Speakon Vs 1/4 inch

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

If a Speakon plug ever melted into the jack, that would clearly a fault of a piss-poor assembly job, not the Speakon plug. You'd have to screw it up in a gloriously incompetent way to make that happen.

Banana plugs are fine loudspeaker-level connectors for users outside the EU, but they are not as durable.

 

[JustDavid]

Brainfart!!

Thanks Mozart, Rick, & Jimbob. I'd tunnel-visioned to just plugging in the amp end. That sure can happen on the speaker end.

 

[jaywa]

HasBeen (Roger) from Genz Benz has said that 1/4" is illegal on new amps in the EU, so they don't use them on their amps at all any more. I'm making the switch. I have no compelling technical reason, but my Shuttle 6.0 forces me to at least somewhat embrace Speakon and I'd rather be using all of one type to avoid mistakes and lessen the amount of things I carry with me.

KO

Yeah this actually kind of hacked me off about the Genz Benz. My church just bought a 6.0 to use as the house head and also bought a Hartke 4.5 cabinet. Well guess what? The head has only Speakon outs and the cabinet has only 1/4 inch ins. So we're having to use this lame cord with one type of connector on each end, and I'm wondering if the signal is suffering for it.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Yeah this actually kind of hacked me off about the Genz Benz. My church just bought a 6.0 to use as the house head and also bought a Hartke 4.5 cabinet. Well guess what? The head has only Speakon outs and the cabinet has only 1/4 inch ins. So we're having to use this lame cord with one type of connector on each end, and I'm wondering if the signal is suffering for it.

Signals will suffer only if your connectors are crappy, not if they are different at each end of a cable.

 

[jaywa]

Good to know Bob, thanks.

 

[bongomania]

Yeah this actually kind of hacked me off about the Genz Benz. My church just bought a 6.0 to use as the house head and also bought a Hartke 4.5 cabinet. Well guess what? The head has only Speakon outs and the cabinet has only 1/4 inch ins. So we're having to use this lame cord with one type of connector on each end, and I'm wondering if the signal is suffering for it.

That would "hack me off" about the Hartke, not the Genz. Genz provided the better-quality plug, Hartke provided the lower-quality plug.

The signal is not suffering at all. Maybe if you ran the Genz at full clipping for an extended period of time then the plug in the Hartke would fail. Also if the Hartke jack gets dirty or corroded then the signal will suffer.

 

[JKT]

Yeah this actually kind of hacked me off about the Genz Benz. My church just bought a 6.0 to use as the house head and also bought a Hartke 4.5 cabinet. Well guess what? The head has only Speakon outs and the cabinet has only 1/4 inch ins. So we're having to use this lame cord with one type of connector on each end, and I'm wondering if the signal is suffering for it.

My extra cab has 1/4" so I resolved myself while my 6.0 210T was on its way to me that I would need a special cable. I bought a good one, and it works and sounds great.

JKT

 

[Jack]

Yeah this actually kind of hacked me off about the Genz Benz. My church just bought a 6.0 to use as the house head and also bought a Hartke 4.5 cabinet. Well guess what? The head has only Speakon outs and the cabinet has only 1/4 inch ins. So we're having to use this lame cord with one type of connector on each end, and I'm wondering if the signal is suffering for it.

In fairness, the Hartke is likely either older or a more budget cabinet if that's the case. The GB is a new, pro amp. Sounds like the amp isn't the problem here.

Edit - Oh, I see bongomania got there first.

 

[kalipigeon]

Isn't this why you're supposed to put amps on standby when plugging/unplugging basses, and only plug in speaker cabinets when the thing is off entirely? Why would you want to plug a cabinet into an active circuit with 500w or so of amplifier putting voltage out - do you hate your poor, unsuspecting speakers?

 

[jaywa]

To be honest, the reason I was hacked at GB was cause with them being supposedly the higher end company of the two, I thought they would have acknowledged that a lot of people still have legacy (1/4-inch only) cabinets and they would have supported both options on their heads. It just struck me as a bit of arrogance, i.e. that GB was thinking no one would ever think of using anything else but a GB cabinet with their heads, and/or assuming Speakon was already the industry standard when it really is not (yet, anyway).

OTOH the Hartke cab we bought is brand new, and it does seem a bit odd they would not have had the foresight to have both input options as well, since Speakon is clearly the direction things are going.

 

[KJung]

Yeah this actually kind of hacked me off about the Genz Benz. My church just bought a 6.0 to use as the house head and also bought a Hartke 4.5 cabinet. Well guess what? The head has only Speakon outs and the cabinet has only 1/4 inch ins. So we're having to use this lame cord with one type of connector on each end, and I'm wondering if the signal is suffering for it.

Zero issue with this. Why would you consider this type of cable 'lame'? I used one with my Walter Woods (1/4" power outs) and my more up-to-date cabinets with speakons for years with zero issue.

There is virtually no way anyone would ever actually hear a difference among connector types with a bass rig. I do prefer Speakons because the lock in place, but that's the only reason for me. The sound is the same no matter what connector I use.

 

[Jim Campbell]

Jim campbell you are wrong, in live sound you see them all the time. Well less these days but for years thats all pro sound used.

well im from missouri,show me instrument stuff w/bananna........... dj stuff is a different animal

Totally wrong.

