Active bass = Blown Speaker?

I’ve been playing basses with active preamps for nearly three decades. Never blew a speaker. I guess you could call that luck, if the definition of luck is knowing the basics of pro audio, along with careful manual reading, bolstered by the principles of simple physics, and a helping of common sense.

 

"Music shop guy" is an idiot - 100% certified!

Pushing speakers beyond their operating limits for too long is what blows them, and that's potentially down to a load of factors that others have discussed here already. But pile on too much gain, too much output and too much EQ and you just as easily do it with a passive Jazz or P as with an active bass.

 

We stressed, creased and blew a lot of speakers with passive basses in the late '60s.

 

Yes ... many years ago. It was a 115. I returned it to the retailer. They contacted Hartke ... turns out that the issue was a production problem that affected a whole run of cabs. The speaker was replaced, promptly, at no charge. I was more than happy with Hartke’s response to the problem.

 

There has been speculation in another thread that this is bogeybass using a new account. I guess that remains to be proven, but the similarities are substantial.

 

Nope. You just have too much low end, too loud. Blown speaker = bass frequency overload

 

Well that explains why no manufacturers make active basses.

 

So there’s your proof. You played an active bass into the amp and didn’t blow the speaker, but that doesn’t mean you can’t blow a speaker by playing an active or passive bass into an amp.....

 

Never mind

 

I'd tell those guys in the band that they should practice at home & arrive ready for rehearsal.

He might as well have said it's a common thing with G&Ls with MFD pickups, since they generally have more output than other pickups.
(they're passive, BTW)

 

I played an active bass through an SWR Basic 350 and a Hartke 410XL 3~5 nights a week for almost ten years and never experienced any issues with amp or cabinet. I also use the same bass through a 60w cube with a ten inch speaker and a horn and have done so often with 2 amped guitars and a drummer and it still works fine as well. I’ve blown speakers, but not many and since they were all in ancient cabinets, that age/prior abuse was the cause.

 

Punctuation is better, though .

 

140W at band practice... I suspect you pushed it harder than it could take. That's not terribly powerful for bass, especially into a single speaker.
I've used 50-100W combos at times, safely, you just can't boost the low end to compensate for the lack of volume.

Active basses are not a problem, pushing the low end too far is another matter, and the active EQ just give you the tools to overdo it if you are not careful. You can do the same damage by boosting the bass EQ on the amp itself. I've seen low power bass combos getting damaged because people try to squeeze more oomph out of them than they can do safely in a sustained manner. I think you should probably look into something more powerful, but regardless what you do you need to mind those lows.

Musicshop guy... is talking nonsense.

 

Ha! Great news.
Now be careful with it and don't push it too hard.

 

The sales person does not want to blame the amp. Maybe it has a design issue and is hard on the speakers. It’s easier to blame the instrument so they can wash their hands of it. If he claims that there are a lot of blown speakers in this product, I would consider a better speaker. Not simply install the same one. Knowing what speaker to choose is the hard part. Maybe Hartke can help, it would be worth a call.

 

I think many bass players end up doing damage to their cabs when they try to get a subwoofer kind if feel in a full band setting without actually having their signal fed to subwoofers. Every piece of equipment has limitations. Once you exceed those limits, unless you're very lucky or self-protection features kick-in, you can expect to be in for repair and/or replacement work.

 

Please send the following inf

Please send the following information to your Music shop guy.....
https://app.box.com/shared/static/no2y1vcftu.wav

 

With the slowdown of gigs this year I recently did a gig and took my active bass and it sounded rather distorted till I realized midway in first set that I had not set the input to "active" which takes a 10db gain reduction to the input stage. If your amp is not equipped with this feature it is possible you are overloading the input stage of the amp and if your bass is boosting anything without that input gain reduction you may be crushing the input stage of your amp. Some Hartke's have a separate input for active basses, but that extra 10db on the input stage can cause distortion as well as help along blowing your amp or speaker under "perfect storm" conditions.

 

I always keep my bass guitar volume on high when playing. Not a fan of active basses because I hate scrambling for a battery when it eventually dies (usually while on stage).Nevertheless the only time I kick in the active switch on the bass is at the end of Floyds, Comfortably Numb to give a bass boost... but I always keep my ears tuned to the speaker to detect farting and possibly going Uncomfortably Numb.