SWR Workingman's 12 speaker distortion.

[4bassguitar]

hello talk bass,
I have an old SWR workingman's 12. that I am having issues with. My speaker distorts when i play notes with hard attack. I have heard SWR has these certain problems, and this combo is a good 20 years old. I love this amp too much to let it go. Has anyone had this problem? I am not an amp person. I have no idea what to do, or where to send an amp for repair. I live in the New Orleans area and go to college in Hammond, LA.
Thanks

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Any "modern" speaker will be an improvement over the tired OEM one. Assuming obviously that the distortion comes from the speaker, not from the cabinet, air-leak etc.
Well, it will still be an improvement, but the problem won't go away .


For a WM10, Eminence Deltalite is a good direct-fit upgrade, and IIRC there's an upgrade for the WM12 as well. The older SWR combos get quite a bit of love here at TB, so someone who's done a swap will most probably chime in.

Regards
Sam

[eastcoasteddie]

I have one of the early WM 12's that came out, bought in '95.
My amp section fried a few years ago, had it checked out, and it would have cost me just as much to have it fixed than to have it replaced.

I couldn't just throw the amp out, though...I kept it for a few years.

I had a great idea when I got my BX500 amp. I cut the amp section out and turned it into a simple 1x12 cabinet.

I have to say that I thought the Celestion K12T-200 speaker was crap, but it's actually pretty good. It can handle a lot and does sound significantly better being driven my the Carvin amp than the SWR. I think that the weak link is the amp itself, and not the speaker. At 8 ohms, the carvin puts out 300 watts, I haven't had any trouple with this 200 watt speaker.

[Jeff Scott]

I used to have a WM12 S/N 36, it did have a tendency to distort when cranked up. The amp sounded great through other cabinets so the speaker SWR used was definitely the culprit. In the end I sold off the cabinet to a friend who put a GK MB150S head into the chassis slot and I built a nice oak cabinet for the WM12 chassis. That too, is now with someone else, but it did sound great.

[Shindig]

I had an older WM12 combo that started to distort. Tech replaced some electronic components that he said had changed over time.
The distortion disappeared.
I would have your amp section checked before you decide to replace the speaker.
Good luck.
Shindog

[TheMinutemen]

Originally Posted by eastcoasteddie

I have one of the early WM 12's that came out, bought in '95.
My amp section fried a few years ago, had it checked out, and it would have cost me just as much to have it fixed than to have it replaced.

I couldn't just throw the amp out, though...I kept it for a few years.

I had a great idea when I got my BX500 amp. I cut the amp section out and turned it into a simple 1x12 cabinet.

I have to say that I thought the Celestion K12T-200 speaker was crap, but it's actually pretty good. It can handle a lot and does sound significantly better being driven my the Carvin amp than the SWR. I think that the weak link is the amp itself, and not the speaker. At 8 ohms, the carvin puts out 300 watts, I haven't had any trouple with this 200 watt speaker.

Thanks for posting this. I have an old GK400RB sitting around since I sold my rig years back and have been using a pre-fender Workingman 12. Think I am going to plug the speaker into the GK and bypass the SWR amp section. So simple, yet it somehow escaped me.