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Can a Bazz Fuss blow my speaker?

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Echovox

Echovox

May 8, 2009
318
31
50
Fullerton, California
#1
I recently made a Bazz Fuss pedal version 1. I used it at rehersal last night and after playing through it for less than a minute at a reasonably low volume I blew my Eminence Delta 12lfa speaker.
Is it possible that the Bazz Fuss peadl caused the voice coil to burn up?
 
#4
Crank up a fuzz pedal with a lot of low end, and you focus an excess of power into a frequency range where any one small speaker just can't keep up. The solutions are:
1) Turn down the volume on either the pedal or the amp.
2) Turn down the lows on your amp.
3) Use a larger cab with more speakers.
 
#5
bongomania said:
Crank up a fuzz pedal with a lot of low end, and you focus an excess of power into a frequency range where any one small speaker just can't keep up. The solutions are:
1) Turn down the volume on either the pedal or the amp.
2) Turn down the lows on your amp.
3) Use a larger cab with more speakers.
Click to expand...

Would a higher rated power handling speaker help at all?
Currently running an Orange TB500 into the single 12 Delta 12lfa at 8ohms.
 
#6
Get a bigger cab that can take it or turn down. It's two main culprits here:

1. Fuzz adds a tremendous amount of content to upper and high mid frequencies.

2. Fuzz pedals are also preamps, and they can boost your signal tremendously.
 
#8
It could help a little, but not a lot--and the amount it would help is related to how well the cab was designed around that specific speaker. Since the cab would probably NOT have been designed around the new speaker, the odds are slim that you'd get any benefit.
 
#9
DiabolusInMusic said:
It sure can, to my knowledge (and I could get flamed here) distortion pedals work by clipping the signal that it pumps out. So it can REALLY push a speaker to limits.
Click to expand...
No flames as long as you realize that there is a difference between clipping at low volume and clipping at high volume, relative to the power-handling capabilities of the speakers.
 
#10
The situation was made even worse by the fact that the LFA (by design) don't go up that far into the treble range. If you're going to run fuzz, you should think about crossing over to some heavy duty treble speakers that are designed to handle copious amounts of distortion. You can try a passive crossover to, say, 1 or 2 Celestion 12s, but one of the guitar versions. Avatar sells them. Make sure the (LFA impedance) = (total impedance of the Celestions) = (impedance of the crossover). You can also go to an active crossover if you want to add another amp, assuming your existing amp has fx in and out jacks; make sure the crossover is single-ended (phone plugs), not balanced (XLR). I've left out details, but that's the way out of the problem.
 
#14
What fuzz is it? Stuff like the big Muff with the mid scoop can make you think you are dropping volume, but the lows are still loud, but you crank the volume to bring the mid to where it was, and make trouble, with the additional factor of the fuzz sound covering speaker death noises.
 
#17
A fuzz can blow both tweeters and woofers. And anything in between. There's not only gain but wave shape. Alot of power is dissapated by the speaker moving. If the fuzz drives the amp to the point where the speaker isn't moving, as in a flatening peak, no power is used to move the speaker. Compare in your mind the shape of a sin wave with a sin wave with a flat top.

This is also why it's possible to blow a high powered speaker with a low powered amp. The wave shape flattens and the speaker isn't moving. Adding to this is while the speaker isn't moving the amp is looking at a resistive load rather than a reactive load with both reistance and inductance being added together the current is increased.

Blowing a speaker sucks. But I doubt if there's many people here who have never blown one.
 
#18
BawanaRik said:
A fuzz can blow both tweeters and woofers. And anything in between. There's not only gain but wave shape. Alot of power is dissapated by the speaker moving. If the fuzz drives the amp to the point where the speaker isn't moving, as in a flatening peak, no power is used to move the speaker. Compare in your mind the shape of a sin wave with a sin wave with a flat top.

This is also why it's possible to blow a high powered speaker with a low powered amp. The wave shape flattens and the speaker isn't moving. Adding to this is while the speaker isn't moving the amp is looking at a resistive load rather than a reactive load with both reistance and inductance being added together the current is increased.

Blowing a speaker sucks. But I doubt if there's many people here who have never blown one.
Click to expand...
I never have. And BTW, if a low powered amp blows a high power handling speaker by clipping, it's because the clip OVERpowered the speaker. You can run a clipping amp all day long as long as the speaker can take more than the peak wattage of the amp. Hook up my cranked B-15, which is 25w RMS and maybe 60w peak to an 810e that handles 800w without farting out, and you'll never blow a speaker in a million years.
 
#20
BawanaRik said:
Try an amp a little closer to the rating of your cab. Maybe a 400 or 500 watt solid state amp. And realy drive it into a solid clip with a clipped fuzz box and see what happens. Try the Blue Whale.
Click to expand...
Right, well that's peak power kicking in and not clipping in and of itself. Unfortunately, this has been misinterpreted by so many people as "ALL clipping will cause a speaker to blow" that I'm always pretty quick to make the distinction when I see a possibility of it being misinterpreted.
 
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