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Author
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Topic: Blacky: Outsider needs advice
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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117
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posted July 28, 2003 03:35
    
I am posting what follows on behalf of a fellow 'Caca Volante' mailing list member,
in hopes that JY or some of our resident bassists can help the poor guy:======================== PLEASE POST THIS, as i'm sure there's many musos who play CV-esque
music &
can give me some advice! thanks
***************** Hi, just hoping someone can help!!! I'm a bass player & recently i have been busting my cones in my
speaker.
In about Feburary i joined a band that requires distortion (also 5
string
heavy distortion) and found after i a little while with them my speaker
was
distorting when playing 'normal' bass.
I assumed it was just because i've had the speaker for about 4 years -
time
to die.... So i went to my spare 15" & used that.
Just the other day i realised the EXACT same thing. (Changed over
period,
maybe a month.....) My rig is:
Gallien-Krueger 800RB http://www.gallien-krueger.com/PRODUCTS/HEADS/800RB/800rb.html
EV 15" 4 OHM * I don't 'push it', only playing at about 4-5 on the volume
* Haven't had any power surges or big pops etc..
* I never bi-amp it, only ever use the 4ohm 15" So now i'm wondering, could it be the distortion? Are 15"s 'not meant
for
distortion'? I notice Dunn uses (in Fantomas) 8 x 10", as i've also seen in other
metal
bands.
What did Frith use in Naked City? (seeing i'm playing similar stuff to
that - was it 4x10"? Anyway, so i will get this fixed & when i get it all back, maybe try
splitting it,
adding a 2 x 10" 8ohm cabinet on that i have. Should i get all 10"s? like 4x10 or something? Recommendations, advice, anything would be great! thanks. Andrew ======================== If there is any advice, I'm sure he would appreciate it. Thanks!
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Nord
VoivodFan
Member # 308
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posted July 30, 2003 22:45
My brother, the sound man and speaker re-cone guy, offers these suggestions.He thinks your problem may be the EV speaker, as the larger EVs tend to have smaller diameter voice coils than some of the competitors' speakers. Measure the diameter of the voice coil where the cone joins the coil (just below the dust cap). He suspects your EV has a 3" voice coil. This creates a very steep angle where the coil joins the cone, making the cone relatively more susceptible to tearing, especially if a hard, relatively inflexible glue was used to join the coil to the cone. If your bass has a low B, this pushes the cone even harder. You may have better luck if you try a speaker with a 4" diameter voice coil such as Eminence, McAuley, or JBL, though he readily acknowledges the JBLs are not particularly efficient. The 4" voice coil creates a less steep angle where it meets the cone, resulting in much less wear and tear on the cone. He also suggests trying a 15" with a 4" voice coil on the bottom, paired with a 4-10" cabinet on top. Biamp the stack. He says your head should be able to handle it. Hope this helps.
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blacky
VoivodFan
Member # 2
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posted July 31, 2003 10:41
I have used EV speakers for a long time and trust me I tried my best to blow them out using as much distortion as I could and I was never able to. As far as the voice coil size is concerned, my own EVs are 4 inch as well, JBL are pretty good, maybe more metallic sounding since they often have a metal voice coil cover. I think EV are made of nylon or something. I like them a lot but as for which speaker is best, that's really up to you. Perhaps your problem reside more in the impedance of your cabinet setup that you are running your system with. I always used cabinets that have 16ohms of impedance, it's less loud but way more efficient as far as sound quality, cleaner is better (which is interesting since you want distortion, but the distortion needs to be at the source and not later in the system, it's like a bad speaker cabinet or amp for your stereo system at home, you can have the most expensive turntable in the world it will still sound like shit if your amp or speakers are from RadioShack). What you can do is to use two single 8 ohm speakers and connect them in series, this will give you 16ohm of actual speakers impedance. If you run 4 speakers, like I did in the past, simply use two sets of series and connect those in parallel, this will give you a total of 8 ohms total, since parallel speakers do the inverse. Your amp should be able to handle 16ohms very well, using 4ohms cabinets is a very bad idea, but that's just my point of view, and today system are doing better then mine did in the old days. If you want to know if your speaker are burned simply push the speaker slowly inside, holding it all around, uniformly by the edge of the coil, and if you hear or feel some metalloid noise like something is scratching, then yes your coil is burned and there's not much to do except re-cone the whole thing. Also make sure you set your cabinet speakers in the right phase polarity, used a 9 volt battery to test the polarity, plug the battery + to your cabinet +, and - to -, you should see your speaker moving out. Make sure all the speakers go in the same direction (out), otherwise you will have a phase inversion which could also result in a loss of frequency range which may also damage the speakers.here some help on speaker impedance: http://www.rockboxx.com/all_about_ohms.htm let us know if this works out for your friend, my apologies to any RadioShack fans out there.
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Tangento
VoivodFan
Member # 117
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posted August 01, 2003 23:51
Hey all thanks again for helping out.
Turns out this guy is a very cool dude, and he also sends many thanks.BTW, his name is Andrew, and plays in about 12 different bands in Australia.
Everything I have heard so far has been quite wacky and very fucking cool. Apparently, he also jams with Bar and Danny from Mr. Bungle from time to time. (!) Anyway, for some interesting musical explorations,
have a look at the 'Projects' section: AM Frequencies
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