AI 2x10 cab repair

Possibly the cone that rattles on the grill?

 

It can be many things: loose grill, cracked cone, rubbing voice coil, loose cab bracing, even wires rubbing on a cone - maybe others? Ask me how I know . If you have access to a friend and a stethoscope, you can likely figure it out. Some disassembly may be required.

 

This?:

Should be pretty to see if the edge of the cone is rattling on the grill.
Better: if you can remove the grills altogether, this will confirm or invalidate this hypothesis.

 

The early models of tentwo Acoustic Image cabs had a design / manufacturing flaw. They put the bottom firing speaker too close to the other. When driven to medium levels or farther, the two speakers would slam against each other, creating awful noises. I had one that actually broke the ceramic magnets from slamming against each other. It lasted two gigs before I sold it in frustration.

A bandleader told me ten minutes into the first set on the first day I owned it, "The new tone is great. We'll cover you for the next 45 minutes to go home and get another cab for the next set or you are fired."

If you call Rick at AI, he'll send you some tiny tint tiny little riser pads that move it maybe 1/8" away, but I found they make almost no difference. We had a long discussion about the $100,000 manufacturing cost for retooling the production mold system to correct the problem, but he has moved on to a different design. There is no real cure for it. If they would have left a 1/2" more space, I'd likely still own it and happily be using it. Other than that, I liked the design.

This is a great example of the obsessive quest for small & lightweight over ruling common sense....

 

Don't play around the low C ...

 

I was in a similar situation on a gig where I had a dry joint on one of the amp components. It was a one off with Cathy Stobart, a rated tenor player in UK.

Between numbers she turned round to me and enquired. ‘What do you think you’re playing, a Geiger counter?’