wmv files on.

http://www.realmofexcursion.com/
http://www.woofervids.com/

 

I'm not sure, but I think it would be bad to increase the weight of the cone. The perfect cone is extremely rigid AND lightweight. Maybe someone who knows more than me can shed some light on this.

Also, if this is common to the Kickers, you might want to e-mail them since they might have a free fix??

 

a piece of foam weatherstrip is about 1.5" x 1.5" and about 1/16" thick, so weight won't be affected much. It'd be like dust on the cone. The first gen Audiobahn Alum's had this problem too.

 

Well, I kinda already tried to get the techs on Sounddoman's Kicker fourm to help me, but they sort of ignored me. I guess the fact that im a newbie to that particular forum, they dont want to help. So pee on them. Anyways, perhaps I shall email kicker directly then. The foam tape I used did the trick tho - I pumped about 200 watts into it playing some of "big mike"'s new album, and no distortion at all. SO, it looks like they're gonna go in the vette then. But what REALLY scares me is, that I had a Kicker dealer in a chat channel, and he told me the #1 return problem on L7's, L5's and SOLO X's is the surround cracks. But then again, everyone is a Kicker dealer these days. I even hear Kicker is going to be ending up in Circuit City and Best Buy soon (appparently the installers at Circuit City and Best Buy got notices last week about the impending sales of Kicker products in 640 stores).

So dont know how this will effect kicker's quality. Just a heads up.

snoopdan

 

i split a cone from the surround up to the dust cap on one of my vr 15s
replaced it and havent had aproblem with any kicker products since
ive been through alot of kicker products over the years and thats the only problem ive had except for locking that cracked cone 15 up (overextended the voice coil ) pushing 1500 watts rms to it and it took over 5 minutes of full tilt playing before it overextended

 

I recently saw some L7's woofer **** where they were pumping obviously more than 1000 watts to them, and it looked as if the cone was going to hop out onto your lap. So, I know these little speakers can hang with some decent power sent to them. But the more I dig into Kicker based forums, the more I read about problems with the surrounds cracking. But then again, if you make an improper enclosure for your L7's, its sure to help along the death of your driver. It seems optimum vented enclosure tuning for the 10" L7's is around 38 hz for a 70/30 SPL/SQL combination. Ive also been reading other car audio forums quite a bit, and see that RE, Adrie, and ID seem to suffer just as much the same fate as the L7's, when speaking of woofer damage. Im still not looking to blow my L7's. However, apparently you CAN get Solobaric's reconed for about $100 - but thats getting close to new prices.


Which reminds me, if you all are looking for used performance SQL / SPL speakers, definately look through the Cardomain.com "FOR SALE" forum. It took me 3 hours yesterday to go thru all the items for sale. Really good stuff for reasonable prices, and proabably a hell of alot better to trust them than ebay.


snoopdan

 

yes and no...i have seen a lot of scammers there including a moderator...i like ebay as you have some protection and if you pay with a credit card with paypal you should be fine...but alway ask for references on sounddomain

 

you're less likely to see the surround damage if you put the l7 in a sealed box
whats happening is the enclosure volume along with the amount of power going into the speaker are working against each other causing the woofer cone to become unstable and going past the travel of the woofers safe excursion therefore the weakest part of the speaker (this case being the surround) tears
in sealed boxes you probably wont have that problem
also sealed box speakers handle more power than any other type of box because of it controlled linear motion theres no outside force working against the speaker like in a ported box outside force being the port itself and the unpressured air outside the box
dont know if you follow me on what im saying but the reason i was able to drive that vr 15 i had at 1500 watts rms was the fact that it was in a sealed box of the right air space
a ported box even with perfect port proper air space and everything would have blew well before 5 minutes if not within less than a minute
i dont know exactly how to put into words what im trying to say but you might get an idea by the above mentioned scenario
get kickers you shouldnt have any problems with the surrounds (especially if you do sealed boxes)

 

You are right, after reading the sounddomain yesterday for 4 hours, ive seen some questionable item on there. But man, it would sure be nice to get a break from having to pay new equipment prices.

snoopdan

 

you are correct. In a ported box, once the music goes below the tuning frequency of the port, the woofer goes nuts. At high volumes, the woofer will go beyond it's mechanical limits and thus, leads to damage. I've run ported boxes in the past and when I overdrove the subs, they would make a loud "popping" noise so I would turn it down
I still managed to blow a woofer now and then :o I'm currently running all sealed boxes, they might not get as loud, but usally have better sound quality.

 

Well today, I start my fiberglass box for my L7 10's ... Ive got two DVC versions, going to put both in ont sealed box about 2.5 cubic foot. I havent hit up kickers website yet, cause I know they wont publish older driver specs. (my l7's are the older, less uglyier version). I remember the specs being as, .5 sealed min, 1.5 sealed max. Someone correct me if im wrong tho...Im planning to glass the box, and polyfill it. Hope it goes well, I dont actually know anyone on the forum using L7 10's so I dont have anyone to talk to about my plans. ..


Wish me luck?!?? I will probably need it.

if anyone has any suggestions, im open to it. I really do appreciate constructive suggestions and warnings...Im by no means an audio guru.

thanks

snoopdan