speaker movement?

speakers move. it is how they produce sound. If you hear no distortion or clipping, don't worry too much. Speakers have a rating called excursion. it is how far they can travel safely before risking speaker damage. 15's usually have quite large excursion, but tens generally have less. but it depends mostly on the speaker manufacturer. Don't worry about it.

 

yeah, I've been kinda whimpy about asking this myself. Mine has a little distortion on mine (an avatar CB115 1x15 cab) before they start moving. I dunno, I don't know whether that distortion is my amp clipping, but I have my preamp leavels on my hartke 3500 pretty low, around two... What's the problem? I'm pushing 240 watts into a 600 watt speaker and it farts on me. It doesnt sound like its bottoming out but it's jus not clean. It has to be the amp because you can notice that tone at lower volumes too. By the way I just got the cab afew weeks ago and am using a low B. I dont push the low end very much, usually boost the treble... This is how my EQ usually looks in the attatched picture. I dont know what the problem is? Is it my amp not up to par with the speaker or the other way around?

 

PS - its not AS noticeable at lower volumes, but the more I dig in on the strings the more noticeable.

 

Is the battery in the bass fresh?

 

Your power amp is clipping. In other words you need MORE POWER!!!

You can safely run a 1200 watt amp with that speaker, as long as you are careful not to drive it to clipping.

 

yeah, it's not the battery in my bass so it's def. the power amp... ::sigh::

**** hartke amps with highpowered speakers. Sure the amps may be loud, but its obviously distorting... If I want clear tone I need to get a Hartke XL410 or other hartke cab that's rated 200-300 watts. I have a speakers thats better than most hartke speakers so the amp is gonna have to go. It's a shame though, i just bought this amp in march, got the cab just afew weeks ago. I'll look into some Peavey heads. I got this 3500 used for $314 shipped, I'm sure I won't have any trouble selling it for $300. I think I'd need 700-1000 to maximize the use of my speaker. The way I see it is if the distortion gets noticeable before speaker movement occurs, then its the amp that's not doing its job. Damn...

 

If you have a local music store, take your Hartke head there and hook it up to some other cabs. That will prove if it's the head or the cab.

Just $0.02

 

Before you start selling things, I have a question. If it farting on the 5th string only?

 

all over, so its not the speaker 'bottoming out'

 

All over? I'm starting to think that either your speaker has a damaged voice coil, or the amp has a faulty transistor. Withour hearing the "type" of distortion it's hard to tell. So lets rule them out one at a time.

First the speaker. Did you buy it new or is it second hand?

Try this, take the grille off. Spread our fingers evenly around the speaker cone, and press gently. Hopefully the speaker will move in and out freely. If there's a bit of friction or a scraping noise, the voice coil is damaged.

To test the amp, you're gonna have to borrow or hire another speaker cab. Just play through it as you normally would and see it is distorts.

Let us know how you go.