Speakers got wet...

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
So, my basement apartment flooded from Hurricane Ida. 3 or 4 inches of rain water filled my entire apartment. While I keep most of my gear off the ground and in closets, I did have a pair of M Audio speakers that got partially submerged. Are they salvageable? I've let them dry in place but I'm a little skittish to test them out... Thanks
 
i know nothing about this. but speakers are a coil and should probbly have a resistance of 4-8 ohms . if you put an ohm-meter across the contacts that would be a safe test as a start before hooking them to an mp. clearly they might need a month to dry. it might be simpler to use insurance.
 
The electrical/wiring is probably fried ... probably ... the speaker cones might be salvageable, depending on the coating ... the cabinet, if wooden, will need to dry out .. if plastic, it might be OK ...
 
They're plastic and if memory serves me around $200 or less. Might be better to just take the hit and move on...My $700 treadmill is a different story :/
 
I’d be a lot more concerned about corrosion. Just letting them dry out is one thing, but there’s no telling what all was contained in those flood waters. You might be better off just calling them a loss.
 
Where is the adventure! Dry them out somewhere hot, sit them on something plastic, stand well back and switch on the power. Bangs, smoke, pops and sizzles indicate bad news, but if it works, and stays working - result!
 
I once ruined an expensive point-and-shoot by trying to take it apart to clean a dust speck (lesson learned).

But instead of eating the $1K, I broke it down further into about 50 pieces and glued all the nice ones (boards, chips, sensor, etc) inside a fancy picture frame and have it on my wall.

It's now a $1K art piece.

[True story.]
 
I may try turning them on with a fire extinguisher in hand... Norbro, I never had you pegged as the Joseph Cornell of the videographer world....
 
ha, I was proud of that!

I am not very hands-on with building/fixing stuff, and most arts (although I was always fantastic at coloring).
 
My primary concern would have been the cones but from what I can see, M Audio speakers are synthetic cones or at least polypropylene coated woofers. Old style paper cones would probably be FUBAR'd. The adhesives used are probably going to withstand water too. There are a variety of adhesives used within one speaker. DO NOT put them somewhere hot to dry them out. There is a lot of plastic and adhesive going to be around the construction. No more heat than you'd subject a smart phone to.
Electrically, the resistance of 2/4/8 ohm etc cannot be measured accurately to those values with a multimeter. It refers to their AC impedance (a little difference from "resistance") to a waveform at 1 kHz. These are electro-mechanical devices; magnet fixed in place with a wire coil around it separated by an air gap. The impedance is not going to change.

In the tweeters from what I read of M Audio, that gap is going to contain ferro-fluid so you should leave it alone. The ferro-fluid is intact which it should be. On a woofer, wait a period for air dry and then gently push around the seam of the dust cap to see if it depresses and returns freely. No scratchy sounds or rough feel. Highly unlikely anything that could get in there is also large enough to jam the coil. If the woofer was big money, I'd disassemble it but I'm not going into that.
Then you've got the crossover board (what model is this?) that should be flushed with alcohol or electronics contact cleaner (no silicone content) and if there is damping material in the enclosure it's going to be a mess destined for replacement. I'd say open up the enclosures before jumping to conclusions. They are not that mysterious. When ready, apply some low volume sound that is not "thump thump thump" to see if the speakers can reproduce cleanly. Find something with a continuous steady tone, eg. a sustained note.

Point of reference, I wound coils, epoxied 8/10/12 inch cones, surrounds, dust caps etc. into drivers for car stereo cretins for a long time. We could plug them straight into a 120 VAC wall socket. I mean it's just 60 Hz right? They're meant for that and lower as bass drivers. We'd also get customers bringing in speakers that got wrecked at parties and rebuild them, down to about 4" size.
Change out blown caps, etc.
 
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