18" drivers glow red and explode at 240 bpm

[paul slack]

Let me start off by explaining myself a little bit in hopes to ward off all the critiques of style, listenability, decebels ext. I play Bass and my copart plays drums. that is all. we are a heavy, loud and fast outfit that has put out a few records, toured and spent a lot of the proceeds on broken drum heads and blown speakers. By choice, most of our live performances are carried out at college art houses, non profit venues and the like. professional sound systems are rarely ever an option and not a topic in this thread. That being said lets get down to the "nitty-gritty", and I hope you are saying that to yourself with the passion of Jack Black in Nacho Libre. 240 bpm is a lot to put on such a large speaker. My 15" are fine and my 12" are fine. In the begining I used super duper 18" 30 Hz billion watt jbl, cerwin vega, celestion, pv black widow for my low end all of them would last about 3 to 4 gigs. you could see the voice coils get red hot and one time the dust cover exploded right in to the grill like a fire cracker. Fans loved it but my wallet was bawling. Then one day I received a sponsorship through Carvin Amplification and we talked. They sent me a new speaker that some of the companies were experimenting with. Neodymium magnets. NE18-4 to be exact. They loaded me up with new rare earth magnet speakers and power amps to match. After that everything was great! those 18" were so loud and crisp with absolutely no distortion or over heating.Talk about up in yer guts! Wow! All was perfect for 3 U.S. tours, then we took a break for a couple years. when we got back to it, the cloth surrounds on the speakers had split and no one had told me you need to periodically lightly lube the surrounds if they are cloth. Especially if they are going to sit around for a period of time. Any who, Carvin sold to another company and underwent a major downsizing. The speakers are unavailable even on ebay and craigslists around the country and no speaker repair shop on the west coast at least will touch them. So I did some research and figured tech had gotten better over the last couple years and picked me up a B&C neodymium 18". Utter disappointment. all the ratings are right, wattage , ohms, coil diameter but they just dont cut it. Sure enough, day 4 of rehearsing I smelled something burning and realized I had smelled it many times before. The voice coil over heated and fried . Here is to another $600 bucks. Why were those Carvins so great and what should I do now?

 

[AGCurry]

... all the ratings are right, wattage , ohms, coil diameter but they just dont cut it.

This is one of the stranger posts I've seen. Assuming you're not pulling our legs, I have to ask:

"Wattage, ohms, coil diameter" ... how about appropriate mechanical characteristics for the cabinets where they're installed? At high-volume situations, a driver can be damaged if its tuning isn't right for the cabinet.

 

[Scotty4string]

How can you see the voice coils getting red hot? They are in the center of a large magnet that is also in a cabinet. Also, 240BPM is fast, but not so fast that any speaker couldn't handle it. Probably more of a power handling issue. Too much sub frequencies maybe?

 

[Bob_Ross]

no one had told me you need to periodically lightly lube the surrounds if they are cloth.

 

[fokof]

" 18" drivers glow red and explode at 240 bpm "

You see too much science fiction on Netflix

 

[Pulverizor]

Should be looking for a carriage return.

 

[Mushroo]

1. You probably put the driver in the wrong size box. I'm guessing the B&C has different T/S parameters than the Carvin. Hence the problem.
2. A high-pass filter (HPF) would help you out big time.
   
3. "What should I do now?" my advice would be to start from scratch and buy a whole new cabinet. You're right: tech has gotten better over the last few years. Maybe look into getting yourself a nice Barefaced Big Twin or something like that. (I think Mike Watt is playing Barefaced these days, for example.) Possibly make a list of players who were Carvin users back-in-the-day, and do a little internet research, what they are using now.

