ASW500 Problems (pics)

[Skidoo161]

Hi guys!!

Well this is my first post so I guess I should just say you guys have a great looking forum here, I really dig it.

So here is the scoop, I am a poor college student fighting the good fight. I was at a garage sale one day and spot this FREE B&W ASW500. The guy said it was broken, so I snatched it up. Opened it up to find that the original B&W speaker was shot (the cone was torn from the voice coil plus the speaker read infinite ohms). So in the mean time I opened up the amp. I immediatly noticed a charred portion on the middle of the circuit board. I was sadened, but I had a spare car audio subwoofer, I hooked this subwoofer to the B&W amp and it worked it made sound. Well it wasn't very good sound because the car subwoofer was partly fried. So I went to the store and bought a fairly cheap pioneer subwoofer (again this is car audio). I installed this pioneer sub and bam we had base!!!!
Next I tried hooking up more speaker to the sub so I could get the top half of the sound!! When I tried this it was a no go... again I was sad.
I knew the sub made great bass sound so I hooked up the subwoofer to a friends sound system. It worked good, except we couldn't dampen my sub it was SO powerful the small cheap speakers he had wouldn't put out enough! lol lol :W . We listen to the music for about 10 minutes then I went to the B&W to adjust the volume knob on the back, but the sub just stopped!!!!! I tried various different sources of audio but it won't make any sound now!!! I think the amp circuit died, because a signal from my laptop into the back yeilds the most faint amount of sound imaginable. But I am serious when I say faint, I'm not even sure if it really is making moise.
Attached are some pics...


Ok so my questions are
What do you guys think caused the subwoofer to just stop?
What are the difference between "Linked Out" and "Line Out"? and for the spring clip type connectors how do they work? from what I understand the top row is for sending amplified sound INTO the subwoofer and the bottom row is supposed to send amplifed sound OUT (but it doesn't)

[audioqueso]

Good find. Especially since you know what you're doing and how to repair it.

What do you guys think caused the subwoofer to just stop?
Hard to say without any further troubleshooting.

What are the difference between "Linked Out" and "Line Out"?
No clue what "Linked Out" is.

And for the spring clip type connectors how do they work?
If you use the spring-clip connecters, you do not use any of the RCA inputs.
You would connect the sub as if it was a speaker. So it would be like this...
amp----(speaker wire)---->sub via "From Amplifier" connection<--->sub via "To Speakers"-----(speaker wire)---->Speakers
There's a built in HF filter at 80Hz that will send all freqs above 80Hz to the speakers, but keep the bass for the sub.

[Blindamood]

Did you check the B&W site for a user manual? That might help you find out what "Link Out" is used for.

[hifiguymi]

The "Link Out" is to daisy chain to another subwoofer. It's not crossed over like the line out is.

Eric

[Skidoo161]

Thanks for the reply guys. That cleared up some of my confusion with what all of the connections are and what pairs/sequence to use them in.

Just for anyone who is curious, I bought a Pioneer TS-W252R subwoofer.
As far as I can tell this sub can handle the B&W amp really well. (4 ohm 600W max 10in.)

If anyone knows anything about this B&W amp. Keep in mind I know how to use a DMM (multimeter). And I know my way around a circuit board/circuit schematics, Ohm's law, resistors/transistors/capacitors. So if someone know what part of the board I should be looking at just point me in the right direction.

[Skidoo161]

Weird, the subwoofer started working today. Two days ago it wouldn't make a single sound. The fact that is works two days later with out any repair being done to it makes me think that something changed after the capacitors discharged.
Do these subwoofers have some sort of protection circiutry that would have prevented it from working befor, but then start working after the sub was unpluged to two days??