Reply #8: Check your physics book.

[ChoralScholar]

All electric heating elements are super-high resistance. That's how they work.
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"Resistance causes the wire to heat up and glow orange, creating infrared radiation that warms the surface of the bread. The losses in power are called Joule heating or P (joule). Those losses are equal to:

P (joule) = RI2

This equation derives from the equations P=VI and V=RI (Ohm's Law)

P is the power (in Watts).
R is the resistance of the wire (in Ohms)
I is the current though the wire (in Amperes)
V is the voltage tension across the wire (in Volts)

From the Joule heating equation, you can see that the heat (P) will be high when electrical resistance (R) is high. The current that flows through the wire has a very high impact on the heat generated, since the power (P) depends on the square of the current (I).

Other appliances that work on the same principle include a hair dryer, an iron, and an electric space heater."


From the SEED Science Center
http://199.6.131.12/qa2/FAQView.cfm?ID=972
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So, there are two ways to raise a wire temperature - raise the resistance, or raise the current....

in this particular iPod speaker scenario, broken wire filaments would result in more current per remaining filaments, resulting in increased wire temperature.

What you said is technically true, but the current didn't decrease... the appliance drew the same amount of current over a higher resistance (the more filaments that break - the higher aggregate resistance) resulting in increased wire temperature.