Failed speaker in 396XT?

[jbeez]

Originally Posted by jackj

It is impossible to damage a speaker by "underpowering" it. Likewise, reducing the power supplied to a speaker will not cause more distortion. Someone has been giving you bad information. I recommended replacing his OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) speaker with one that would handle more power because it sounds to me like the OEM speaker has been damaged by high volume levels. Good engineering practice is to spec a speaker that can handle twice as much power as the amp's rating. It looks, from the radio's specs, that Uniden did just that. But I think the speaker they are using isn't really as hefty as the specs show.

Allow me to clarify what I was trying to say, in other words, I believe the amp is underpowered, causing the signal to be more distorted, because I find myself turning the volume to 100% to hear it sometimes and I believe this may be introducing distortion into the output to the speaker. If the amp was more powerful I believe I wouldn't have to keep the volume at 100% and therefore I would not be destroying that 5 cent speaker they put in there.

[gonorth]

Originally Posted by jackj

No radio should be able to destroy it's OEM speaker even when played overnight at maximum volume
Gonorth. If it can then the manufacturer is guilty of poor engineering or poor bean-counting. Neither of which speaks well of the manufacturer.

I don't dispute that the speaker should not have failed. My point was that when mine failed I was concerned I'd have to sent the unit back to Uniden for service and pay a premium for repair - which does not need to happen. Easy instructions and OEM parts are readily available for a DIY repair.

I think the 396XT is a great scanner and have nothing but good things to say about Uniden - bad speaker or not. The accountants and engineers at Uniden didn't manufacture the speakers which appear to have been spec'd properly. Making OEM parts cheap and available to customers speaks very well of the manufacturer.

Jon - N1QGL

[gvranchosbill]

Its a bad habit of mine (All Caps) Ive had my BR330T for about 1/12 yrs the sound has been loud and
clear until the other day and was listening around 8 hrs nonstop with continuous chatter to NV Energy
do to the power outage over a wide area. I was using cell phone (800mhz Nextel) about 10" from BR330T
and all of sudden audio on BR330T degraded rapidly and disapeared came back breifly then completly
gone,(NV Energy by the way is also 800mhz) I tried external speaker and audio was still loud and clear
im conviced the speaker is shot anyway is ther another place to find Oem replacement other than
Uniden, Their site shows speaker is back ordered, Have there been any prior reports of this speaker
failing? I believe that the 396T is almost identical so that answers that question. And i dont think i should
have got that close with the Nextel transmitting, In any case just bad timing or i ruined it with the Nextel.
And the warrantry has expired a while ago. I also tried web site in prior discusion on locating Oem speaker
and that site makes no sense to me.
(I agree trying to read all caps is hard my eyes)

[bhavenga]

I am assuming the 396 speaker is the same for the 346?

Mine did poop out as well.

[kf4uel]

Mine as well.. speaker gave out too

[bear780ks]

So far no issues in mine but this seems kind of an issue that has spread out if Guys were having problems with them in 2010 and the same issue is still happening Now) I know one thing i not too happy with is the darn thin wall construction around the adapter plug in port i think a better design could of been thought of.

At times in that area i can here the plastic make sound and i'm not really gripping it that hard i try as much as can not to grip it in that area but with the grips that Uniden put there that's what it should be designed for.

I'm really surprised Uniden hasn't updated the design of the scanner a little but i will say this scanner does get the job done that's for sure) My wish though would be.. is that Uniden could make a handheld with a tougher case kind of like what the police use bang em around give em a lickin and they still work like new. There we Go.. Ra