NYC6

Driving the car earlier this evening listening to VH Unchained pretty loud I heard a pop and thought something hit underneath the car, a rock or something. A couple seconds later smoke got caught up in the AC flow coming from the drivers vent. It was electrical smoke. Thought I had a fire underhood and quickly pulled over. Told the wife to get out quick and tried to figure out where it was coming from. Shortly I realized it was the front speaker(JL C5-650 component) powered with a JL 450/4v2, 150w per side. speaker isnt working.
No expert here so I figured someone might know. Could it possibly just be and said wire fried and needs to be replaced or is the speaker dead?

markcz

Pull the door panel and see what's there.

Disconnect wires from amp and ohm them there, then disconnect from speaker and ohm speaker.

NYC6

thanks

Knob Jockey

Sometimes a speaker's voice coil will short out and some amps will react by putting out a DC voltage that can generate enough heat to cause the speaker to catch on fire.

I've seen this happen more than once, with older amplifiers that didn't have the modern output protection circuitry that's fairly common now.

And these cases were with high-powered pro amps driving PA systems, not car audio.

Regardless, I think it's more likely that you fried your speaker (or maybe the crossover) than the speaker wiring.

NYC6

Thanks for the reply. Assuming the speaker(s) are shot whats a good pair of 6.5 compnents that sound very good, can handle power well(I play it very loud often) and wont break the bank? Heres a site I recently found that lists some good speakers, any of these or something else? I've had the JL C5-650's for about 3 years now and they're highly rated here and loved the sound quality but it seems like they gave up the ghost of a couple years of of getting fed 150w per side. Im sure the installer set the gain down as I asked him to, I told him I play it loud but dont want to blow them. Maybe thats the life expectancy of speakers played loud over some years. I dont know these things.
Would love to keep the new set under $400 and if a good set can be purchased for much less yet still sound good that would be great., on this list or any other brands/models. thanks for any help offered.
http://caraudionow.com/best-6-5-component-car-speakers/