Efficient 8 inch speakers for a Pignose Hog 30?

[Wasnex]

Has anyone on here ever posted anything on the lines of "an HPF pedal won't help you with this, don't waste your money on one"?

They don't help much when your problem if fizzy distortion. Then you need an LPF . WTH is @Stumbo when you need him ?

 

[delta7fred]

If you are trying to squeeze the last but of volume out of an amp and speaker then a HPF is always useful.

 

[And I]

Not worth trying to upgrade in my opinion... this thread is old but has some good info.

Pignose Hog 30 Amp?

 

[diegom]

Not worth trying to upgrade in my opinion... this thread is old but has some good info.

Pignose Hog 30 Amp?

+1 to this!
The cabinet is not very well built. Without additional reinforcements it will probably rattle, A LOT, with a new speaker. Also, my Hog farted horribly on most low notes... (A1 and below...)
A small Ampeg (BA108 or BA110), OTOH, makes a great modding platform.

 

[Mcabe]

Thanks all for the great feedback. Given how little power it already has, a 4 ohm speaker is a must. I was looking at the specs on the amps IC (TDA7240A), and it really wants a 4 ohm load.

I realize the Hog will always sound like a small battery powered amp, but for my purposes all I need is something to allow me to keep up with some acoustic guitars for outdoor practice. Back when I busked with it, it managed pretty well, and didn’t distort like it does now.

I have a hpf that I can put in front. No point trying to make the hog reproduce anything below 60hz or so. Provided I can confirm it is the speaker, I am leaning towards the faital. It’s looking like all of our practices for the foreseeable future will be outdoor/acoustic, so it’s worth a modest investment.

 

[Mcabe]

I put one of these in my 25 Rumble made a major difference. nothing wrong with the oem one, if you want it just pay shipping for a OEM rumble 25 speaker
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000AAPNKM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks for the offer! I think the rumble has an 8 ohm speaker, and the hog is already underpowered with an efficient 4 ohm speaker.

 

[Alivefor5]

Something else to consider is the batteries. If you're using battery power and they are old everything will be distorted. I replaced the batteries in mine for a big improvement. Don't buy the Pignose replacements as the batteries are available much cheaper at places like Amazon.

 

[seamonkey]

If you’re trying to squeeze out every last bit if volume...

A driver with 98db SPL would be similar to the same as double the power of a 95db SPL rating.

TDA7240A Shows its specs at max 18v
You try a 12v to 15v boost converter.

Old lead acid batteries do drop voltage and raise internal resistance over time = lower power output.
You could dump the lead acid by retrofitting batteries from a modern cordless tool, like a drill. 18v are common. They’re light, last a long time, and are everywhere.

If you have a small combo skip the hog altogether and get RYOBI 300-Watt Powered Inverter for 40-Volt Battery-RYi300BG - The Home Depot

 

[Wasnex]

If you’re trying to squeeze out every last bit if volume...

A driver with 98db SPL would be similar to the same as double the power of a 95db SPL rating.

TDA7240A Shows its specs at max 18v
You try a 12v to 15v boost converter.

Old lead acid batteries do drop voltage and raise internal resistance over time = lower power output.
You could dump the lead acid by retrofitting batteries from a modern cordless tool, like a drill. 18v are common. They’re light, last a long time, and are everywhere.

If you have a small combo skip the hog altogether and get RYOBI 300-Watt Powered Inverter for 40-Volt Battery-RYi300BG - The Home Depot

The chip is designed for car audio so it's probably intended to run just under 14.5V.

If I am reading the spec sheet correctly, THD picks up drastically above 14W. By 20W, THD is at 10%

I believe the resting voltage for a 12V lead acid battery should be around 12.8V. The power versus supply voltage matrix shows the amp makes just under 16W at 12.8V, and this is at 1khz with 10% THD. However the voltage will drop under load, so 16W is optimistic. My guess is the amp will make about 10W of relatively clean power with a good strong battery.

