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How long do powered subs usually last?

S

SAWYER

Lifer
I just realized I have had my Paradigm PW2200 sub for about 10 years and it has never gave me a bit of trouble. I would figure the amp would have issues by now.
 
I don't really know but I'll add my little bit of anecdotal evidence that the amps should last a while because my father has a couple amps for live music that are still in use and working after 25years.
 
Amp in my basement is now 20 years old. So long as cheap capacitors were not used, they should last a long time.

The speakers themselves should also last.
 
If it has a foam surround, maybe 10 years or so before it goes out. Rubber will last much longer. But a lot of "audiophile" subs do in fact use foam, like JL Audio.
 
SAWYER said:
I just realized I have had my Paradigm PW2200 sub for about 10 years and it has never gave me a bit of trouble. I would figure the amp would have issues by now.
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I own a PW2200 as well and it didn't last as long as yours has. In fact, its been baked since maybe year two or three of ownership (1st owner).

Apparently running it at reference level in conjunction with Japanese DVDs whereby the LFE ran 6-9dB hot is what killed it. Mind you mine also suffered from an out of the box issue where when it turned itself on with signal detection caused a loud popping as the voicecoil came into service.

I replaced it with an HSu sub that has played flawlessly for the last four years and hasn't sneezed one bit regardless of what I've thrown at it.
 
I don't know about subs, but I'm using a pair of 30+ year old tower speakers that are fed with a 20+ year old Sony DPL receiver. After I cleaned up the knobs on the Sony, I haven't had any problems.
 
Some 2.1 computer systems have cheaped out on circuit board capacitors. How much this will effect life expectancy I do not know.
Would be interesting to check circuit boards in some current powered subwoofers.
 
depends on the quality of the components, if they are good quality and dont over heat thet could last decades.

if they are not they could die withing a year (see EPIK Empire and Legend amls)
 
Since no one mentioned this, it also depends on how hard you drive it. If you're sitting there pushing your subs/speakers to their limit every day, probably wont last long. My polk audio monitor 70s I blew my tweeters out twice. But I also threw 3 parties a week at college. If you're simply just listening to music/movies at normal levels though probably can last a LONG time if you take care of it.
 
I have speakers and subs that are well over 20 years and they are fine. On the other hand, I also have speakers that are less that 20 years old that are not fine. The only pattern I can think of is that I didnt uses the bad speakers for years and the foam/rubber rotted and deteriorated. So, my theory is that is you use speakers constantly they will last, if you dont they wont last. makes no sense but this has been my experience. My JBL sub ha been rock solid for over 15 years and gets very little use but the speakers have a solid rubber surrounds and the speaker is also coated in rubber. My 20+ year old tonnoys that I didnt use for 8-10 years literally shredded and collapsed last year when i took them out of storage and tried them.
 
If it is an HSU subwoofer, 7 years of only a couple dozen hours of use (cheap garbage caps and other components, subwoofer unglued, HSU told me to pound sand). I am going to find out about SVS next week.
 
If it's a cheap Sony, then it's way too long. I wish mine would die. It's a one trick horsey and I need an excuse.
 
Astrallite said:
Which Hsu was it? The STF-1?
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Yes

I lived in apartments the past 15 years so I hadn't been able to let it run. I bought a house last year only to discover it wouldn't work. I took it apart and found every cap bulging and leaking. I had those replaced and then they found other components that were faulty. Not to mention the subwoofer surround had come apart.

HSU pretty much said that a new amp would be $290 or I could get a $50 credit for a new sub. lol.
 
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Astrallite said:
If it has a foam surround, maybe 10 years or so before it goes out. Rubber will last much longer. But a lot of "audiophile" subs do in fact use foam, like JL Audio.
Click to expand...

JLAudio uses Santoprene, at least nowadays they do. Foam is lighter but most companies today use a hybrid for home subs.
 
LegendKiller said:
Yes

I lived in apartments the past 15 years so I hadn't been able to let it run. I bought a house last year only to discover it wouldn't work. I took it apart and found every cap bulging and leaking. I had those replaced and then they found other components that were faulty. Not to mention the subwoofer surround had come apart.

HSU pretty much said that a new amp would be $290 or I could get a $50 credit for a new sub. lol.
Click to expand...

that sounds like what happened with my JBL sub i bought back in like 2001. i moved into an apartment in 2005 and didn't use my sub the whole time i was there, it just sat in a closet. i moved into a house in 2011 and when i plugged it in it was all jacked up.

after doing tons and tons of research when i bought all my new stuff about a year ago, chances are i'll never go back to retail name brand stuff again.
 
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