my 2x10 getting distorted

most 2x10's aren't tuned to handle low frequencies. So either get a crossover, or Bi-amp. Send the mid and high frequencies to the 2x10 and send the low to the 15.

 

Eliminate the variables before you start making big purchases. First, make sure it's not the amp, cables, or anything else besides the speakers. You can even try your speakers with another head.

If your bass needs a battery, it may need to be changed.

 

I agree, try that before anything.

 

MIM Jazz basses are passive, and don't need a battery. Your Ibanez does, and it's causing distortion.

My Magic 8 Ball says "All signs point to getting a new nine volt"

 

Agree. Other possibilities, since the poster says this happens when he's playing "kind of laud [sic]":

1. Input gain on the amp may be too high and may need to be backed off for the active Ibanez.

2. He's trying to get too much out his amp and has it turned up too high. In which case the solution might be a bigger and better amp.

3. Might be an EQ issue. If he has too much bass rolled on on either the bass or the amp, or both, he might be causing the amp to bottom out, so to speak, or overstressing the two 10s.

But yeah, try the battery first. Quickest and easiest thing to try, and may just do the trick.

 

solution- learn (anesthesia) pulling teeth by metallica and only ever play that song, it'll sound great

Edit by mod: Its metalliCa..sorry, i couldnt help it

 

Just a few questions that to help everyone determine possible causes:

What type of amp and/or preamp are you using to drive the cabinet?

What are your EQ settings on the amp and/or preamp? (Are you boosting any frequencies such as the lows or cutting any frequencies such as the Mids?)

Does the 15" distort or is it just the 2x10"?

During normal playing, is the 2x10" louder or the 15"?

Is one bass louder than the other? Does one bass put out more lows?

 

My avatar 210 completley craps out at high volumes.

 

If you try all these solutions (apart from buying a new amp) i think you should take it back to avatar and see what they say about it. That is of corse if you brought it brand new. Other than that, just do what the other guys have done around here.

 

Here's one more possibilty. No promises, just a possibility.

Since you say the Ibanez is "way hotter," you may simply be overdriving the input on the Traynor with the Ibanez. When that amp was made, there were few, if any, active basses in existence, so the amp would very likely not have been designed to deal with that hot a signal. So it may not be the speaker distorting, it may be the front end of the amp. There are several places within an amp head where distortion can happen. You can overdrive an input even when you barely have the volume of the amp up. So try turning down the volume of the Ibanez and maybe bringing up the volume of the amp a little to compensate.

Now, if this is the problem, why would it not show up when you play the 15 by itself? Hmmm ... well, the only thing I can think of is that perhaps the distortion from overdriving the input is happening in the higher frequencies--which would be plausible, if you recall that distortion is often associated with the generation of harmonics of the original frequency. If this is so, the 15 may be unable to reproduce the distortion. That is, it might be there, but you just don't hear it through the 15. The 2-10, especially if it has a horn/tweeter, can reproduce much higher frequencies than the 15, and so it may allow you to hear something you couldn't hear before.

 

Some possibilities to check into:

#1 Tube Amp not matching cabinet impedence
I'm not certain, but I think the Traynor YBA-1 is a tube amp. If it is a Tube amp, you might want to check to see if your cabinets are 4ohm or 8ohm.
Tube amps sometimes are designed to run with a certain ohm load - different loads could damage the amp (I've seen it happen with a Marshall Tube amp). If the impedence if different than what the amp is expecting, you could also get strange harmonics - which could be the distortion. If both cabinets are say 8ohm then the amp should treat them the same - but if they are different (say one is 4ohm and one 8ohm), then it may be that the amp was not designed to run to that impedence. Running both cabs simultaneously will change the impedence also.

#2 Power Tubes
Again if the amp is a Tube Amp, there may be something wrong with one of the Tubes - most likely one of the Power Tubes. Power Tubes are expensive and have to be biased - so if you need to change one, it is best to change all.

#3 Cabinet can not handle the low frequncies
If it is just the low frequencies that distort through the cabinet, then it may be that it can not handle the lows. Many 2x10s have problems with deep lows (50hz and below). If this is the case, you may want to look into biamping - sending the lows to the 15 and the highs to the 2x10. This would require 1) another amp and an active crossover or 2) a passive crossover that can handle a large amount of power.

#4 Cabinet speakers are blown
Sometimes when a speaker is blown, only certain notes distort (usually low notes). Sometimes they only distort above a certain volume. It may be that one (or both) of the 10's are blown. You could check this by hooking up another power amp to the speaker cab and play at or above the level that you normally play your amp at. If your band has a PA, try hooking up the PA to the 2x10 to see if the problem follows it.

 

Cool. Glad it worked out.

 

Is that really a fix? I've never owned a bass, passive or active, that I couldn't keep at volume 10 (11 if you're Nigel Tufnell!) without distortion, with proper use of the Gain knob on the amp (if provided). Are you SURE there's no impedance mis-matching? That's the first thing I thought of.

dunno....

Mark

 

Is that really a fix? I've never owned a bass, passive or active, that I couldn't keep at volume 10 (11 if you're Nigel Tufnell!) without distortion, with proper use of the Gain knob on the amp (if provided). Are you SURE there's no impedance mis-matching? That's the first thing I thought of.

dunno....

Mark

 

Could be, but remember that this is a 30+ year old tube amp our man has got here. I would be very surprised if it even had a real gain knob. Most amps of that vintage I remember playing at the time did not allow you to adjust input sensitivity or gain very well if at all. And I have definitely encountered the problem of old amp inputs not getting along well with hot active basses.