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Alright... a dumb question about the "Genz Benz Shuttle 6.0"

artfahie

artfahie

Dec 14, 2007
267
51
Bar Mills, Maine
#1
Okay, I purchased one, finally got to trying to hook it up tonight. True, I'm "old school", but where do you put your 1/4" phono jacks ?... According to the manual :" The SHUTTLE 6.0® provides two Neutrik Speak-On™ connectors (wired 1+/1-). The speaker jacks are paralleled."... my 1/4" jack are WAY too tight to be inserted fully into these things... should I go for broke & force them in ?... or are my regular chords too "outdated" for this amp ? I could get them in to an extent, but I'm not out to destroy a brand new amp ! True, dumb question, but still. :confused:
 
#5
That kind of bugs me, to be quite honest. Yeah, Speakons are better, but in a bass rig, I don't need the protection of a speakon like you do in a PA rig with long cable runs. And 1/4" cables are a LOT cheaper than Speakons.
 
#10
Many, if not most, of the lightweight switchmode bass heads have "bridged" outputs that are not ground referenced. IIRC, GB guru agedhorse shed some light on this, specifically with respect to the Shuttle heads.

As a result, both output terminals of such an amplifier are "live," even when there is no audio signal. I think it makes very good sense to use speaker cabling in which both output terminals are insulated and touch-proof.
 
#12
JimmyM said:
That kind of bugs me, to be quite honest. Yeah, Speakons are better, but in a bass rig, I don't need the protection of a speakon like you do in a PA rig with long cable runs. And 1/4" cables are a LOT cheaper than Speakons.
Click to expand...

I'm recalling something from a while back here, so bear with me, but I'm pretty sure that Andy from Genz said that in Europe anything over ~500W has to have Speakon cables, no 1/4" allowed. Since the power supply switches voltages, the decision was made to just go with Speakons.

Again, this was a while ago, but I'm pretty sure it's buried in one of the millions of Shuttle Megathread posts.
 
#15
JimmyM said:
That kind of bugs me, to be quite honest. Yeah, Speakons are better, but in a bass rig, I don't need the protection of a speakon like you do in a PA rig with long cable runs. And 1/4" cables are a LOT cheaper than Speakons.
Click to expand...


It's a legal thing for the EU and yes, they are better. You don't need them on a bass rig until you put your hand on the 1/4" plug at the wrong time...I've done it and WOW. :eek:

IMHO, legal or not, I don't think 1/4" really belong on any professional amp these days.
 
#16
I saw someone once plug a 1/4 speaker cable right into a Speakon and it worked fine. I haven't tried this on the GB stuff, and am really not sure if this is a good idea...but it worked...

Anyone else seen this done or tried it?
 
#17
fishtx said:
I saw someone once plug a 1/4 speaker cable right into a Speakon and it worked fine. I haven't tried this on the GB stuff, and am really not sure if this is a good idea...but it worked...
Click to expand...

This applies for the Combicon version only. Because of the EU low voltage safety regulations, we do not use 1/4" or Combicon connectors. Besides, Speak-ons are a much better alternative all around. You can actually hang your Shuttle by the connector!!!

fdeck is correct about why Speakons are becoming the standard for anything shipped internationally and especially for anything operating in bridged mode.
 
#18
JimmyM said:
That kind of bugs me, to be quite honest. Yeah, Speakons are better, but in a bass rig, I don't need the protection of a speakon like you do in a PA rig with long cable runs. And 1/4" cables are a LOT cheaper than Speakons.
Click to expand...

You may not think you need the protection, but as amps get largher and larger, Speak-ons become quite necessary. The GBE-1200 swings about 100 volts peak and can deliver over 30 amps. Far in excess of what is safe for 1/4" connectors. The Shuttle 6.0 is capable of over 20 amps output current and about 80 volts peak so again a Speak-on is a much safer and more reliable choice. It has nothing to do with the length of the cable run.

A Speak-on cable should cost only a few dollars more than a COMPARABLE 1/4" cable. You must compare apples to apples though.
 
#19
It would have certainly been nice if the Genz-Benz folks would have been as elaborate in the manual as they've been on this board in regards to this subject. Offering the amp with optional speaker cables would have been appreciated by me... or how about even marking on the box (packing) that these otherwise unique and necessary cable were NOT INCLUDED ! (something along the lines of "batteries not included" as labeled with so many products). This type of heads-up would have saved me having to make a return trip to GC and would have been appreciated.
Well, I'll try to make a trip into the local GC tonight after work, I'm still looking forward to hearing the sound of the thing ! Oh well. :rollno:
 
#20
Speakons aren't unique to Genz. They've been around for a while. A long while. As they've said, they'll be standard issue on all amps over a certain power going forward.

As far as a "cables not included" notice on the box, well...let's just say that I hope it doesn't come to that. Might as well add "talent not Included".

Sorry you had to make an extra trip. Might just grab the Speakon connector when you head over to GC. They don't tend to have a great selection of Speakon to 1/4" cables, but they do usually sell the connectors and you can make your current 1/4" cable a Speakon cable without soldering...you can sometimes find a Speakon to 1/4" adapter also...
 

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