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Is there something wrong with my cab?

wdinc01

wdinc01

Nov 19, 2005
2,791
44
Jacksonville, FL
#1
I brought home my two Bag End 15s, and I decided to try them out each solo. I have a S15LX-D on top, and a S15-CUS on the bottom. The S15-CUS is getting very little volume out of it, and sounds kind of distorted and farty. I know my guitarist said he had this problem with it before when he used my amp for some church function or something.

I'm running a Little Mark III through it, if that help. The top one sounds fine and gets full volume, but not so much for the bottom. Any help?
 
#4
wdinc01 said:
I brought home my two Bag End 15s, and I decided to try them out each solo. I have a S15LX-D on top, and a S15-CUS on the bottom. The S15-CUS is getting very little volume out of it, and sounds kind of distorted and farty. I know my guitarist said he had this problem with it before when he used my amp for some church function or something.

I'm running a Little Mark III through it, if that help. The top one sounds fine and gets full volume, but not so much for the bottom. Any help?
Click to expand...

Either speaker is blown, or it's possible it is wired out of phase. Connect a 9 volt battery to each jack terminal (like with a speaker cable with only bare wires on one end to the battery, jack on the other to the cab, + to +, and - to - of course) and see if when you touch the battery lugs the speaker moves out. If it moves in when you touch them it's wired out of phase and the volume and sound severely suffers.

If it's in phase then I'd guess the speaker is blown.
 
#8
Rick Auricchio said:
I doubt it's out of phase. The speaker wouldn't be that bad.
Click to expand...

We've had PA subs that we had just purchased (A while back) and one sounded very distorted and quite low in output (very similar to a blown speaker that still somewhat functions). It was wired out of phase and when we corrected it, it sounded wonderful like the other one.

I only mentioned it as a possibility because it's easy to check.
 
#9
Sundogue said:
Either speaker is blown, or it's possible it is wired out of phase. Connect a 9 volt battery to each jack terminal (like with a speaker cable with only bare wires on one end to the battery, jack on the other to the cab, + to +, and - to - of course) and see if when you touch the battery lugs the speaker moves out. If it moves in when you touch them it's wired out of phase and the volume and sound severely suffers.

If it's in phase then I'd guess the speaker is blown.
Click to expand...

So I take a speaker cable and cut one of the male ends off, then touch the exposed wires to a battery?
 
#10
wdinc01 said:
So I take a speaker cable and cut one of the male ends off, then touch the exposed wires to a battery?
Click to expand...

Yes...if you have a spare one lying around. I always have a short one I just keep an end off of, but I test a lot of speaker cabs.

It was only a suggestion. Chances are, if it's really bad it's probably blown, though I've heard some pretty "bad" speakers that were just wired out of phase. Some seem to react worse than others in their output when out of phase.
 
#15
wdinc01 said:
I dunno why I said farty. Its really just just quiet and distorted. But you may be right anyway.

Does anyone have experience with blown BagEnd speakers? Do I just email them for a replacement, or do I send it to them?
Click to expand...

Well, farty is distorted.

Regardless, even a single speaker wired out of phase from the amp can really reduce it's output and to compensate for that lack of volume one typically turns up higher, which in turn can make it more distorted.

So, yes a speaker wired out of phase can lose volume and sound distorted, which is why I suggested such a simple test. If it's blown then it just needs to be replaced. I'd contact Bag End about it in that case.

Technical Service at Bag End...

[email protected]
 

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