Peavey 215 dead speakers...what the...

[selfblessed]

Hello.

My friend was going to let me borrow the speakers from his Peavey 215 cabinet. What he failed to tell me was that the last time he used the cabinet, it stopped working.

I figured it was an old cabinet and one of the wires came lose. So we pulled the speakers and loaded them into my Fender 215. After wiring the speakers up, I throw my 65 Bassman on top, fire her up and start messing around. It worked! Great!

Wrong. About 10 seconds later it stopped working. After 20 minutes of stressing that I killed the 65 I wired up my one speaker that I knew worked. And of course...It worked. Then I tried each of the peavey speakers individually. Still nothing.

The Peavey said it was a 4 ohm cabinet so the two speakers should have worked great with my Bassman head. But neither worked after those great 10 seconds.

So what the heck? Do speakers just die like that? The cones are still in one piece. Can you blow a speaker internally? Are they polarized?

Thanks!

[1n3]

My guess would be a break in the voice coils. Your ten seconds was likely one speaker that briefly made a connection.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by selfblessed

Do speakers just die like that?

Quality speakers, generally no, mediocre to poor, yes those can behave that way.

When a quality voice coil breaks, it usually stays that way. Unless the tinsel lead detaches from the cone.

Originally Posted by selfblessed

Can you blow a speaker internally?

Usually they blow just that way, the voice coil breaks.

Originally Posted by selfblessed

Are they polarized?

If You mean whether speakers have a defined polarity, then yes. The usual way to tell which end of the voice coil is positive is to use a DC source (9V battery) and when the cone moves outward, the + lead is the positive. There's exeptions, JBL for example IIRC.

Not very bright idea to test possibly open or otherwise bad speakers on a tube amp BTW. But it's Your amp to damage

Regards
Sam

[selfblessed]

Yeah. It was not that smart at all.

What I find weird is that I guess he blew both speakers at the same time.

Thanks for the answers guys.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by selfblessed

What I find weird is that I guess he blew both speakers at the same time.

Either the speakers were wired in series by someone (originally it was 2 8Ohm speakers in parallel) and one or the other opened and naturally, both went silent.

Or, the less likely scenario, Your friends amp is badly malfunctioning and there's DC present in the output. Should sound like crap though.

Testing the speakers is easy with a multimeter or with the battery test.

If those are BW speakers, the basket is cheap in US, so You may want to think about "reconing". There's a lot of love for Peepee in US, not so much over here.

Regards
Sam

[1n3]

Originally Posted by selfblessed

What I find weird is that I guess he blew both speakers at the same time.

That would be a strange coincidence. Perhaps the speakers (in parallel) failed at different times, and he didn't notice until the last one quit working.

[selfblessed]

What is the battery/multimeter test?

Thanks for the input guys.

[BassmanPaul]

Originally Posted by selfblessed

What is the battery/multimeter test?

Thanks for the input guys.

See post #3 for the battery test.