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Well - my speakers caught fire.

killjeats

killjeats

Guest
Jul 22, 2015
8
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35
#1
So I recently added a second cabinet to my rig and played it out for the first time the other night. I use a Sunn Concert Head (100w, 4ohms), an SWR Goliath 410 (8ohms, with the tweeter off) and a GK 212 (8ohms, so the power is cut to 4 all around). Everything was hooked up properly the same way it was in our practice space, except that I was playing around 7-8 volume rather than around 4-6. Towards the end of our set, my rig starts smoking - badly. I quickly shut off my head and a buddy let me borrow his (Orange, much higher powered) head for the few songs we had left. By the end there was smoke BILLOWING out of my 4x10 and probably the worst smell that I've ever smelled.

Upon taking it home, one speaker is cracked and the other has a gaping hole burnt through the center. I suspect it was one of the bizarre pedals I use, a clone of [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] fuzz oscillator. I'm assuming the high frequencies the pedal allows me to hit, on top of high volume and other effects, burnt out the speaker.

For the record, the head is fine, and I quadruple checked that the impedance was correct. The speakers were original from the 80s and I heard one rattling around last week but didn't think much of it. I just wanted to post here to ask if there's anything I can do to prevent this from happening in the future. I'd rather not take my pedal out of my lineup because it makes some incredible noises and is part of my "signature" sound haha. But I'd also like to not blow everything up whenever we play out. Any advice or similar stories are appreciated. Thanks!
 
#8
Is the cracked one just cracked or burnt up also? If just cracked you can patch it. It's quite unlikely that 100w is too much for those cabs - even with your pedal. If it's just the one burned up Id recone it and not worry. If they were all burned up it could mean the amp went DC on you - but sounds like not the case.
 
#9
Wow. That's a pretty good job.

You're probably right that it was one of your pedals, or a combination. Although I don't believe it was by fault of some malfunction. Loads of pedals, especially distortion related tend to send a higher average power to your speakers, therefore getting them hotter. By the first time you got smoke, they were done. Applying more power by way of a second head only did the job more completely.
 
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#10
RoadRanger said:
Is the cracked one just cracked or burnt up also? If just cracked you can patch it. It's quite unlikely that 100w is too much for those cabs - even with your pedal. If it's just the one burned up Id recone it and not worry. If they were all burned up it could mean the amp went DC on you - but sounds like not the case.
Click to expand...
One was burnt through (pictured above), the other has a hairline crack with a small hole, and the remaining two are totally undamaged.
 
#11
I'm more so interested in preventing this from happening again or learning from what I did wrong rather than the actual patching of the speakers. Speakers are speakers, I know I'll have to replace them now or eventually. :)
 
#12
I have never heard of a pedal burning up a speaker. Ever.

Now, your 100w head pushing two cabs that are clearly designed for more power... and I know those old Sunn heads (I had a concert bass head when I was a kid) - I suspect something wrong with the head that spiked your cabs. Those old amps depend on very large, very wet capacitors that, unless you have replaced them at some point, might have dried out... I'd be VERY careful about using that head with any other speaker until I had a tech check it out.
 
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#13
Sweet! That'll be a great story one day.

I broke one in half once. Got called last minute to fill in with a band. They had a Peavey head and one of their cabs that had a 15 and two 8s in it. They kept telling me to turn up. I told them that I thought I was pushing their rig as it was. They got upset about it. I told them that if one of them wanted to turn it up they could but I wasn't touching it.

Sure enough, one of them cranked up the volume. I hit a low E and the top half of one of the 8s fell back into the cab. I thought that was awesome! Nobody else on stage was as impressed or fascinated as I was.
 
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#14
SanDiegoHarry said:
I have never heard of a pedal burning up a speaker. Ever.

Now, your 100w head pushing two cabs that are clearly designed for more power... and I know those old Sunn heads (I had a concert bass head when I was a kid) - I suspect something wrong with the head that spiked your cabs. Those old amps depend on very large, very wet capacitors that, unless you have replaced them at some point, might have dried out... I'd be VERY careful about using that head with any other speaker until I had a tech check it out.
Click to expand...

Big, big +1 to that suggestion.
 
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#16
Bugeyed Earl said:
Could it be that the pedal is generating some extra low (maybe even inaudible) freq that sent the soeakers into flambe mode?
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that the the only stuff that reaches the speakers is the stuff the amp's preamp & poweramp send to it; You can send insane stuff to the amp but the amp will not reproduce that which is outside its range. My point being that while its possible to push harmful freqs to a speaker, it's just not all that likely unless something is sideways with the amp, or the speakers are marginal to begin with.
 
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