Blown speaker?
 

Sorry for the VERY novice question. Turned my bike on this morning and as soon as the music from my USB drive came on...at low volume, I noticed a ticking noise from the right speaker. Ticking or a "farting" sound is the best way I know to describe it. lol I then switched it over to Bluetooth, and at low volume I still heard the noise intermittently.

I have two kappas in the fairings only and they've been in less than a year running off a SS 520 PN4 d amp. As I got down the road, I turned the music up and it seemed to play fine. Not sure I noticed any sound like that at higher volume, but perhaps the exhaust helped to mask it?

So do I have a blown speaker? Wire connection issue? Weird if its a wiring issue, since it happened all of a sudden and I haven't been in the fairing or under the seat.

Thanks for any advice

Pop the fairing off and swap the wires between the 2 speakers. If the sound moves it’s not the speaker if the sound stays it’s your speaker.

Well I was getting ready to add speaker lids in the next couple weeks from a local audio shop. I guess I can let him figure out if its blown......how do speaker warranties work...is there even a warranty against blowing a speaker? Im sure its very limited if one is there at all.

Ok so it was easier to just pop off the grills and swap the speakers from left to right. I did that and while the speakers were just laying in the pods...not screwed back in.....i could not hear the distortion. Mounted them back in...still swapped ...the original noise was the right speaker.....turned the bike back on ...same song and immediatly got the distortion noise. From the left side now. So same speaker mounted in the opposite speaker pod makes noise.

I dont understand why I didn't hear it before I screwed them in though.

So blown for sure? Is there another test I can do? Any recommendations?

Did you tighten the speaker mounting screws too tight?
I was getting a noise from one of my speakers recently and when I loosened the mounting screws it went away.
Worth a try.
If that doesn't work then it's probably a bad speaker that will have to be replaced.
Hope this helps.
Mike.

I would think the odds are low that they were tightened too much on either side, since I switched sides and the noise stayed with the same speaker.

do a multimeter ohm load

First, I dont have a multimeter. Second I would know how to read one if I did. lol

Thanks. I sent in a warranty request to harmon on the kappas. If they honor it great. I'm not hopeful and the year is up in 2 weeks. Great timing!

In the mean time, I guess I'll go ahead and replace the fairing speakers while waiting to get the lids cut for 6x9's.

Is it safe to assume I can throw in some higher end speakers for the time being without retuning and be ok? At least until the lids get done and I can get all 4 speakers tuned. Again, right now I have the SS520D pn4 amp.