 

[Mcabe]

After a little testing I figured out that the speaker was distorting, so I replaced it with a Faital 8FE200. The Faital is about a quarter inch deeper than the stock Pignose speaker. It was tight but just barely fit in front of the cross brace. I imagine the tolerance on the woodworking in these amps is not great, so others might need to shave down the cross brace to make the Faital fit.

The Pignose also needed a new battery, so I replaced the two 6V batteries with a single 12V battery, which I was able to wedge into the lower right corner of the amp and anchor with Velcro. The input and power jacks were lose, so I replaced them with parts I had lying around and sprayed deoxit in all the pots.

It's been years since I played the Pignose, so I can't compare the Faital to the stock speaker, but for a battery powered amp with an 8 inch speaker it sounds pretty good. As expected there is very little low end, but there is no rattling or distortion at reasonable volumes even down to the low E. The mids are clean and clear, and it is plenty loud for practice, busking, or keeping up with a couple acoustic guitars. Thank you @Wasnex and @Blues Bass 2 for the speaker recommendation. For a little investment, I was able to resurrect this 20 year old amp.

Here is the finished product:

 

[Mcabe]

And here is the schematic if anyone needs to repair a Hog 30.

 

[AlanSanJoseBass]

I have a Pignose Hog 30 that I purchased about a year ago. I like to play open strings, and it especially had distortion issues with the E string. A "G" note played on the E string was the worst. Since I play bluegrass, I play this note in almost every song. I saw a picture online where someone had squeezed a 10 inch bass speaker into the cabinet, so I thought I would try it. I put a Jensen Mod 10 into the cabinet. I made a new front out of plywood, so I could reassemble it with the original speaker if my experiment didn't work. Well, it helped a little bit, but not as much as I would have hoped. I play a Dean Fretless acoustic bass guitar and a bass ukulele through the amp. Recently a purchased a 1/4 size upright that had a pickup already installed. When I tried that through the Hog 30, I was shocked. It had little or no distortion at a reasonable volume. My current theory is that both the Dean and the uke have active electronics in them, like a preamp, that is overloading the amp. It doesn't matter what I set the volume and master to, I still get distortion. But again, no big issue with the upright. I have have a Fender Rumble 100 which sounds great with all 3 instruments. It's a great amp for weighing less than 25 pounds, but it is not battery powered. If I make any breakthroughs with the Hog 30 in the future, I will be sure to post them.

 

[Mcabe]

View attachment 3857198 I have a Pignose Hog 30 that I purchased about a year ago. I like to play open strings, and it especially had distortion issues with the E string. A "G" note played on the E string was the worst. Since I play bluegrass, I play this note in almost every song. I saw a picture online where someone had squeezed a 10 inch bass speaker into the cabinet, so I thought I would try it. I put a Jensen Mod 10 into the cabinet. I made a new front out of plywood, so I could reassemble it with the original speaker if my experiment didn't work. Well, it helped a little bit, but not as much as I would have hoped. I play a Dean Fretless acoustic bass guitar and a bass ukulele through the amp. Recently a purchased a 1/4 size upright that had a pickup already installed. When I tried that through the Hog 30, I was shocked. It had little or no distortion at a reasonable volume. My current theory is that both the Dean and the uke have active electronics in them, like a preamp, that is overloading the amp. It doesn't matter what I set the volume and master to, I still get distortion. But again, no big issue with the upright. I have have a Fender Rumble 100 which sounds great with all 3 instruments. It's a great amp for weighing less than 25 pounds, but it is not battery powered. If I make any breakthroughs with the Hog 30 in the future, I will be sure to post them.

Weird, I would have thought that turning the volume down would attenuate the signal before anything could introduce distortion. I don’t recall having this issue on my stingray, but I’ll try it out.

Nice job on the speaker mod though!

 

[Mkow1234]

Thanks for the tip on the Dayton Audio speaker. I ordered a $30 one. THAT seemed to open up the sound a bit. THEN, I started using a MXR (M80?) preamp pedal, to help shape the tone. Sounds amazing.

