So I haven't been playing bass very long. I picked up a peavey 4x10 and I ended up with a POS crate b-150 head (it was only 50 bucks..and I just needed a head at the time). When I bought the cab, everything sounded good. What I've noticed though, is that if I play really hard (esp. on the low E string) it makes kinda of a farty type of noise. I know that this could potetntially be a blown speaker, but the speakers were good when i bought the cab and this head has way less power then the cab's max load (which is 700 watts i believe--the head has 150 I believe?), and I have never had the amp on full volume. The amp also has horrible sounding distortion (which actually kinda sounds farty). I have taken the grille off the cab and did the push test on the speakers and none of them make the scratchy sound typical of blown speakers. Could it still be possible to have bad speakers now? OR is my amp just starting to distort when I am playing hard? I have a few friends that play, but they are all clueless when it come to technical stuff. Just wanna get some other opinions on it...thx
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cabinet question..
- Thread starter axeinurface
- Start date
yaa i checked that today n i noticed the crate is only 4 ohms n the cab is 8 ohms.it won't hurt anything but just not very much power going to it correct? i thought a 4 ohm head can plug into a 8ohm cab but it would lose power/volume. i plugged in an older randall guitar head i have which is 8 ohms n i could def tell the difference in volume and power right away...plus i got a pretty sweet lemmy type tone with it.
That means the amp and cab will play fine together.
One of 2 things is happening.
1. You are boosting a lot of bass and causing the speakers to try to move too far and fart out. Forget about wattage ratings, what matters is how far you are trying to make the cones move, which will over-extend themselves at far less wattage than the label on the cab, especially if you are turning the bass knob up.
2. You are cranking the amp up trying to get loud and running into amp distortion. The volume knobs on your amp have nothing to do with the power it is making. Many amps may have the full range of their useful operation in the first half of the dial with nothing but ratty crap after that, others may have to be turned up quite a bit to get anything useful out of them. A lot of this depends on how strong the signal going into them is, for example, a regular passive bass vs. and active bass that's being cranked up through a few pedals.
With a Peavey 410 and some 100 watt or so amp, my guess is you're hearing distortion from cranking the amp up for more than it is worth, rather than pushing the speakers past their limits. You basically need a bigger amp, or more speakers, or both. Most likely a bigger amp so you don't have to crank it into the crap sound zone to get what you want out of it.
well..im just playing it in my room so i haven't been turning it up very loud at all. i keep the gain on like 5 and the master is maybe at 10 o'clock. i keep my eq pretty flat with just a lil boost to the mids and to the 50&100HZ (those are all set at about 2 o'clock position)..the amp doesn't have numbers on the dials so I used a clock to give an idea of the settings.
You won't really know what's up with it until you play the thing with a band......that's the true test. Settings/tones, etc. that sound good by themselves..."bedroom tone" don't usually work good with and band and vice versa. Sounds that sit nice with a band, especially out front where the audience is, usually sound a bit harsh/nasty when soloed in the bedroom.
ive played with it in a band. I actually bought my bass gear because I was in a band that needed a bass player. however, being a guitar player (and listening to the other guys in the band who didnt know DICK about bass), i was EQing it like a guitar (scooping out mids). since then, I am no longer in that band and I have been learning the intricacies of bass..such as DO NOT scoop the mids if you're playing metal. I think I just need a better amp. I just bought this one to have one to use. I think one of the problems is using it like I am...it's my only bass amp I have at the moment. 4x10s are not made for room jamming obviously lol.
Mr. Foxen
Commercial User
Sounds like classic under powering. check the over/underpowering section here http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/a...overunderpowercabs-diy-techtalk-links-166225/
You are probably getting something like 20 watts to each speaker, and the other 5+ watts left over is going to the horn. 90ish watts is not going to get a good tone out of that 410.
According to http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/a...overunderpowercabs-diy-techtalk-links-166225/
it has a RMS power Handling of 350 Watts, and peavey puts out pretty conservative numbers. You may be better off with a cheap small cab (4 ohm 200Watts RMS) to match to that head if you are just looking to practice alone. Once you do learn those intricacies, and improve your skills, you will have a much better idea for what head you would need for that Peavey Cab. Just for the record, those old Peavey cabs can take anything and keep jammin.
You are probably getting something like 20 watts to each speaker, and the other 5+ watts left over is going to the horn. 90ish watts is not going to get a good tone out of that 410.
According to http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/a...overunderpowercabs-diy-techtalk-links-166225/
it has a RMS power Handling of 350 Watts, and peavey puts out pretty conservative numbers. You may be better off with a cheap small cab (4 ohm 200Watts RMS) to match to that head if you are just looking to practice alone. Once you do learn those intricacies, and improve your skills, you will have a much better idea for what head you would need for that Peavey Cab. Just for the record, those old Peavey cabs can take anything and keep jammin.
Owned one of these cabs and you really need a good head with good output to drive these cabs. The cab is tuned very low and to me don't put out highs very good. I used a Mackie power amp to drive it at 700 watts.
The 350 watts is the thermal limit of the coils, not the excursion limit, which will be lower than that. It's just how much heat they can take continuously, you can power them with 1 watt if you want to.
OP, inspect your speakers for tears in the cones, seams coming apart, all screws tightened down, etc. Then take a 9v battery and touch the terminals to the tip and sleeve of the speaker cable plug. All the cones should move together. If any don't, they're either blown or the wire fell off inside, check that. If that all checks out, the cab should be fine and you may have amp problem.
im too lazy to get that far into the cab-- ive actually checked the screws,cones for tears,etc--minus taking the cab apart) haha. i don't think they are blown cuz as said above older peavey stuff is pretty hardy and the guy i bought it from was playing it louder than i ever have and it sounded boobies!!. i have an older peavey 4x12 cab with scorpions (bad ass speakers and still originals!!) and that thing is a tank!!. I have just been using my old randall guitar head to play with the peavey 4x10 since it is 8ohms too. i can def hear the volume diff with the randall head over the POS crate. i still get the same farty tone sometimes, but i think its because 1) the crate head i was playing with sucks dicks and has no power 2) with this randall head my pickups are probly a little hor (the farty sound goes away if i turn down the volume on my bass). its just breaking up/distortion im thinking now. i think i just need a better/more powerful head, i remember now hearing older peavey stuff takes alot of power to sound good...and its well-built & reliable which is why i love old peavey ****!!!
and one more question--i dont really understand this part..it says MAX 700w on the cab and the brochure will posted but it also says 350w continuous...what exactly does that mean?
Been there, Done that!
Try turning the master gain knob UP, ALL THE WAY and adjusting the pre-gain for your volume.
As a former guitarist myself, I fell into this trap at first.
What's happening is you're turning up the preamp section into the distortion zone to try and get some decent volume, but you've already limited the signal that gets to the power amp section with the reduced post-gain knob.
Eventually you may find a good reason to bring the post-gain back down again, but for now try it wide open.
Good luck--hope it works out for you!
(The "350w continuous" means a sine wave or other test frequency type of difficult and non-musical sound that can kill a speaker much easier than a bass ever will.)