 

[StereoPlayer]

Let me start off by explaining myself a little bit in hopes to ward off all the critiques of style, listenability, decebels ext. I play Bass and my copart plays drums. that is all. we are a heavy, loud and fast outfit that has put out a few records, toured and spent a lot of the proceeds on broken drum heads and blown speakers. By choice, most of our live performances are carried out at college art houses, non profit venues and the like. professional sound systems are rarely ever an option and not a topic in this thread. That being said lets get down to the "nitty-gritty", and I hope you are saying that to yourself with the passion of Jack Black in Nacho Libre. 240 bpm is a lot to put on such a large speaker. My 15" are fine and my 12" are fine. In the begining I used super duper 18" 30 Hz billion watt jbl, cerwin vega, celestion, pv black widow for my low end all of them would last about 3 to 4 gigs. you could see the voice coils get red hot and one time the dust cover exploded right in to the grill like a fire cracker. Fans loved it but my wallet was bawling. Then one day I received a sponsorship through Carvin Amplification and we talked. They sent me a new speaker that some of the companies were experimenting with. Neodymium magnets. NE18-4 to be exact. They loaded me up with new rare earth magnet speakers and power amps to match. After that everything was great! those 18" were so loud and crisp with absolutely no distortion or over heating.Talk about up in yer guts! Wow! All was perfect for 3 U.S. tours, then we took a break for a couple years. when we got back to it, the cloth surrounds on the speakers had split and no one had told me you need to periodically lightly lube the surrounds if they are cloth. Especially if they are going to sit around for a period of time. Any who, Carvin sold to another company and underwent a major downsizing. The speakers are unavailable even on ebay and craigslists around the country and no speaker repair shop on the west coast at least will touch them. So I did some research and figured tech had gotten better over the last couple years and picked me up a B&C neodymium 18". Utter disappointment. all the ratings are right, wattage , ohms, coil diameter but they just dont cut it. Sure enough, day 4 of rehearsing I smelled something burning and realized I had smelled it many times before. The voice coil over heated and fried . Here is to another $600 bucks. Why were those Carvins so great and what should I do now?

Pics or it didn’t happen.

 

[StereoPlayer]

 

[paul slack]

How can you see the voice coils getting red hot? They are in the center of a large magnet that is also in a cabinet. Also, 240BPM is fast, but not so fast that any speaker couldn't handle it. Probably more of a power handling issue. Too much sub frequencies maybe?

All the glue melts dude, the whole speaker falls apart. Spider, coil and cone. my cabinet is bottom vented. gravity causes all the burning bits to fall. Im not here to bs but I totally understand your skepticism. Sub frequencies are exactly what i want from the 18". Im still sticking to my original question of why that specific speaker could handle the abuse while all the others i have tried can not. Mabe I will have get two 18" sub cabs. and a new power amp?

How can you see the voice coils getting red hot? They are in the center of a large magnet that is also in a cabinet. Also, 240BPM is fast, but not so fast that any speaker couldn't handle it. Probably more of a power handling issue. Too much sub frequencies maybe?

1. You probably put the driver in the wrong size box. I'm guessing the B&C has different T/S parameters than the Carvin. Hence the problem.
2. A high-pass filter (HPF) would help you out big time.
   
3. "What should I do now?" my advice would be to start from scratch and buy a whole new cabinet. You're right: tech has gotten better over the last few years. Maybe look into getting yourself a nice Barefaced Big Twin or something like that. (I think Mike Watt is playing Barefaced these days, for example.) Possibly make a list of players who were Carvin users back-in-the-day, and do a little internet research, what they are using now.

 

[paul slack]

1. You probably put the driver in the wrong size box. I'm guessing the B&C has different T/S parameters than the Carvin. Hence the problem.
2. A high-pass filter (HPF) would help you out big time.
   
3. "What should I do now?" my advice would be to start from scratch and buy a whole new cabinet. You're right: tech has gotten better over the last few years. Maybe look into getting yourself a nice Barefaced Big Twin or something like that. (I think Mike Watt is playing Barefaced these days, for example.) Possibly make a list of players who were Carvin users back-in-the-day, and do a little internet research, what they are using now.

Thank you. I really appreciate your response. I have never looked into a HPF but I definitely will. I checked out the Barefaced Big Twin after reading this and I think its right up my alley. Not looking forward to carrying it around but its worth the sacrifice. might get me back into shape. I Know a bassist that played the Carvin Neodymium gear. Haven"t been in touch for a decade but I"ll try and reach out. I know he is still shredding. See what he's got in his tool box these days. Thanks again for your input.