# PB-13 Ultra Burning Smell......?!?!



## mrsollars (Apr 17, 2008)

I ran the sub pretty hard for probably 15-20 minutes......and i could start to smell a ....i guess burning smell. It wasn't smokey smelling, just an electrical type burn. No smoke, no blue smoke, etc. Just a burn-ish smell. 

anybody seen this?


thanks. 
matt


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## Jack Gilvey (May 8, 2006)

Hi Matt,

You should never smell anything like that from the sub during normal operation. Please drop us a line at [email protected] with what type of material this occurred on and at what level and we'll sort it out.

Thanks Matt!


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## Ed Mullen (Jul 28, 2006)

mrsollars said:


> I ran the sub pretty hard for probably 15-20 minutes......and i could start to smell a ....i guess burning smell. It wasn't smokey smelling, just an electrical type burn. No smoke, no blue smoke, etc. Just a burn-ish smell.
> 
> anybody seen this?
> 
> ...


More than likely this was the insulation heating up on the voice coil. No harm done, likely, but "pretty hard" can mean different things to different people. 

Running the subwoofer calibration level 8 dB hot and looping War Of The Worlds 'Pods Emerging 'ad nauseum at Master Volume 0.0, or playing 20 Hz sine waves until the window panes start to flex, are examples of overdriving/abusing the subwoofer. Not that you did that - these are just examples of customer enthusiasm gone awry. Trust me we've seen it all in Tech Support. :rolleyesno:

The Ultra woofer is rugged, but it's not indestructible - calibrate the subwoofer flat/even with the speakers and keep the master volume at a sane/reasonable level, and your Ultra will last many years without a problem.


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## Moonfly (Aug 1, 2008)

Does it run from a power bloc or anything like that. If the fuse is too high running the sub hard could cause the wiring or terminals to heat up a bit, not to dangerous levels but it could explain a slight smell.


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## JimP (May 18, 2006)

Ed Mullen said:


> More than likely this was the insulation heating up on the voice coil. No harm done, likely, but "pretty hard" can mean different things to different people.
> 
> Running the subwoofer calibration level 8 dB hot and looping War Of The Worlds 'Pods Emerging 'ad nauseum at Master Volume 0.0, or playing 20 Hz sine waves until the window panes start to flex, are examples of overdriving/abusing the subwoofer. Not that you did that - these are just examples of customer enthusiasm gone awry. Trust me we've seen it all in Tech Support. :rolleyesno:
> 
> The Ultra woofer is rugged, but it's not indestructible - calibrate the subwoofer flat/even with the speakers and keep the master volume at a sane/reasonable level, and your Ultra will last many years without a problem.


I was surprised at how loud a friend played his system. He's already blown one formerly thought of as indistructable sub and is working on blowing the rest of his equipment.


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## Ed Mullen (Jul 28, 2006)

JimP said:


> I was surprised at how loud a friend played his system. He's already blown one formerly thought of as indistructable sub and is working on blowing the rest of his equipment.


Subwoofer headroom is never a bad thing; I run dual Ultra/2 in my system and I rarely play it louder than -10 Dolby Reference. But even that level (which I characterize as comfortably loud) can demand 110-112 dB peaks from the subwoofer (although the average playback level on dialogue, etc. is much lower). 

The dual Ultra/2 at that level are totally unstressed - distortion is very low and compression is non-existent, so the bass has a very effortless and clean nature. Just the ticket for accurate reproduction of today's blockbuster DVDs.


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## lalakersfan34 (Oct 31, 2007)

Two Ultra/2's in your ~2000 cubic foot room should shake things up really well . What tune are you running them in?


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