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Salvaging a Speaker

MrPlain

MrPlain

Jul 10, 2008
42
0
Jacksonville, FL
#1
I have an idea that I need some advice on. I have a 10 year old Crate BX100 combo that I used as a practice amp. The amp is pretty much dead, but the 15" speaker and the whole box in general is in perfect condition.

I am wondering if it would be reasonable to pull the amp out and wire a jack to the speaker so i can run a 200W tube head through it and just use it as a cab. The Crate amp was only 100W, so would I damage the speaker by using a more powerful amp?
 
#4
If you like the cabinet tone, the project is a good idea. When using it, just listen for the speaker beginning to fart out. Back off as necessary.

The BX100 Link Removed says the speaker is good for 150WRMS.

You may be able to get Thiele/Small specs from Eminence if you have all the numbers printed on the driver. Armed with those specs, you'll be able to design a new cabinet, which may perform far better with that driver.
 
#5
Using the cabinet as primary cab or an extension cab is a great idea.

It's probably the same speaker that Ampeg uses in their 15" cabinets and they're built to take a lot of power.

If the speaker is rated at 150W RMS then you can safely use an amplifier with an output of 450W RMS and get a very clean 'unclipped/undistorted' sound from it.

Most of these speakers are 8 Ohm speakers so if you use it an as extension cab with another 8 Ohm cabinet the resultant impedence is 4 Ohms which will allow your amplifier (if it has a jack for an 8 Ohm extension cab) to deliver a lot of clean power to your rig.
 
#6
I did something very similar about a year ago. I had an old Rogue 120W combo that had a fried circuit board in it, so I took the amp out of the combo, and wired a 1/4" plug onto the speaker wire, then plugged it into a 150W amp that a friend of mine was letting me borrow until I bought myself a new one. Since I decided to upgrade to a 300W, and the speaker couldn't handle that much, I bought a new speaker that will handle up to 600W, and installed it. I ended up getting a great deal on both the amp and the new speaker, so it only had a total cost of $160, including shipping.
frankenamp.jpg

If you look on the floor to the left of the cab, you can see the rogue amp. I use the place where the amp was in the combo to hold a tuner, my pics, capo, and a towel
 
#8
Rick Auricchio said:
If the Rogue cabinet is ported, your new driver may still be XMax-limited due to the design of the port.

This means it's still possible to overextend it (tearing it up) long before you hit its power limit. Just keep this in mind and back off if it farts out.
Click to expand...

I know. If you check out the pic, you'll notice that my output level is set at only about 25-30%. I've been using that amp/cab for almost a year now, and haven't had a single problem with it.
 
#10
Rick Auricchio said:
As long as you like the tone and you're careful with the power, you're fine.
Click to expand...

I love the tone. My lows and mids go through the 15, and I've got a tweeter installed for my highs. I'm actually planning on buying a matching 15" and building myself a 2X15 cab to give myself a little more floor shaking ability though. Then I'm going to add a home built 4X10 with a tweeter and use a crossover to run my highs through the 2 tweeters, my mids through the 10"s and my lows through the 15"s.
 
#11
Sounds good!

As for building a 215 cabinet, the important thing is to have the Thiele/Small specs for the drivers so you know what type of cabinet to build. Hopefully you can get the specs for the existing speaker.

As for using a crossover and bi-amping, that's not good if you use standard full-range cab design. You really need a top and sub to make that work. A conventional 410 is a full-range cab, as your 215 would be. If you cross over, you're simply cutting the power to both cabs.

The key to bi-amping is to have cabs that only handle part of the frequency spectrum, and each cab is made to do its job better than a full-range cab can do. Then you're getting ahead.
 
#13
The drummer in my band does karaoke DJing at a bar, and sometimes live music. He had a BX-100 combo he used in the bar until the head blew. He gave it to me, knowing I like to mess with stuff like that. The cab was ridiculously heavy, and smelled like it's been in a bar for a while, and looked like it fell out of a couple of trucks in the meantime. So I put the speaker in a homemade cab and use the high side of my 800RB to run it. I also made a case for the head, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to fixing it.

41bb.jpg
 

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