Hi all, I bought a Hartke HX112 cabinet less than 2 weeks ago to run my Shuttle 6.0 through and today, it sounded fuzzy and distorted when I ran my fretless through it. 1) The cabinet has always been set to operate at 8ohms, the volume has always been just barely at the halfway mark with the preamp section adjusted to match practice levels and such. 2) It still looks in it's pristine condition. 3) Today is only the third time I've used it because I've left it in church since I bought it. So I brought the cabinet home today and decided to test it out with my other basses too. The cabinet sounded fine to me(or so i thought) for the first one or two minutes then the fuzz came back! It hasn't gone away since though. I tried hooking up the cabinet to my ibanez amp and it still has that fuzz going on. Anybody able to help here?
I'd suspect a burned/warped voice coil first. And if that's the case, then someone else overdrove the cab. (The settings you quote mean nothing relative to power delivered to a speaker -- no offense intended.) Another possibility is physical shock, as in someone having dropped the cab. That might cause physical misalignment in the speaker, or cause something in the crossover to pop loose. Another possibility is a burned crossover and/or tweeter. You can troubleshoot that by electrically bypassing the crossover and tweeter and seeing if you still get the same distortion. I don't know if these cabs use "real" crossovers or use only a cap in series with the tweeter. Long shot: loose screws holding the driver to the baffle board.
I tightened down the screws holding the speaker cone to the board but the fuzz is still present. No idea how to really open up the cabinet to bypass the crossover/tweeter and I'm a little wary on opening it up coz of warranty issues. I'm from Singapore and there's only one dealer for Hartke stuff here. I guess I'll be headed down to get it checked out and hopefully I'll be able to get it fixed up ASAP for an upcoming event! Rather disappointed that the cabinet exhibited this fuzz today since it is only 10 days old!
If it's only ten days old take the darn thing back and use your warranty. They should just give you another. Don't do anything to the cabinet it's not your problem.
+1 If it's that new use your warranty, that's what it's there for. Taking anything apart yourself could void it.
Sebbs, Take the cabinet back to your dealer and have them replace it. If you need further help you can contact me at 201-680-8153 Cell or lahartke@comcast.net
Okay, so the dealer said typically speakers are not under warranty, but they told me to bring the cabinet down to them tomorrow to get it checked out first. Will post an update on what happens!
Easiest way to check whether the twelve is ok would be to pull it from the cab, pull the existing wires off the terminals (mark them first!), connect new six-foot wires to the terminals, run the other ends of the wires out through the port, and connect those ends to your amp via appropriate plug. Screw the speaker back onto the baffle board -- do NOT test the speaker outside the box or you'll ruin it. You can use cheap lamp cord for the wires. Polarity is not a concern for this test so don't worry about it. If you don't have speaker-terminal clips for your test wires then you can simply twist the bare ends onto the terminals; go through the center hole of each terminal first. Don't let any wire strands fall into the speaker -- that's important. Lay a cloth under your work (under the terminals and over the speaker frame) to be safe. This is one of those "hope no one's looking" sort of fault-isolation methods but it will work.
Sebbs, It certainly is under warranty..I guarantee it! That's ridiculous, please let me know how this goes. I won't leave you hanging!
Might be a good idea to make a copy of this thread to bring and tell them the guy that owns the company wants you to get a new speaker under warranty! Nice stuff Larry
I'm testing the cabinet at home now again and it's sounding perfectly fine! Anybody has any ideas on this? This is truly perplexing because if I do bring it down to the dealer and it sounds okay, then obviously nothing can be done about it. But what happens if it cuts out on me during a gig and happens to be normal again at home?
Okay, went back to the dealer and the distortion was back in full force like I had a fuzz pedal in my signal chain. They took it in but they said that "passive speakers" are not covered under warranty, which to me, sounds absolutely ridiculous. That's like spending a couple grand for an audiophile home system and install it to find something wrong, then find out that it's not covered under warranty?! I'm getting a tad annoyed because the guy was pretty much telling me that it was my fault for putting a Shuttle6.0 pumping 375watts into it. Definitely didn't help that the engineer wasn't the friendliest guy around either.
Brother Sebbs, Just call me tomorrow, something is not right with all of this. No problem, I'll get this settled for you pronto...just give me a call! 201-680-8153 Cell
Dude. The founder of the company that makes that speaker cabinet is trying to help you out. Please do accept his excellent customer service! If anyone can help you get this sorted, it's him! By the way, Mr. Hartke, that is awesome.
+1. OP please read EVERY post in this thread. Larry Hartke - as in the-guy-who-OWNS-the company-which-made-your-cab - wants you to e-mail or phone him re getting it fixed.
Whoops, sorry guys but yeah, I'm just in a completely different timezone at from you guys so I've been trying to avoid calling Larry at a weird time.. No offense meant! And yes, I'll definitely call Larry later in the day! Extremely awesome to have the guy who runs the company be so customer-oriented when some dealers aren't always the best people to work with! The cabinet is currently at the dealer's, engineer's trying to figure out what the problem with the cabinet is and will give me a call when he finds out. Thanks a lot for the replies guys! Will definitely post what happens.
I don't think they meant it as if you weren't calling him, i just know that a lot of times people will not read through all of the posts after they make the thread, especially newbies to TB. they wanted to make sure that you saw the post is all. Hope everything gets worked out with the cab
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