Torn speaker

It'll work, however since it's 8 ohm you'll only get half the rated power from the amplifier as if you used a 4 ohm speaker. This may or may not matter depending on the design, but it won't hurt anything either way.

4 ohm is actually more common when it comes to small speakers like that, anywhere that sells car stereo stuff should have something suitable.

BTW, both refrigerators and speakers are conceptually very simple devices consisting of only a few major components, there's lots of information out there for the curious,

is probably the biggest one stop shop of information of that nature.

Replacement from Logitech. It is doubtful any other will match, if you care.

Kal

Try one of these in 4 ohms.

Half the rated power from the amp? Would be quieter than a 4 ohm speaker? I'm not looking to gain anything from the sound, I just don't want this rattling anymore. It's making me crazy! If I can replace the speaker I'll be happy. I'll take a look around the shops and see what I can find.

Now what about the magnet? Is that something I should know about?

If I didn't care I wouldn't have tried. But it's out of the support period. Why do you say it's doubtful any other would match?

Because unless you get the identical driver, it will sound different from the one in the other channel(s).

However, I do not understand why you say the speaker is a 4" speaker. According to what I Googled, the subwoofer is an 8" driver and the satellites are 2". So which are you needing?

Frankly, I am skeptical about any replacements on such units since they are designed as cheaply as possible and as a unit. The little amps may not be very capable if faced with an unpredicted load.

Kal

Being an 8 ohm instead of 4 ohm, you'll get half the current. It may be quieter than the original, depends on how efficient it is. Keep poking around, maybe you can find a dead system with good speakers at a yard sale or something.

The magnet might be bigger than the one on the original, meaning it may not fit in the enclosure.

Actually, the speaker isn't what it seems at all. There's a 4 inch speaker inside the housing, facing towards the rear. There's a channel for air coming from the rear to the front and on the front of the housing there's a soft, flexible, speaker like surface behind the cage. Meaning it has the foamy edges and flexes when the speaker inside does.

I bought it thinking it was an 8 inch as well.

And it's only the woofer I need to replace, so I'm not concerned about other channels.

An 8 ohm speaker has twice the resistance of a 4 ohm, so it will draw half as much power from the amplifier. This is not a problem, but it limits you to half power so the max volume will be much lower, it may still be perfectly adequate though.

There's a lot of marketing fluff relating to the magnets, a bigger magnet won't hurt, but in practice you're unlikely to notice any difference in a cheap speaker cabinet like that. Find something that has similar physical characteristics as the existing one and it should be just fine. Even Radio Shack should have something suitable.

I've replaced drivers in cheap computer speaker sets, most of the time they sounded just the same, in one case there was a noticeable improvement. There's no voodoo involved, I doubt they even put much if any thought into the acoustic properties of the enclosures when they design them in the first place.

There shouldn't be that much difference, remember the ear doesn't perceive changes in audio levels linearly. The difference will likely mean just having to turn the volume up a notch to get the same level.

Dave

Yeah it really shouldn't matter, but I figured it was worth mentioning. If the amp has little headroom it might make a difference, if it's normally run at relatively low volume it should be fine. 4 ohm speakers are common enough that it seems worthwhile to try one though.

I think I'm better off trying to find a 4 ohm, then. I can't imagine these speaker sets are made with a whole lot of quality, so sticking with the equivilent of what I started with is probably the best idea.

Thanks for the help.

A slight tear can be fixed. Try fixing first. You can very well get a more efficient 8 ohm driver than some typical 4 ohm. The power is trivial. Stronger magnets make more efficient drivers. 4 Ohm speakers are common for cars. Look in Parts Express, MCM, Crutchfield, etc. Also, the new driver may not match the enclosure volume or type, etc.

greg

That sounds like a 'passive woofer',- a speaker without its own voice coil driven by the air pressure from an active woofer.

Dave