D.I. Joe Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 From an old thread in the Amps & Cabs forum: [quote name='chrisasp' timestamp='1347227725' post='1798354'] Hi. Anyone's advice would be much appreciated. I run a markbass little mark 3 and mark 102 2 x 10 8 ohm cab. after last nights gig I smelled a strange hot plastic smell from my cab. I presume something's getting hot in there. I do not have the head cranked , was using a quality speaker cable so bit confused. Only thing I can think of was that I used my microsynth a bit more at that particular gig and the speakers were definatly sucking air and I had the sub octave high. Could this be it. Has Anyone had this happen to them ? Cheers [/quote] Essentially the same thing happened to me tonight. I use an Ashdown ABM 500 into an ABM 115 Compact cab which has a Fane Sovereign 400W driver installed - no tweeter. At the end of the set I used synth settings on my Zoom B3 which were loud and low, so I'm thinking this could be what was overheating the speaker - although nothing sounded amiss in the mix to me, I was actually quite pleased with my synth tones! My real question is this: The guitar/keys player in the band said that if the smell was caused by a melting coil, then the resistance/impedance of the speaker would decrease and it would be dealt more power from the amp and eventually blow, with the amp quickly following suit. Is the above true? Is this smell the scent of disaster or is it just a sign that I should reign in the bottom end at high volume? I should also point out that this was in one of our bigger venues and my master volume was at 3/4 when it is usually below halfway. Thanks in advance Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icastle Posted August 11, 2013 Share Posted August 11, 2013 A 500W amp powering a 400W speaker is quite likely to start melting the coil resin if you turn it up too loud. You can't really use the volume control to judge how much of the available 500W is going to the speaker as the volume 'sweep' may not be linear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.I. Joe Posted August 11, 2013 Author Share Posted August 11, 2013 Sorry, I should have mentioned that the amp is rated 300W at 8 ohms and it is an 8 ohm speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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