It's the voltage peaks caused by transients in today music. It's not the "rated" power that kills your speakers or sends your amp into clip. Repair guy said he sees lots of speaker systems nowadays where the amps put out more power than the speakers can handle.
When they design the speakers, the box, the amps and all the electronics, they have control of all the components and it should be almost impossible to destroy the speakers under anything like normal use if they designed that system properly. In practice, he (Austin TX service center guy) said he's never seen Adam honor the warranty on a speaker. Apparently the Adam warranty guarantees the speakers for 5 years except for "extreme abuse" or some such term. He said there are only 4 "parts" available, 2 speakers, the amp/back panel and a control module on the inside of speaker.Īn interesting side note. Called one of their repair centers and they didn't know the answer, only that the entire unit gets replaced. I'm still trying to find out how much to replace the amps.
On one, the tweeter amp and the other, the woofer amp. Until then I get to rock out at a fun gig tonight with my Axe.
I'll update the saga for those hanging by the edge of their computer chairs when I know more. So, the jury is now out as to what kind of deal this is. I don't blast them often as they're deafening as near-fields. I've had my Mackie 824s over a decade and never had an issue. It does worry me that someone could blow the speakers like that. If I can get it repaired for $400, it's still a pair of A7x's under $500 which is great. It won't be the ridiculous deal I thought, but it still might be a great deal. It still seemed totally worth checking out since I can always return them. So, I'm going to call around today and see if I can get a repair estimate. If that's true, I still have all the pieces for one functional speaker and another that needs some love.
He said the amps work fine and that it's just the speakers that are shot. He said, "well I just wanted to let you know that the reason the monitors were so cheap is that they're Musician's Friend returns and one of them has a busted woofer and the other a busted tweeter." Hmmm, that's not what the first guys said, but it's GC, so the left hand rarely knows what the right is doing. I was in one of my fav used music gear stores last night when I got a call from a guy at GC. Well, often if it looks too good to be true, it is. It could be the beginning of a very Merry Christmas. Here's hoping I get the monitors for the price of a basic overdrive pedal. If they do, MAJOR SCORE!!! I'll be shocked if they're fine and work, but it was certainly worth rolling the dice on a $1400 pair of monitors.
If they don't work, I can take them to my local GC and they'll either fix them free or give me my $ back including shipping. I just called, asked the guy if there was anything wrong with them. The top thing on the listing was an Adam A7x with a picture that looked perfect for $19.99. Today I entered in Adam in the search engine. I got a Japanese Ibanez George Benson in perfect shape for $1200, a Fender Deluxe Reverb II under $500, a Yamaha AES1500 (a bit hacked with P90 replacement PUs, but an awesome guitar) for $450, and on and on. You never know what GC will have used on a given day. Another great thing about them has been their shipping charges which are tiny compared to most. It was a particular favorite just post-recession when the fine print on their coupons didn't preclude use on used gear, so you could often take another 15-20% off a great deal. I wasn't ready to pull the trigger on anything, but for fun I went to Guitar Center used online which has been one of my favorite places to buy gear. I was thinking about Focal, Adam, Dynaudio and Event Opals. They're not bad, but I know they hype the low end and the mixes don't translate as well as I'd like. So I got to thinking about replacing my original issue Mackie 824 monitors.