Peavey PA Speakers Blown? Started smoking...help

Hey guys,

So recently I lent my PA to a friend and it turns out that he blew the woofers out of my Peavey PR 15 speakers, I guess they actually started to smoke. The tweeters still work on both and sound ok. One speakers woofer still works but sound blown and the other speaker does not produce any sound and smells like burnt electornics. My question is, do you think I can replace the woofer on both or do I have to buy all new speakers. New speakers are not in my budget right now so I am hoping a simple woofer replacement will suffice. But does anyone have experiece with this. Will there be more unknown damage that will trun up later if I just try to save them

Thanks

WOW..... Smoke from the speakers? 

First, re-coning a speaker is usually much cheaper than buying new ones. Just be sure it's done at an authorized Peavey repair center. 

I found this on the net: Reconing Peavey speakers

Next: just how loud was your friend trying to get those speakers? I have played in some LOUD bands and we never smoked the speakers. We blew quite a few out but never saw or smelled smoke.

That makes me think your buddy hooked them up and rammed some DC voltage through them. Usually in the crossover the tweets have a DC voltage-blocking capacitor to keep DC out of them.

Often if a power amp is bad and an output power transistor fails it will dump massive DC current into the outputs to the speakers, and no speaker can take a heavy DC current. Some power amps have DC detection circuits on the output to shut down the outputs via a relay on a power transistor failure. I have a few of these. My stereo system amp and a Carvin power amp do this. the relay clicks in and you have power after the amp stabilizes and determines there is no DC on the outputs. The Carvin did shut off one channel once when the outputs on it went bad. Worth having.

I would check the amplifier too before I connect any speakers to it. Let a repair shop verify this for you when you carry the speakers in for reconing. If it is good, (No DC on the outputs) I would ask the buddy to pay all or part of the reconing costs for blowing up the speakers. You said you lent it to him so it is his responsibility to return it in the same condition he borrowed it in, or fix any damage he did to it. If he refuses to pay, I would not let him borrow it again.

Good luck.

We used to use Chuck Leven's music center in the DC suburbs. It was the only place we knew at the time that was doing quality work on re-coning.  since the turn around was several weeks or more, we bought a spare 15 and 12 to keep handy. Once we put a limiter on the board output,  the blown speakers almost stopped. (live and learn)   We had a flash pot explode one night and didn't loose but one speaker in the PA from the pressure wave. the mic picked up the noise and every monitor speaker we had running that night was blown. All the monitors were radio shack specials so that was a fast/cheap replacement.

We also carried a few horn diaphragms for spares, because they were easy to change at the club.