Topic: ACI Force subwoofer died - now what?

[Massive Dynamic]

It seems that my powered ACI Force subwoofer purchased in 2005 has developed a problem. And the company went out of business in 2009. 

The sub was often in standby mode, but we came home yesterday to hear a significant hum, a bad smell, and a rather warm amp. After unplugging it and letting it cool down, I tried running it again briefly with an aud with lots of bass. I ran my fingers under the speaker cone and it felt weird, so here is a picture. Anyone able to diagnose the problem? Amp or cone?

This is what the cone looks like when it is powered down. When powered on, it recesses further in.


I just bought a new carbon road bike frame, so I can't really afford a new sub of this caliber. I'm hoping this is repairable. Thanks.

[raymonda]

Everything is repairable. It is whether you want to put the money into it or not.

That being said you are going to need to trouble shoot the problem. Hook your woofer up to another amp and make sure the polarity is correct. Then see if it works. If it does, then your problem is else where. BTW, I've never seen a woofer with a surround like that. Is that the way it is suppose to be?

Check your amp and see if there are any inline fuses that are blown. Replace them if there is and see if it works. While inspecting the fuses, if you see blown resistors or caps.......go no further. You will need to bring the sub to a repair shop and have them trouble shoot the problem. You can replace the blown caps and resistors your self but they may have been the innocent victims of some other problem and may only solve the problem temporarily.

Repairing the amp may not be as cost effective as just buying a new plate amp. There are several good BASH based amps that range from $100-200 and may be a drop in replacement for the amp that came with your sub.

If it ends up being both the speaker and amp you can buy replacement parts from parts express or similar outfit. Cost would be between $250 and 500 depending on which amp and speaker you go with.

Best of luck.

[raymonda]

I just did a quick search to look at what the driver's surround should look like. It looks like yours is toast.....my guess is that your voice coil was taken out and is now frozen. Most likely this occurred due to a problem with your amp. Trouble shooting with tell you what's up.

[Massive Dynamic]

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure a DIY repair is something I'm comfortable trying. I did remove the driver and the amp from the enclosure; the driver doesn't seem right at all, though the amp didn't have any visible damage. I think buying random parts that'll fit in the holes and hoping it will work again sounds like a(n expensive) recipe for disaster.

That being said, here is an amp that will fit into the existing enclosure with a bit of enlarging, Yung 300 Class D amp for $140. The original amp was Class A/B, which was touted in the Force manual as much better than Class D amps. The Force was $750, though.

If the driver is also shot, I just have no idea how to pick a replacement that would match with the Yung amp and work with the size of the existing cabinet. Might well be better to look at a new or used sub if all I can salvage is the enclosure.

[mfrench]

I don't know if you've ever seen/heard of these guys. They're a longtime steady biz here in SoCal, and widely respected in the industry.  It might be worth time perusing. They're very helpful.
http://www.speakerrepair.com

[raymonda]

Hook up another speaker to the amp and see if the amp works. You can use a meter or a cheap speaker. You can get the speaker rebuilt or buy a new one through parts express, etc but make sure it matches up to your amp well.

[Massive Dynamic]

I plugged in the amp and touched the meter's leads to the terminals, and the meter showed a DC voltage of 3.1V.
I hooked up the driver to a 70wpc amp and although there were some tones coming from it, it didn't sound right at all.
Neither result sounds promising.