 

[Aaron Houts]

Are you sure the problem is the speaker? Manual says 20W, 35W peak. My guess is it would be closer to 9W clean.

I would check out the original speaker to see what the impedance it is. Then hook up a decent speaker with the same impedance and see how loud it gets before it farts out.

A common mod for the Cube Street EX is to install Jensen MOD 8-20s. It's rated for 20W and comes in 4 or 8 ohms. Each side of the Cube Street EX is rated for 25 watts max. I doubt it would make much improvement.
Mod 8-20 | Jensen Loudspeakers

If you are willing to spend decent money, check at the Faital 8s and do some modeling to see which would work the best in the volume of the Hogs speaker cab.

Open the page and you can filter the results to 8s.
FaitalPRO | LF Loudspeakers

Ha!
Thanks, Was!
I was going to tell him about that Jensen mod!
Do you think the Fatal Pro would work better than the Jensens in the Street Cube EX?

 

[Wasnex]

Ha!
Thanks, Was!
I was going to tell him about that Jensen mod!
Do you think the Fatal Pro would work better than the Jensens in the Street Cube EX?

You would need to model each driver in the cab to get the answer...or try it. FYI, Faital makes quite a few 8s, including the drivers used in the ELF 2x8 cab.

Also, reviews on using the Mod in the Cube Street EX seem a bit mixed. Most people who try the Mod seem to like it, but not all. My impression is the original speaker is probably flatter, but the Mod takes more abuse, plays louder, and has stronger low mids. The original drivers are probably flatter and more HiFi...but I think they fart out easier. So the best driver for you application depends somewhat on your goals.

 

[Aaron Houts]

You would need to model each driver in the cab to get the answer...or try it. FYI, Faital makes quite a few 8s, including the drivers used in the ELF 2x8 cab.

Also, reviews on using the Mod in the Cube Street EX seem a bit mixed. Most people who try the Mod seem to like it, but not all. My impression is the original speaker is probably flatter, but the Mod takes more abuse, plays louder, and has stronger low mids. The original drivers are probably flatter and more HiFi...but I think they fart out easier. So the best driver for you application depends somewhat on your goals.

Thanks, Was!
You exactly answered both questions.
1. To me, the Jensen mod seems more straightforward than the Fatal.

2. Also, I introduced a preamp into the mix that I’ll post about later, but it quickly became apparent that I could use a pair of speakers that took more abuse, played louder, had stronger low mids and didn’t fart out so easily.

Looks like i need to budget out a pair of Jensens and find someone that can switch out the speakers for me.

 

[Wasnex]

Thanks, Was!
You exactly answered both questions.
1. To me, the Jensen mod seems more straightforward than the Fatal.

2. Also, I introduced a preamp into the mix that I’ll post about later, but it quickly became apparent that I could use a pair of speakers that took more abuse, played louder, had stronger low mids and didn’t fart out so easily.

Looks like i need to budget out a pair of Jensens and find someone that can switch out the speakers for me.

Pretty sure you could do the swap. Have you seen this video?

 

[Wasnex]

@Aaron Houts Just my 2 cents. I suspect running a battery powered variable HPF in front of the Cube Street EX will be a better investment than installing the Mod 8-20s. AFAIK, @FDecks HPFs run on a 9V.

hpftechllc - HPF-Pre, updated December 15, 2019

 

[Aaron Houts]

Pretty sure you could do the swap. Have you seen this video?

I have.
You might be right...I hope your confidence in my skills is merited!

@Aaron Houts Just my 2 cents. I suspect running a battery powered variable HPF in front of the Cube Street EX will be a better investment than installing the Mod 8-20s. AFAIK, @FDecks HPFs run on a 9V.

hpftechllc - HPF-Pre, updated December 15, 2019

We’ve thought about that before but aren’t I doing the opposite of a HPF by adding bass frequencies when I turn the ultra low button on?