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Loose connections on mesa subway cabs

#121
This is a post from the BassChat forum that has relevance to what we have been discussing here. It’s about Eich amps/cabs, but reinforces my suspicions that the root cause is changes that were made by Neutrik in their new IEC 62368 compliant parts:

====================

Kokkie​

Posted yesterday at 05:18
Dear agedhorse, Dan, tauzero and nekomatic,
Thanks for your responses.
This is what happend so far:
I rang the Eich-office. This is what they told me: A few years ago, Neutrik has changed the design of some of their connectors/plugs and therefor the problems that I'm having in my cabs, are somewhat well known to Eich (and they are really pissed about this!). Therefor Eich offered to send me complete new back plates of the cabs (for free!) so that these bad connections belong to the past (for me). I find that very generous of Eich.
As soon as I have changed the plates, I will notify you all on the outcome.
==========================
 
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#122
I had serious doubts about the new brown Speakon plugs—although my concern revolved around the possibility of requiring a special tool for disassembly (although it only happened to me once in the past 20 years, I had to emergently disassemble one of my Speakons at a gig shortly before we kicked off…since then I have always considered easy disassembly important to me) but now it’s been discussed that they can be taken apart with a couple of more or less common tools.
To look ahead I just purchased a pile of the discontinued blue NL4-FX Speakons at a very reasonable price. It might be food for thought.

Kim
 
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#123
agedhorse said:
This is what I am seeing in general, not just with the Subway cabinets but other manufacturers using the combo jacks )but not the standard NL4MP jacks).

The combo jacks are built differently and may be less tolerant than the multi-finger wiping contacts on the non-combo versions.
Click to expand...
Here are some pictures of NL4MP's I cut open to compare the new version with the older, the one on the left is actually an older NL2MP...they used the same contacts you can see the wiper fingers (I used an NL2 because I did not want to waste a good old version NL4MP) the middle and right are the new version, the middle is the "standard" version and right one is the "heavy duty" version.

A side note on the heavy duty version is the connection tabs break off just after a few flexes with your finger and are rated at a lower amperage than the old version "heavy duty" version that the tabs would not break off short of some serious bending. Pictured is one with a broken off tab.
The original version heavy duty did use the flat blade style internal contact.

Next time I ordering parts I'll get a couple combo connector to dissect.
 

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#125
rok51 said:
To me it seems like the old version with the wiper fingers provides more contact area with regard to rotational motion, but I am no expert.

Kim
Click to expand...
Certainly accommodates variations in the plug’s contact bar better.
 
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#128
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#130
Just the other day I ordered a couple combo connector Speakons and a couple brown NL2's, it will be a good experiment during the slower schedule now!
For what's it worth I did a project a while back and used lots of the brown NL2's along with the new version NL4 and NL2MP's for a horn paging system everything worked fine and as far as I know is still working good.
 
#131
Chuck M said:
I ordered a pair of these: Kirlin Speaker Cable - Speakon - Speakon

They arrived today and have the brown connectors rather than the blue ones pictured. I will be returning them.
Click to expand...
This happened with my Hosa cables I ordered. I have been using them for about 6 monthsw/o any problems going from a Peavey MiniMax (dual 1/4"/ speakon connectors) nto a set of TC Electronic RS2X12 cabs. Fingers crossed this will remain the case.
 
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#132
There is so much information in this thread that I will repeat here what I think is the most helpful information.

The brown plugs seem to work fine in all Neutrik jacks except the Neutrik jacks that accept Speakon and 1/4". My brown plugs will even work in my Mesa cabinets unless they are twisted counterclockwise (after locking in place) and then they sometimes loose connection.

The brown plugs seem to work fine in Mesa amplifiers. So.....we have identified the problem to be with the brown Neutrik plugs only when used with the combination (speakon/1/4") jacks made by Neutrik.
 
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#134
five7 said:
So it seems the problem is on cabs with the dual 1/4 inch/speakon jacks? What about the new green ones, or is it just the brown ones and fake knockoff ones.
Click to expand...
I would not state it that way. There was no problem with the dual Speakon jacks with the older blue Neutrik plugs. There is some problem with compatibility with the redesigned brown plug.

Perhaps the new green ones were released to correct this compatibility problem. That is, of course, speculation on my part. Surely Neutrik has been made aware of the problem.
 
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#137
Chuck M said:
I would not state it that way. There was no problem with the dual Speakon jacks with the older blue Neutrik plugs. There is some problem with compatibility with the redesigned brown plug.

Perhaps the new green ones were released to correct this compatibility problem. That is, of course, speculation on my part. Surely Neutrik has been made aware of the problem.
Click to expand...
The green Speakons are the four conductor version and came at the same time brown two conductor versions did.
 
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#139
I just received two new cables with the brown plugs for my Mesa gear lol. Ironically I ordered them because the previous cables I bought were not real Neutrik plugs, depsite being advertised as such, and wouldn't work with the Mesa gear but did work my Aguilar/Darkglass stuff. Thankfully the brown plugs seem to be working for now but I already feel a little hesitant about relying on them for gigs. I'll have to mess around with them and see if they're intermittent for me as Chuck indicated above.

I realize how problematic it would be, and it would obviously raise the cost, but I've wondered if it would make sense for Mesa to include a cable with the amps. It seems like they're pretty picky about the cable/plugs used in a way that most other amps and cabs aren't. Historically it hasn't been a big deal I guess because you just had to buy Neutrik equipped cables but now this has thrown a kink into that guidance. Even that wouldn't be a good solution for people only buying cabs though. I realize this isn't a Mesa problem and it sucks Neutrik seems to have dropped the ball with compatibility.
 
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#140
ole Jason said:
I just ordered two new cables with the brown plugs for my Mesa gear. Ironically I ordered them because the previous cables I bought were not real Neutrik plugs, depsite being advertised as such, and wouldn't work with the Mesa gear but did work my Aguilar/Darkglass stuff. Thankfully the brown plugs seem to be working for now but I already feel a little hesitant about relying on them for gigs.

I realize how problematic it would be, and it would obviously raise the cost, but I've wondered if it would make sense for Mesa to include a cable with the amps. It seems like they're particularly sensitive to the cables used in a way that other amps/cabs aren't. Historically it hasn't been a big deal I guess because you just had to buy Neutrik equipped cables but now this has thrown a kink into that guidance.
Click to expand...
The Subway cabinets are no more sensitive than any others that use the combo jack, all manufacturers are dealing with the same thing to varying degrees. I am considering migrating to the standard NL4 jacks plus a separate 1/4" jack, but that's not a low impact change at this point because it changes how much space is used behind the panel and on the PCB.
 
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