Ampeg 410HLF disorting :(

grunge666 · #1 01-29-2011, 05:56 PM

I really hope someone can help me!

I just got back from playing my 1st gig with my own full rig.

SVT 3 Pro
Sansamp RBI
410 HLF

man it sounded awful!!

I use the head and preamp every week through a Hartke 410 at our rehearsal rooms and it sounds righteous.
Sound checked tonite and I thought a cone had blown. It distorted so bad, a really farty flapping noise in the low range. Mids and highs were ok but low E was atrocious! I was expecting furniture movement!!

I've had this cab 2nd hand for about 3 years and only played it at low volume at home before tonight and now I'm gutted it may be a wreck!

Any ideas guys? Horn? (I had it at 0) Cone? It sounded like all speakers though

I read somewhere it could be a dodgy solder?
I'm desperate!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers

Grunge.

RickenBoogie · #2 01-29-2011, 06:21 PM

Don't know for sure, but it could be you're pushing the low eq too hard, or just the volume. That cab is very well liked, but as with ANY cab, they have limits. Maybe it's been pushed beyond those limits. have it looked at by a speaker pro.

grunge666 · #3 01-29-2011, 06:43 PM

Cheers, to be honest it was just over rehearsal volume and the Hartke cab handled it ok.
I think the speaker expert is a good call, just need to find a local one here in the UK. :-/

justin_beerd · #4 01-29-2011, 06:52 PM

I would guess something is probably wrong with the cab. i used thesame setup but an mxr m80 instead of the sansamp for about two years straight and really loud and never had a problem with it farting or anything. if that helps at all haha.

Jerrold Tiers · #5 01-29-2011, 09:50 PM

Hard to say.... it's a ported cab, so if you boost the super lows for "furniture shifting lows", you can get below the port frequency and have trouble.

What was your EQ?

Where was the "tube drive" knob?

Did you have the "ultra-low" switch on?

MediaJones · #6 01-29-2011, 09:56 PM

I had a similar problem with my HLF. It was when I really tried to push some more mids out of it though... I hated that cabinet... I would say just stick with the hartke- I just think those hlfs are bad news bears

IronLung1986 · #7 01-30-2011, 12:22 AM

i had that problem with an ampeg bxt 410 which i bought second-hand a while back and owned for approximately 20 hours. i traded in my old avatar 410 thinking the ampeg would blow it away (and it did sound good at the store), but once i played it at gigging volume i realized it could not handle the low notes at all. funnily enough my amp at the time was an svt-3 as well. it totally farted out, especially on the E string, where my avatar had handled that stuff like an absolute champ. went back the next day and traded back for my old speaker haha.

grunge666 · #8 01-30-2011, 05:28 AM

Thanks for the feed back guys. Interesting stuff. I think after all this time of having the HLF and reading the praise on here for it I expected it to handle anything.
I'm booking it in to be checked over, don't want to give up on it yet.

My settings aren't that rad, tube gain was at 3 o'clock, bass @ 1, mid selector on 3 and mid @ 1. The sansamp runs through the effects loop and is set to the SVT settings with a little less drive.

Wes Whitmore · #9 01-30-2011, 07:20 AM

I had a 410HLF that was miswired. You could get close to the cab, play it at low volumes sitting on the ground in front of it, and not hear equal sound levels coming from all 4 speakers, but if you put your hands on the speakers (the grill just pulls off), you felt some movement. I pulled out the drivers and realized that they were miswired from the factory. I rewired them and it fixed the problem. Another issue with how they were wired was that 2 of them were getting a ton of power, and distorted while the other 2 were barely moving, therefore, you couldn't turn it up. Sounded fine at lower volumes.

If you pull the sansamp out of the efx loop, does the problem go away?
Wes

grunge666 · #10 01-30-2011, 07:45 AM

Hmmm, this is bugging me now, I hate the fact that I can't crank it up at home to test anything! LOL

It was the same with sansamp on or off.
I was thinking about the wiring so booking it it for a bench test.

grunge666 · #11 01-30-2011, 03:16 PM

Right then,
I've had the speakers out one by one and they all seem fine and wired according to the Ampeg wiring diagram I found online.

