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Blown speaker?

Glad I’m not the only one!
it's the dumbest lesson I ever learned, I have been playing bass for over 40 years, and actives [and still passives too] since 1981.
I was auditioning a number of amps with my 81 G&L active a few years back and they all sounded terrible, buzzy, distorted etc. I turned down a number of good amps, not knowing the problem was me. Important lesson learned through all of that and yes, I never carry less than 2 or 3 9 volts in my kit.
 
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Thanks, I play passive basses exclusively these days. I've tried several instruments and the problem persists, so there's definitely something going on with the amp.

The buzz really seems to be coming from one of the 10" drivers. I was hoping it was simply a case of something coming loose, but I've pulled the driver out of the cab and nothing seems amiss.
 
I don't know whether it's relevant, but I recently tracked down a bad buzz in a 15 that turned out to be a short segment of the glue joint between the cone and surround that had failed. It was less than an inch long, but at low levels buzzed much louder than the actual sound the speaker was reproducing.
 
I don't know whether it's relevant, but I recently tracked down a bad buzz in a 15 that turned out to be a short segment of the glue joint between the cone and surround that had failed. It was less than an inch long, but at low levels buzzed much louder than the actual sound the speaker was reproducing.

Interesting! How did you diagnose and fix the issue? Was it simply a matter of applying more glue?
 
Interesting! How did you diagnose and fix the issue? Was it simply a matter of applying more glue?
As I said, the buzz was pretty loud, so I was able to isolate it to a pretty small area by just listening to it with some low level music playing through it. Then it was just a matter of just poking around until I literally put my finger on the problem. Knowing where to look, it was easy to confirm it visually with no signal present. And yes indeed, the fix was simply a matter of carefully squeezing some glue in there.
 
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Physically pressing the speaker inwards very carefully with the fingers evenly around center cone to test if the voice coil is moving freely or meeting physical scratching against the magnet structure in the gap is the test. It should move freely. If it's rubbing against the structure, the speaker is blown from coil deformation. I also had a sealed 2x10 that distorted (farted out) at E string low G (3rd fret) because of cab design and weak woofers.

fnord!
 
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