Speaker Problems

[myauntdidLSD]

So when I first turn on the amp all you hear is this loud hum for while with the volume controls having no effect. Then eventually it goes silent and works fine. After this if you shut the amp off and then turn it back on it works fine, but only whens its been sitting for a little that it only hums at start up. I rigged a stereo speaker to the amp and had no issues. If anyone has any ideas as to what's going on with this I'd appreciate it.

[Joe Louvar]

The repair techs here on TB may be able to help you better if you tell them which bass amp you have - however, what you said is not a good sign and I think you’re going to need to take it in for repair.

[BassmanPaul]

Without some more information we are blind. What is the amp in question?

[B-string]

Without any important info? It's broken.

[myauntdidLSD]

It's a crate BX100. I'm pretty sure this is not the case but the speaker acts like it needs warm up, And after that it's fine.

[Joe Louvar]

Speakers and SS amps don’t need warming up - only tube amps need warming up. BTW, both Paul and B-string are repair techs - so is Mr. Foxen and etc.

[myauntdidLSD]

I know they don't need to warm up, that's just how the speaker is acting. I guess I just need to swap it out, I was just wondering if anyone knew why is was acting like this. I didn't measure any resistance between the positive and negative of the speaker.

[BassmanPaul]

Yours is not a speaker problem, it's an amplifier problem. You'll need to take it to a tech.

[myauntdidLSD]

Right when I switched it on and it started humming I turned it off, used a different speaker, which worked fine. Then I swapped it back to the original speaker and still did nothing but hum until I heard a pop and then it was fine.

[nashvillebill]

Speakers only convert the electrical signals sent to them, into audio energy. They do not produce or cause hum. The fact that the hum temporarily went away when you swapped speakers doesn't mean you have a bad speaker. It means you have an intermittent hum.

and like BassmanPaul said, the amp needs to go to a tech.

[B-string]

Originally Posted by myauntdidLSD

Right when I switched it on and it started humming I turned it off, used a different speaker, which worked fine. Then I swapped it back to the original speaker and still did nothing but hum until I heard a pop and then it was fine.

So let me see if I can make an assumption. The internal speaker is probably a 4 ohm unit to get max power from the unit (with it's highest load rating). You hooked up a 8 ohm load speaker and it worked okay as the amp was not under it's max load.
You have a fault in the amp, which could just be a bad solder joint. Continue using the amp and the trouble could get much worse and more costly.

[myauntdidLSD]

Hey, thanks man you are absolutely right. I hooked it up to another amp and had no issues.
Also, I just pulled the board and found this horrible looking solder job on the XLR jack, i'll post a response when I fix it.

[myauntdidLSD]

Yeah it seems to be fine now, thanks for all the help.

[B-string]

Excellent!

[BassmanPaul]

Congratulations!