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Understanding Peavey

M

Mutant...

Sep 25, 2010
23
0
Wellington, New Zealand
#1
So I scored this peavey black widow 15" cabinet, it distorts a little sooner than I would have hoped. I have two questions for you there, with the knowledge.

1:How do I diagnose what's wrong with my driver? (cone appears intact)

2:How do I tell what this driver is rated at? I can't find any info on this particular cab, and here's the tricky part, the serial number is worn. To me it looks like this:

D 115 B. Continental
Serial number: OE-?7?60?
Impedance: 8ohms

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
#3
Whenever I encounter a cab whose drivers sound like they've been abused, the first thing I do are pull them, check the baffle board for smoothness, check the gaskets to make sure they're ok (and present!), check the wiring for tightness and to make sure no wires are in contact with the cones, then put the drivers back and tighten the bolts (or screws) in a star pattern. In other words, just a sanity check on the mounting. You can also do the battery test on the cab to make sure both speakers are wired for the same polarity. (If there's only one driver, never mind that last part.)
 
#5
Widows are generally a pretty good speaker. If the voice coil jumped from abuse and is damaged but is still functional, this could be the result. Same with any speaker.

What is nice though, is the baskets on those are field-replaceable, 3 or 4 allen screws pull the magnet off and new baskets can be had reasonably.
 
#6
Generally - even 80s BWs were 300 watters. If the speaker is just farting out with no other noises, and sounds good at lower volume, then the speaker is probably not the problem. What head are you driving it with? What is the power, and more importantly, what is the minimum ohm rating for this head.? Is it a Peavey 80's looking cab with 1-15? Lots of the answers will have a bearing on speaker performance. If it's a 1-15 cab, my first guess would be that either the speaker is incorrect for the cab, or the cab is incorrect for the speaker. Why? Most Peavey 1-15 cabs run 1 4 ohm speaker while the 8 ohm speakers were in 2-15 cabs for a net of 4 ohms. Getting everything porperly matched will have an amazing impact on performance. :cool:

PS - I just re-read your post and see the info about serial numbers etc. The D 115 B indicates a 1-15 bass cab. Not sure about Continental. A factory BW equipped cab would have BW where Continental is. The serial # does date it to 1980 with 0 being the second digit of the build year and letter E being the first letter of the number of the build year = 1980. Well 8 ohms is 8 ohms. Could be that you don't have a BW speaker. You'll only know when you pull it and look.
 
#7
Continental??? I haven't seen one of those in 15 years.

The Continental was a p.a. speaker/cab. There was a full-range BW speaker along with two piezo tweeters, one in each upper corner. I owned a pair.

Are you sure this is a bass speaker?

For you older guys (or maybe younger guys), you probably do remember the Peavey Internationals with the snap-on, flite case lid? This was a step under that. Front-loaded speaker, two piezos, and a top-hat underneath. Very basic. But, not a bass cab.
 
#9
ezstep said:
Continental??? I haven't seen one of those in 15 years.

The Continental was a p.a. speaker/cab. There was a full-range BW speaker along with two piezo tweeters, one in each upper corner. I owned a pair.

Are you sure this is a bass speaker?

For you older guys (or maybe younger guys), you probably do remember the Peavey Internationals with the snap-on, flite case lid? This was a step under that. Front-loaded speaker, two piezos, and a top-hat underneath. Very basic. But, not a bass cab.
Click to expand...

Good call. Invalid Link Removed

Don't remember the Continental; guess I missed it back in the day. Definitely not a bass cab, according to these specs (free air resonance 75hz; enclosure tuning 74hz). Would be ok at low volume, but you wouldn't want to crank a lot of bass through it.

You could drop the cabinet tuning by lengthening the port, but that wouldn't make this a bass driver. You could accomplish that by changing the basket assy (from a full-range to a bass model). Don't know if that'd be worth it.
 
#10
There were/are a few different models of Black Widow, they're not all the same. The 1502-DT was advertised as a "bass guitar" speaker having a ribbed stiff cone that could "take a beating". That ones xmax I think is only 3.something mm which isn't much. There's the 1505KADT which was a pretty high SPL midbass driver made to be crossed over to a sub in PA applications. That one's xmax is 1.something, in other words, a bedroom practice amp could fart it out in the lows. The 1505-DT (not "KA") is the best of the bunch. Pretty high SPL and 4.8mm xmax, also pretty forgiving of box sizes. Smaller boxes will raise the f3 but won't give hellacious midbass bumps until you get super small, like something that should be sealed anyway. I'd pull the speaker out of the box and check all the stamps and labels on the backside of it and see just what you have. All Black Widows are not created equal and your farting problem may be a lower performance speaker problem or a poorly tuned box problem.....or both.
 
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#12
ezstep said:
1n3 said:
You could drop the cabinet tuning by lengthening the port, but that wouldn't make this a bass driver....
Click to expand...
No, it is ported across the entire bottom. About 1"-2" tall, side to side.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the PDF I linked to shows that. The port length is the thickness of the baffle, which is why the cabinet resonance is so high. That port could be lengthened with a bit of plywood (shelf port). The manual gives net internal volume as 59 liters (2.08cf) - minimal, but workable.

Lowering the tuning would be a cheap and easy mod. Swapping baskets or speakers might get into more money than it's worth.
 
#14
Thanks for all the posts, guys. The damn thing is a P.A. cabinet, which I have to imagine is causing all of my problems. If the frequency response starts at 75hz then my dropped 4 string (C G C F) won't be doing it any favours at all.

I'm running a Peavey T-Max 550w min 2ohms... I have another 8 ohm 15" I could hook up to reduce the load?

I have an opportunity to buy 2 SWR working pro 8ohm bins this week, (4x10, 1x15) with a Warwick Profet 5.1 head, for under a grand. My research says the 5.1 isn't really worth having. I tried it out and it wasn't nearly as good as my T-Max, I'd likely sell it on.

The bins go hard, but am I better off holding out for some 4ohm cabinets to match up with the T-Max?

Thanks again for sharing your expertise.
 
#15
Mutant... said:
Thanks for all the posts, guys. The damn thing is a P.A. cabinet, which I have to imagine is causing all of my problems. If the frequency response starts at 75hz then my dropped 4 string (C G C F) won't be doing it any favours at all.
Click to expand...

The problem isn't just that the response tanks below 75hz; it's also that the speaker is unloaded (has low air resistance) below that frequency. As will33 has mentioned, the full-range BWs don't have a lot of excursion. If you boost bass to compensate for the poor low-end sensitivity, you'll probably be into over-excursion pretty quickly.


I have another 8 ohm 15" I could hook up to reduce the load?
Click to expand...

Another speaker of any kind will reduce the load on that cabinet, but you may get some odd results from mixing dissimilar cabs. Won't hurt to try it.

I think you'd be better off to replace that cab. It won't be worth a lot, which is why I first suggested port modification. But in light of your last comments, I'd say sell it. Many pedal steel players would like that cab, with the piezo tweeters disconnected or removed.


I have an opportunity to buy 2 SWR working pro 8ohm bins this week, (4x10, 1x15) with a Warwick Profet 5.1 head, for under a grand. My research says the 5.1 isn't really worth having. I tried it out and it wasn't nearly as good as my T-Max, I'd likely sell it on.

The bins go hard, but am I better off holding out for some 4ohm cabinets to match up with the T-Max?
Click to expand...

I would keep the T-Max and aim for a total load of four ohms, even though it's rated for two. I wouldn't mix a 410 and a 115 (many postings on this topic). You'll probably get contrary opinions... that's just me.
 

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