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Hello Club members, picked up a 2007 LS 460 2 months ago (82K miles) and have been loving it -- the Mark Levinson system is A/V nirvana as far as I'm concerned. There's only one issue I've noticed that's seemingly getting more prevalent over time -- the passenger door speaker makes what I can only describe as a buzz or fart for any sort of mid-bass. What I've been doing is just cranking the volume up to drown it out, but this only works for certain songs that constantly have higher frequencies to pepper over the fart noise.The speaker can still hit hard when cranked, but at low or moderate volume this fart is pretty much all I can hear from it.
Is it on its way out? Or could it potentially be fixed with a sealant?
I've attached a short .mov for your listening displeasure lol
What's really weird is I swear sometimes I'm convinced it "fixed" itself as I don't hear it at all, other times it's like in the video when it's really rippin farts. Wondering if temperature has to do with it somehow (was 20 deg today, earlier this week when warm it wasn't nearly as loud)
Looking for opinions on if it even sounds repairable so I know ahead of time to order another ML door speaker before taking the whole door apart.
That does seem like a speaker with blown foam surround. Since you are very happy with the sound try to find a used replacement or possibly repair yours.
edit - search Ebay for 86160-0WG10 you have quite a few options.
Thanks for the insight and ebay link to confirm my choice (I was looking at the same one). $120 after shipping, not the worst considering these are Mark Levinson speakers I suppose... going to change the oil this weekend and pull the door panel off to see how the cone looks.
If let's say there's a small hole in the foam surround, I'll see what sort of patch job can be done with Permatex (albeit on foam) before dropping the dough on a used speaker.
If you sort by lowest price first a few repair kits show up. I tried to repair a speaker it worked but I swear it sounded different. Didn't change after a break in period maybe it was the particular kit I had.
Ah good looking out, since its a door bass speaker I'm thinking I could handle it sounding slightly different (the glorious dash speakers on the other hand..).
Did you have a similar experience with a blown door speaker or was it one of the smaller ones?
Did you have a similar experience with a blown door speaker or was it one of the smaller ones?
It was an 8" door speaker! Toyota Celica it has a unique setup, sounded damn good. In fairness the surround foam was not application specific but it looked and seemed the same. Speaker sounded okay until you turned it up then brap brap
I have a similar issue although I believe it's one of the dash speakers. Only really hear it on certain songs/frequencies, but I haven't addressed it yet as there are other projects with higher priority. When the time comes, I'll probably try the re-foaming first. Here's a link to what others on the CL forum have used with success. I've also attached the speaker info if you don't already have. Congrats on getting the LS460! Mine's a 2007 as well with just a tick over 70k miles.
It was an 8" door speaker! Toyota Celica it has a unique setup, sounded damn good. In fairness the surround foam was not application specific but it looked and seemed the same. Speaker sounded okay until you turned it up then brap brap
That is seriously impressive for '89 if I say so myself.
And yep I went ahead and ordered the simplyspeakers.com repair kit via eBay, should come later next week. One thing I'm on the fence about is once I take the door apart this weekend to look at the speaker -- if it appears to be a small hole or gap in the speaker foam surround, I may see what a ghetto repair with E6000 or something similar could do. Figure it couldn't hurt; my hopes aren't to high. Course this is assuming its still just a small hole or gap at this point.
It turns out I wasn't going crazy -- the fart / buzz sound does seem to be dependent on temperature or something. Hadn't drove my LS in 2 days, today going to my buddy's big garage to change my oil 35 minutes away I didn't hear a single fart from the speaker. 45-50 degrees today vs 20 degrees when the video was recorded (though the car was warm and everything in the latter). I was putting the speakers through their paces for 1.5 hours today and I didn't hear a single fart from that passenger door speaker... super weird. But again confirms my past experience that there were times that the fart had gone away completely on its own.
So I didn't take the door apart to take a look (I don't think I would have had time to do so today regardless), but I do have that SimplySpeakers foam replacement on the way, so I'll have that in my arsenal should I come the point where I want to investigate.
Since the temps this week are supposed to be more mild (above freezing / lows of 29 some of the nights) it will be interesting to see if the fart noise comes back. If it doesn't come back at all in warmer weather, then it seems to be a cold weather based issue, as random as that may be.
02-23-23, 07:13 PM
LS 460 Door Speaker Fart?
