Is it possible for a tweeter to “partially fail”?

[tony22]

Specifically a beryllium tweeter, with the failure being that it fails in a way that it can no longer reproduce its entire operating range of frequencies. Let’s say in a particular speaker design the tweeter covers from 3,000-20,000 Hz. Is a failure mode possible such that it works fine up till, say, 10KHz but after that it’s output fails - either outright or in some degraded fashion? Could a failure in the crossover cause this to happen? This is all theoretical - not having any issues with my stuff. Just curious. And in case anyone is thinking it - yes my hearing is quite good well past 10KHz!

 

[MarcelNL]

surely , if the voice coil is 'partially fried' it may rub against the magnet which will impair the freq response.

 

[analogsa]

All sorts of unpleasant things can and do happen. A severe overload can cause the coil former to overheat, change shape and start rubbing against the pole piece. The overheating may also cause a partial short between windings.

 

[treitz3]

It also depends on whether or not the the beryllium tweeter uses ferrofluid.

Tom