Speaker Distortion

[J. Oxley]

Hey, i'm not too switched on when it comes to amps, so you'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge. I've just started gigging with my new rig. Its an old Fender BXR 400 (bridged 2 X 200W). I've noticed the speakers start distorting when i turn up to about 2. The two speaker bins are fairly old and they're rated at 300W for the 115 and 100W for the 210. Am i sending too much power to the speakers or is it the amplifier itself distorting? I set the preamp at about 3-4. The amplifer has a button to choose between "biamp" and "stereo". I run it as stereo if that means anything.

 

[Trevorus]

Is it a farty distortion, or a grinding distortion?

 

[J. Oxley]

more "farty" I'd say.

 

[Trevorus]

Yeah, that could be speaker distortion. When does the distortion come in? When you play harder, or all the time?

 

[J. Oxley]

When i turn it up to a certain volume, but it does get worse if i start playing harder.

 

[Trevorus]

Do you have the ability to try some other cabinets? That could still be the amp clipping.

 

[J. Oxley]

Yeah, might just try that. One of my dad's friends has some hartke cabs. Does this mean there is a problem with the amplifier, or am i simply turning the preamp up too high?

 

[murphy]

Yeah, might just try that. One of my dad's friends has some hartke cabs. Does this mean there is a problem with the amplifier, or am i simply turning the preamp up too high?

Don't clip the input on the preamp....so you leave more headroom before distortion.
Try your EQ controls closer to flat....not too much bass boost.
Try one cab at a time ,in both inputs to rule out cab or amp.

Are your cabs proper bass designed?...Do any of the cones have creases or or tears or rubbing when you push on them.Are the drivers bass speakers?

In biamp mode does either of the cabs or both still distort?

Could be as simple as your gain is overdriven!

 

[billfitzmaurice]

The amplifer has a button to choose between "biamp" and "stereo". I run it as stereo if that means anything.

Run it bi-amp. with the crossover set at 150-200Hz, the lows to the 15, the highs to the tens. A 2x10 rated at 100w won't take any lows before distorting.

 

[JJBACOOMBA]

I had the Fender BXR 400 and the fender BXR spectrum cab with an 18 and 2-10's in it. Was a nice rig. I biamped though. I never had a problem with any distortion. I'm not to savy on amp stuff but I would try Bi-amping instead of running in stereo. Myabe take the amp in to the local store and try it out with similar speaker cabs to see if the problem is your speakers. Good luck and let us know how it turned out.