Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Help! Internal vibration in new M3's

I received a pair of M3's last week and as of yesterday I nticed a vibration/buzzing sound commingfrom inside one of them. After some investigation I noticed it coming from both speakers. This buzzing only occurs durring sustained bass like from a bass guitar. I havn't run them very hard at all compared to my old wharfedales, as I want to wait for a good break-in period and I also have my receiver set on the small setting to reduce distortion and protect the woofer. I didn't hear this noise until yesterday but it is possible that it was occuring before that.

In my attempts to locate the noise I pulled out the woofer and listened for a sound, NOTHING. That should have eliminated a bad woofer. Looking at the wires inside I thought that it may be the wires vibrating against the side or a driver. I replaced the woofer and removed the back plate and listened. The sound was easily audible. So I removed the woofer again and felt around for a loose fitting or joint in the cabinet, nothing. I rearranged the foam inside the speaker to try to eliminate a wire hitting the speaker or the inside wall to no avail. I want to like these speakers a lot as their sound quality is top rate. The buzzing is going to drive me crazy if I can't find its source and fix it. Also if it was only one speaker I wouldn't be as concerned but it's coming from both and sounds the same. Any ideas???? Anybody else have this problem.

Call Joe at Axiom's toll free number.
He will walk you through some possible checks to remove the speakers or your music sources as the problem. He may then suggest a course of action.

chesseroo's recommendation is right on! However you really didn't give some of us (at least me) enough info to go on. Does the problem occur on only one recording or many different types of music? Does it happen at different volumes - i.e. when playing louder - is the buzzing louder?

If coming equally from both speakers, it is more likely a "source" problem. (music, amp, ground, bad connection, etc). Hopefully Joe can lead you down the right path to diagnose and solve the problem.

Best of luck!

Randyman

Hi Danr, Randyman,

Absolutely call Joe Vassallo at our toll-free number, but sometimes the "buzz" or "rattle" is in the recording. As a string player, I can tell you that with stand-up plucked or bowed double bass, electric bass, guitar, and cello, if you pluck or bow too vigorously, the string vibrates against the fingerboard.

Lots of bass players do just that and the buzzing of the strings is recorded along with the music. Over the years, I've discovered that is sometimes the source of mysterious buzzing that you think is speaker-generated.

Try listening to the same selection over headphones--if the buzz is on the recording you'll hear it on good-quality headphones, (not on those crummy earbuds that come with portables).

Regards,

I've listened to Stu Hamm's bass solo on Joe Satriani's concert DVD and there is a string vibration from his low E that is audible but that isn't the buzzing sound. I've tried several different sources and two different players. I also ran frequency sweeps on two different test dics (Delos DVD spectacular and Stereophile's Test CD 2). The buzzing starts around 150Hz and really hits around 200Hz, it's definitely not from the source as far as I can tell. Thoughts.

I called for tech support but had to leave a message.

If you hear the noise from both speakers, can you isolate the noise to the drivers specifically?
Take a look at my recent post on the buzz noise and vp150/m60s to see what happened with my situation.
It was as simple as replacing the drivers if they are truly at fault.
Try calling back again till you get Joe. They usually are not too busy on the phones for long.

Well, with a little help from Joe I figured out what the problem is. Joe tld me to wrap tape around the magnet and basket of the woofer to see if it dampens the noise. It didn't work but I removed the tape and tried moving the magnet by hand and that was it. I could hear the magnet moving on its mounting, very, very slightly. I then knocked on the back of the magnet and could hear the sound of a slight vibration. I tried this on the other speaker and could hear and feel the exact same thing. I'll try calling Joe on Monday.