[Mag]

Saturday night was a great night to rock. The temperature dropped to below -20 C, so that means audio room is colder than usual and sound is crisp, fast and sounds oohh so good.

So I was rockin' pretty hard at concert volume for about 7 hours. When about the 5th hour I'm smellin' an electronic smell. You know the odor when you walk into an electronic repair shop.

Haven't located the source of the smell. Speakers and amps seem to be working okay. Perhaps the smell was just from the equipment working hard with all the hard hitting bass and the low room temp.

[vegasdave]

Hope everything's ok!

[Sasha]

Sounds like the white smoke is escaping.

[FullRangeMan]

This is the smell of the varnish of the circuit boards, usually came from large PCB on power amps.
This is a exquisite Audiophile Parfum in French.
Gustavo

>Never go to a psychiatrist, adopt a cat or dog from the street. On the streets pets live only two years average.

[vegasdave]

Are you serious?

[Robert D]

This is the smell of the varnish of the circuit boards, usually came from large PCB on power amps.
This is a exquisite Audiophile Parfum in French.
Gustavo

>Never go to a psychiatrist, adopt a cat or dog from the street. On the streets pets live only two years average.

It's called to much Dust ! That's it

Robert

[FullRangeMan]

The fragance is a joke. But the smell of hot parts and PCB paint are true, for this reason(heat) thin PCBs are not good.
Regards, Gustavo

>Never go to a psychiatrist, adopt a cat or dog from the street. On the streets pets live only two years average.

[Mag]

This is the smell of the varnish of the circuit boards, usually came from large PCB on power amps.
This is a exquisite Audiophile Parfum in French.
Gustavo

>Never go to a psychiatrist, adopt a cat or dog from the street. On the streets pets live only two years average.

Thanks, now that I have more time. A few things were different than before. First, I switched to the graphic equalizer on my av/receiver from auto equalized settings. Which even with all freq. set at flat response, I'm getting quite a bit more bass than a week or so ago.<<

The volume level was were I usually have it, but this time I was spinning AC/DC Live in Donington, which is pretty demanding rock for a system even without the extra bass. That's when I noticed the electronic smell. None of the amps were clipping and I checked to see if all the woofers were still working, which they were.

Also I had the fan running to keep things cool. When I usually run the floor heater to keep my feet warm, when it gets as cold as it was Saturday.

[lanchile]

Check your speakers! I bet the smell comes from speakers. it happened to me twice lol. even though the speakers were "ok" I smelled them and they smelled funny like they were burned. I guess it was the voice coil getting cooked hahahahaha

[vegasdave]

Good point. You can easily fry those, especially with the power of a BRYSTON amp!

[Stephen L]

I thought voice coils are more likely to melt from lack of power rather than too much power.

Steve

[srb]

Certainly clipped waveforms from an underpowered amplifier can produce a signal with abnormally high energy content and burn out voice coils.  In that particular scenario my personal experience has been that the tweeters were most often affected first.
 
But every driver and voice coil has it's current and corresponding thermal limit, and when exceeded, can be burned with a powerful amplifier and volume level, even if it's not clipping.
 
Even if you can't get your nose close to the voice coil at the rear of the driver, putting your nose right up to the dustcap can often determine if that's where the smell is coming from, even through the dustcap, unless it's poly or aluminum cone with sealed poly or aluminum dustcap (provided you have a reasonably sensitive nose and don't have a bad cold).
 
Steve

[Mag]

Check your speakers! I bet the smell comes from speakers. it happened to me twice lol. even though the speakers were "ok" I smelled them and they smelled funny like they were burned. I guess it was the voice coil getting cooked hahahahaha

I don't think it's any of my 12 speakers. I had a woofer seize up awhile back from a dts album. The resolution was too much for one speaker that it got so hot it quite working, the amps were not clipping in this case either. Fortunately the speaker was still under warranty.

I can't say for sure but I think the source of the electronic smell is from my 3B ST. Dust is a factor as someone mentioned, as well as I have a unit stacked on top that is blocking most of the vents. With the addition of a new center channel speaker which I'm using this amp to power. It drawing more power than before and gets quite hot to the touch. The other amps are quite warm but not hot like the 3B ST.

[srb]

I can't say for sure but I think the source of the electronic smell is from my 3B ST. Dust is a factor as someone mentioned, as well as I have a unit stacked on top that is blocking most of the vents.

Well there you go!  If you must stack, consider puting some spacers between them.  I don't stack on top of amplifiers, but when I do stack components, I use large laboratory rubber stoppers.  Another member just recently recommended hockey pucks, which also sounds like a good idea.  Every inch of clearance will help appreciably.
 
Steve

[pumpkinman]

I use indoor hockey pucks sponge rubber very soft I bought them at Sports Authority $1.99 each

[srb]

I use indoor hockey pucks sponge rubber very soft I bought them at Sports Authority $1.99 each

Oooh, indoor soft pucks.  I'll have to check them out.
 
Steve

[Robert D]

Her Too !



Robert

[pumpkinman]

Oooh, indoor soft pucks.  I'll have to check them out.
 
Steve

 Then I use a peel and stick floor protector to distribute the weight of the component so not to crush the
puck

[Stephen L]

what a rack 

Steve

[vegasdave]

I thought voice coils are more likely to melt from lack of power rather than too much power.

Steve

That is true in most cases.