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Speaker blown ... and then not?


mart
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Bit of a strange one this. I had a gig a few weeks ago, and when I was setting up I had a problem with the 1x15" speaker cab I was using. First it was sounding bad on some notes, as if something was rattling in sympathy. To try and isolate the problem I cranked up the parametric mid control, and panned the freq to try and isolate the problem note. But, as I might have foreseen, in doing this I blew the speaker: it sounded worse, then a bit of a pop or something, and then only a very quiet, but very farty sound came out.

Luckily I had another cab handy, so I just switched cabs and carried on.

For various reasons, it's taken me until now to have a look at the blown speaker. And when I plugged it in to my amp today it worked perfectly! I didn't crank it mega loud, but I did take it up to the sort of volume you'd need to compete with a drummer, and there was no hint of farting at all.

Any guesses as to what's going on? I don't quite trust the cab now, but on the other hand, since it worked fine today, I'm not sure what the problem could be. Fwiw, it's a Warwick cab, 8 ohms, rated at about 400W, and both today and at that gig I was using my Shuttle 3, with no other cab, so the head is theoretically pushing out at most 175W.

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I had something very similar the other month and I was convinced I had a 12" driver on the way out (I thought that I'd heard a buzz/rattle on previous gigs but was never sure), especially when it started happening in the house when I was trying out a bass. Turns out that my speaker cable was duff and was rapidly replaced with an OBBM cable. I generally didn't think that the cable itself could give the 'sound' of a driver breaking up as I turned up the amp etc; I expect a duff cable to crackle etc. but this was acting exactly like a driver that is starting to fail and fart on certain notes as you turned up the wick (odd that it seemed worse on certain notes).

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I had a horrible, farty noise coming from my Zoot cab. Turned out one of the internal wires was resting on a speaker cone and causing it to sound bad. How embarrassing it was to get Rich (Ou7shined) round with tales of knackered speakers only to find this :)

Tied the wire out of the way et voila, noise gone.

Edited by neepheid
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Thats a relief. The same thing happened to my Fender Deluxe 60 amp.

I thought I had killed my old EBS HD350 head a while back only to find out when I took it to a tech that the power input fuse had blown. Something I could have sorted out myself very easily in less than a minute! I panic so much when any of my kit has gone pear shaped.

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[quote name='shizznit' timestamp='1356186410' post='1907752'].... I panic so much when any of my kit has gone pear shaped.
[/quote]
I can very much relate to that.

I checked over the wiring in the cab earlier, and everything seems fine. I had the amp plugged in and powered up, and jiggling the connections didn't cause any crackling or anything, so I think that can't be the problem. But I didn't think about a cable resting against the cone, so that's something else to look into. And I'll try a few different speaker cables and seek any is dodgy.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

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I thought I had a rattly grill on an aluminium coned Behringer 4x10" cab I had once.

Drove me mad - I had loads of beer mats jammed between the grill and the side of the cab but it kept on doing it. Several gigs later it started distorting towards the end of the night and when I looked at it, all 4 drivers had shattered and there were bits of aluminium all over the place.

Complained to Behringer, they kindly sent me a brand new one FOC and it was straight on Ebay

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Me Too
have two EA m-lines. one started this farty breakup sound. But which one ? Thought i isolated which one it was so ordered a new speaker from EA in the states which arrived with lots of import tax and Vat the same week the cab stopped doing it. and I only have a hint of it now and again. have eliminated the sprung loaded handle underneath and grill, but will recheck the cable resting on the cone suggestion. So thanks for that. :) :angry: :) :angry: :)

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