Will handle more current than you will ever use in a bass rig, do not require being taken apart and rewired to bridge a power amp, can be used to hook up multiple cabinets in series or in parallel without modification, can be serviced without a soldering iron.......

Outside of the dubious benefit of locking in they are better than Speakon in any way which matters to me, and are all I use. Speakon took over the spot formerly occupied by banana plugs not because they were better, but because they were better marketed.

again show me your bass rig w/ factory banana

My Crest CA9 is far from light-duty.

neither are my brystons but they all offer other types of connector options besides banana......and ive yet to see anything in a banana that appears "heavy duty"

 

[Craig_S]

I like speakon cables. I like the security of the locking mechanism, though, I never had a 1/4 cable unplug during a gig. My rig will accept either. The MarkBass heads have speaker outs that work both ways. I don't notice an audible difference between either type, honestly. I've always used high quality speaker cables.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

To be honest, the reason I was hacked at GB was cause with them being supposedly the higher end company of the two, I thought they would have acknowledged that a lot of people still have legacy (1/4-inch only) cabinets and they would have supported both options on their heads. It just struck me as a bit of arrogance, i.e. that GB was thinking no one would ever think of using anything else but a GB cabinet with their heads, and/or assuming Speakon was already the industry standard when it really is not (yet, anyway).

?????

Sorry, that doesn't make much sense. The output connectors on the amp don't limit what kind of loudspeaker you can use, and the input connectors on the cabinet don't limit what kind of amp you can use.

 

[KJung]

well im from missouri,show me instrument stuff w/bananna........... dj stuff is a different animal

again show me your bass rig w/ factory banana

The only bass cabs with banana connectors I've ever seen are the first generation Eden 410XST, the older Bag End models, and if my memory serves, the first generation Acme cabs.

All of these companies have replaced the banana plugs with speakons at this point as far as I know.

 

[Jim Campbell]

Banana plugs are fine loudspeaker-level connectors for users outside the EU, but they are not as durable.

.......perhaps a builder of pro gear might enlighten on the highs/lows of the banana.......i feel that if they were practical for instrument amps the industry would be using them......

 

[JustDavid]

well im from missouri,show me instrument stuff w/bananna........... dj stuff is a different animal

again show me your bass rig w/ factory banana

neither are my brystons but they all offer other types of connector options besides banana......and ive yet to see anything in a banana that appears "heavy duty"

Nothing in my bass stuff, but I've lots of old PA amps that offer 5-way (banana) posts. Current models of PA amps also have them.

I think the spec on banana plugs is 15 amps, much greater than what a 1/4 will stand up to. Someone else nailed the key factor; contact area. 1/4's problem is where round Tip meets the (flat where it contacts) spring for it on the jack; that gives a very small area. Run an amp hard for awhile then feel the tip of a speaker jack; warm. Warm is bad.

 

[Jim Campbell]

Nothing in my bass stuff, but I've lots of old PA amps that offer 5-way (banana) posts. Current models of PA amps also have them.

I think the spec on banana plugs is 15 amps, much greater than what a 1/4 will stand up to. Someone else nailed the key factor; contact area. 1/4's problem is where round Tip meets the (flat where it contacts) spring for it on the jack; that gives a very small area. Run an amp hard for awhile then feel the tip of a speaker jack; warm. Warm is bad.

which is my point.....five way posts offer 4 ways other than banana.....more than a few amp makers market for the home as well as pro and offer more than one connector....contact area aside bananas appear to be light weight....as in try stepping on one as opposed to a 1/4 .....

warm is not a problem hot is......when you step on a line of #2 cable drawing 90 amps or so you can actually feel it vibrating and its warm enough to melt into the ice up here...when they get hot ive seen the camlocks start on fire....but instument stuff shouldnt get hot enough to be a problem unless there is already a problem in the wire or connector

 

[jaywa]

?????

Sorry, that doesn't make much sense. The output connectors on the amp don't limit what kind of loudspeaker you can use, and the input connectors on the cabinet don't limit what kind of amp you can use.

Understood... all I'm saying is that it didn't seem like a very customer-friendly approach to put out a head that only had Speakons when there are still oodles of guys out there playing 1/4-inch cabs who would then have to invest additional in a converter cable or whatever. Seems to me when you are in a transition period between standards, the manufacturers should support both standards for a certain amount of time and to me it just felt like GB had jumped the gun a bit in phasing out any sort of accommodation for 1/4-inch.

That all being said, it was just a temporary annoyance and a surprise based on what I had known and assumed about GB to that point. It certainly will not cause me to rule out GB as a potential personal purchase down the line, even though my own cab is an early 90s Hartke XL.

 

[JustDavid]

Man, word I heard was NOTHING melted the ice in Winnipeg!!

You are right; hot is the problem. But warm is on the way there. Heat is wasted signal & accelerates corrosion, which increases resistance, which increases heat, which . . .

Like 1/4s, not all bananas are equal. Grabbed some in a rush from a music store once; before that I wouldn't have even known what you meant. They were crap. Before the next gig I replaced them with quality ones from an electronics store.