Interestingly, this has been reloaded with Eminence Kappa Pro's.

These are 500w and 8ohms each!

The HLF is only rated at 500w @ 4ohms.

Is this the problem??

:-/

twistedbydesign · #12 01-30-2011, 03:24 PM

Just outta left field. . . .do you maybe have an active bass with a dead battery?

grunge666 · #13 01-30-2011, 03:32 PM

No dude, new batteries in both my Spectors and used a passive P Bass too. All the same result.

Wes Whitmore · #14 01-30-2011, 03:47 PM

So its not really a 410HLF anymore...not the right drivers for that cabinet. . Its now 8 ohms with those drivers. That could be the issue.

BassmanPaul · #15 01-30-2011, 03:52 PM

If the cab was 4Ω originally wired in series/parallel it had to have 4Ω drivers. wired the same way your cabinet is now 8Ω. Depending on how involved the crossover is your frequency spectrum could be out of whack. Your amp will be delivering less power than it would at 4Ω. you will also probably find that the speakers are not optimal for the cabinet design and tuning.

grunge666 · #16 01-30-2011, 04:21 PM

Thanks guys, I was kinda dreading these replies

I wonder if there's a way of wiring it up to = 4 ohms. 2 parallel side by side or top & bottom?

But, as you say, the tuning will be shot.

Bummer!

Wes Whitmore · #17 01-30-2011, 04:24 PM

2 ohm or 8 ohm. Crossover will still be messed up. Mainly to the horn's high pass.

georgestrings · #18 01-30-2011, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wes Whitmore

2 ohm or 8 ohm. Crossover will still be messed up. Mainly to the horn's high pass.

Yup, best bet at this point is to bypass the crossover completely, and lose the use of the horn - and keep it wired to 8 ohm specs...

- georgestrings

tocs100 · #19 01-30-2011, 04:50 PM

Those Kappa's are badass speakers man, no reason for low-E crapping at rehearsal volumes even with the off-kilter port-tuning.

I would suspect the crossover burnt-out somehow (a tech could explain how) and the guy who sold you it assumed he blew his speakers again. But the c/o may just roll-off the tweeter and not be connected to the 10's at all...

Once again consult a good tech on this, but you could wire one pair 16ohms, the other pair 4 ohms, and summed you'd get 3.2 ohms. Still kind risky for a 4ohm min amp tho, and the pair at 4ohm would be quite louder (could use as the bottom pair tho). Similarly, 2 wired at 16ohm pus 1 at 8ohm =5ohms....

My best advice is
1) just connect the top 2 at 4ohms and see how it sounds.
a) If good, you could just leave it like that and sell (or load into another cab) your remaing 10's.
b) if bad, rewire all 4 10's until you get 2 or 8 ohms (8ohms best for resale) independent of crossover and have your tech install a Galaxy 5" mid with c/o only on that. (Google Burdizzo's mod)
c) if you wanna wire for 2ohms,
get a Carvin BX500 mini head.

b) + c) will ROCK for not much cash.

Wes Whitmore · #20 01-30-2011, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by georgestrings

Yup, best bet at this point is to bypass the crossover completely, and lose the use of the horn - and keep it wired to 8 ohm specs...

- georgestrings

Agreed on the horn, if the speakers are working well in that cabinet. It doesn't sound like they are though. That is. 5ft cab. The 3 ports are 3" x 1.75" I think. I have it written down somewhere.

I'm not familiar with that wiring diagram, but that isn't how I wire 4 speakers up series/parallel. I would connect them left speak top to right speaker top, - to a +. Do the same for the second row, then connect the two leftover +'s. From the left speakers together and connect them to the + of the crossover, and the two open -'s from the right speakers together and then to the crossover's - terminal.
Wes