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Well - my speakers caught fire.

#44
Hopkins said:
This is the only time I have seen an example of a speaker hitting its thermal limit before farting out because of excursion (I assume that is what happened).
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As Alex Claber explained a couple times here, while large excursion due to the lowest harmonics is potentially dangerous to the drivers because it can eventually lead to mechanical failure (depending on the driver's xmax and its behaviour in the specific enclosure), it's actually helpful as to thermal conditions because it forces the voice coil (and air) back-er and forth-er in the magnetic gap, helping cooling of said coil and magnet.
Now, the distortion pedal the OP was using doesn't have a blend feature, so the lower harmonic component of the signal is reduced relative to the overall spectrum.
Am I making sense at all? Don't ask me, parrots don't self-proof-read.
 
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#49
keanu_woah.jpg
 
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#53
dincz said:
I read this as sarcasm. Am I being too kind?
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Me too...
I started laughing, was even a little jealous for not posting it first myself and then I saw the, "care to explain?"

Anyway, to the OP, you need to keep that driver. Maybe hang it on your wall or something.

I once plugged my old Mackie 1200 into the speakers from an Aiwa Stereo and dimed the volume on some P-Funk... took about 5 minutes for smoke to develop. I backed off before flames as I didn't want to ruin the amp... needless to say, I was intent on ruining the Aiwa speakers. ;)
 
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#54
two fingers said:
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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This one had me busting a gut! I can picture it plain as day like a scene out of some slapstick comedy.
 
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#56
My study of electrical engineering alchemy tells me the MAJIC smoke that made it work escaped! If you had of said the proper words before playing that wouldn't have happened. Majic words like "turn down the volume" or "turn down the bass eq" have often worked. After you put some good speakers in the cab, with the proper words said, it shouldn't happen again. Although I may just would check that amp out too.
I have to wonder, as a conclusion from this, if perhaps the majic smoke encapsulation in your 10's had served its time and just worn thin.
 
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#57
higain617 said:
A distortion pedal alone won't damage the speakers. It could have been a factor if the preamp was clipping. I used to have a Goliath II with PAS drivers, and two were afflicted with sagging cones.
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IME a distortion pedal or overloaded preamp may overwhelm any warnings respectively overload information a loudspeaker can provide.
It's hard to detect some THD (loudspeaker) if a sound is strongly diminated by THD (pedal and/or preamp).
 
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#58
Gravedigger Dav said:
Before I plugged that head into any cab I would have it checked out. I have only seen anything close to this before. Had a power section blow and it put B+ across the voice coils. Since you were still getting sound, I doubt it is that much voltage, but it is suspicious that they got that hot and caused a fire.
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I have seen amps blow in a way that half the output was shorted and half was still working (or other weirder power stage failures). You can see a DC voltage AND signal, so it would make sound and fry the speaker at the same time. It's unusual, but it can happen. :(
 
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#59
In these days where turned off sounds are more common then in the past, unless I checked a used cab loudspeakers with some measurements I would NEVER buy a used cab.
Even if the cab does not show artifacts with clean sounds does not mean the VC is in fine condition.
 

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