Ok, so this is my first post on here. I was at band practice tonight, and in our last song we were playing, i lost sound. My guitarist said he saw a flash from behind the 15" speaker and smoke came from it. It is a Carvin Cyclops cabinet. It has a 15", 2 -8" and a horn. I'm using a Behringer 180 watt head. My drummer didn't have a screwdriver at his place, so we didn't get to investigate, and i wasn't going to haul that up to my third floor apartment tonight. Anyway, the cabinet has 2 inputs, a high and low frequency, both 4 ohm. But my head only had one output. I was never able to find a cable that split 1 mono into 2 monos, so my drummer made one. We think that might be the culprit. Since it completely lost sound, would it be more likely to be a wiring issue, or a speaker issue? Thank you in advance for any advice
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did i blow my cabinet?
- Thread starter crashman10x
- Start date
Not familiar with the Cyclops, but most cabs with high and low inputs will use only one of those inputs for full-range, usually low input. What you did was not good, unfortunately. If you plug two 4 ohm cabs (or in your case, two 4 ohm inputs in the same cab) into your head, you have created a 2 ohm load on your head, which your head isn't built to take. So it's possible that you damaged both the head and cab pretty good. I hope not...some heads have protection circuits that shut themselves off when they get too hot, but some don't.
the low only ran the 15" and the high ran the 2-8"s and the horn, otherwise the splitter woud have never been used
Sounds like it was built to be biamped, then. Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, bro. Got to watch those things...
i just looked at another forum and it said the load was 2.67 ohm. Also that the cab was made to handle 175 watts, when it originally came with a 600 watt head. and to think, i've been running it like this since november with no problems. i had been looking into getting a different head to get rid of the splitter. and if it hadn't been for this economy, it would have been taken care of already....
Well 2.67 is still lower than 4. I'm surprised you got that much usage out of it. Maybe you didn't hurt it as bad I'm thinking, but it's hard to say. Best thing to do is if the head's still under warranty and doesn't work with another cab, take it back to the store you got it from and don't say a word about the Y cable 
Behringer has a pretty liberal warranty policy where they just replace gear under warranty.
If not, you'll have to go to a tech. Maybe someone else has a better idea what happened to it, but eventually you'll have to take it in to get fixed anyway.
Behringer has a pretty liberal warranty policy where they just replace gear under warranty. If not, you'll have to go to a tech. Maybe someone else has a better idea what happened to it, but eventually you'll have to take it in to get fixed anyway.
I am also curious if you have tried both the cab with another amp, and the amp with another cab. It seems unlikely that you fired both. And, if you amp has an internal protect circuit, it may have reset itself after it cooled down.
BTW, I have never heard of a biampable cab that could not be run full range with a single input. But, there is a first time for everything.
BTW, I have never heard of a biampable cab that could not be run full range with a single input. But, there is a first time for everything.
The flash was probably a small light bulb in your speaker that is used as a fuse to protect the crossover and speakers. I blew one before on an Ampeg 210 cab and there was a bright flash, a puff o smoke and then no highs (tweeterr).
Maybe you just blew your protection circuit.
Vince
I have an old cyclops cabinet.
If my memory serves me well, I do not believe Carvin crossovers are lightbulb protected.
Also, the cabinet (when equipped with the R600 head) was loaded with a PS-15 (400 watt) and 2 PS-8's (200 watts each).
Each part of the cab runs at 4 ohms, so running two 4 ohm loads means you were asking your head to push 2 ohms (which it is not designed to do).
Sounds more like your head gave up the magic smoke - you may want to test it with another cab.
If my memory serves me well, I do not believe Carvin crossovers are lightbulb protected.
Also, the cabinet (when equipped with the R600 head) was loaded with a PS-15 (400 watt) and 2 PS-8's (200 watts each).
Each part of the cab runs at 4 ohms, so running two 4 ohm loads means you were asking your head to push 2 ohms (which it is not designed to do).
Sounds more like your head gave up the magic smoke - you may want to test it with another cab.
well i went through everything... the verdict... head is toast, right 8" speaker is blown, tweeter, i'm not sure. tried the cabinet through my drummers line 6 guitar head. the left 8" seems like its being overworked. Seriously looking into the Ampeg SVT210AV Micro to replace it. since i was planning on getting something ampeg to replace it anyway.
oh yeah, there was a fuse for the crossover and it wasn't blown
oh yeah, there was a fuse for the crossover and it wasn't blown
checked out the 210 svt on musicians friend, $299, then i realized it was just hte cabinet, lol, they had the stack in the pic. thought that sounded awfully cheap. Guess i'll get ahold of behringer....
If you keep the cyclops cabinet though, your going to have the same problem.
I don't think any of the Behringers are stable to 2 ohms.
Also, those cabs were went to be bi-amped. The 8" speakers are not meant to be run full range.
i'm running through my drummers line 6 guitar amp...at a low volume until i have a full rig again. I'm probably just going to run only the 15", i may replace all the speakers w/ 2 16 ohm 8's and an 8 ohm 15. the setup sounded really nice, i was amazed with the circumstances that it lasted from november until last week with no problems. I looked on ebay and saw some old peavey heads that were rated at 2 ohm.
Dude, be patient and look for something used. You can get a whole lot of amp used for $300 if you're patient. And at the very least you can do better than Behringer. Sorry to hear about your amp. I think all of us have a misuse story somewhere in our past.
ehh, just getting antsy, should be gigging before long, just want to make sure i have gear thats going to hold up. The night after my equiptment failure, i talked to another bass player friend of mine at a gig, he was playing through a monitor, he blew 2 speakers in his 4x10 Eden. OUCH!!
Look at Carvin or Peavey heads, they will work with a 2 ohm load. You can pick up an 8" speaker from Carvin, but at present I believe they only have the neo available.
