It is well recently recognized that quench is one of the serious problems for the integrity of superconducting magnets, which is mainly attribute to the rapid temperature rising in the magnet due to some extrinsic factors such as conductor motion, crack initiation etc. In order to apply acoustic emission(AE)echnique effectively to monitor and diagnose superconducting magnets, it is essential to identify the sources of acoustic emission. In this paper, an acoustic emission technique has been used to monitor and diagnose quenching phenomenon in racetrack shaped superconducting magnets at cryogenic environment of 4.2K. For these purposes special attention was paid to detect AE signals associated with the quench of superconducting magnets. The characteristics of AE parameters have been analyzed by correlating with quench number, winding tension of superconducting coil and charge rate by transport current. In addition, the source location of quench in superconducting magnet was also discussed on the basis of correlation between magnet voltage and AE energy.