One Way To Damage a Good Speaker

syscokid

syscokid

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Earlier today as I was continuing my recent obsession of reworking the guts of my old JCM800 combo, I managed to severely damage one of the two Scumback speakers of the 2x12 combo cab.

Since the chassis, which is on my work table, is about 6 feet from the cab, I've been using a 10' extension speaker cable to connect each other. As I was repositioning the cab, the speaker cable got caught underneath another amp, and it was enough force to rip the speaker's leads between the terminal strip for the speaker cable and the speaker's cone completely off:
IMG_2223.JPG

I immediately contacted Jim Seavall, owner of Scumback Speakers, and after considering roundtrip shipping and cost of repair which involves reconing, the whole repair bill would cost just a few dollars shy of a new Scumback speaker.

Besides the fact that I should have paid more attention to where the extension speaker cable was, there are at least two things I could have done differently to avoid the damage:
1: I could have installed a cable clamp to secure the speaker cable to the cabinet.
2: Eight years ago... I should have never soldered the speaker's terminal lugs to the female lugs of the speaker cable's wire ends... :BH:

An expensive lesson indeed... :rolleyes2:
 
Sorry brother. I assume reconing is now a viable DIY project. I have destroyed a few pickups, guitar finishes, many pots, a transformer, and other "stuff" along the way. It is the hazard of having the guts to DIY and being human. Don't sweat it too much, something was bound to happen. Did you really think fate would let you keep churning out all that impeccable amp work without a twist somewhere along the way?
 
Anybody remember Gauss speakers? Even harder to blow than EVMs. They came stock in some of the Cerwin-Vega cabs for awhile.

Anyway, in '79 or '80 my band was looking to upgrade the four 18"s in our subwoofers. The soundman, the bass player and I went to a high end NYC studio/audio place downtown and they were selling Gauss as their preferred brand. Somebody asked how easily they could be blown, would they hold up under stress on the road?

The salesman took their house demo speaker, clipped the leads to the stripped ends of a household extension cord, and PLUGGED IT INTO A WALL OUTLET.

He let it roar that way at 60 cycles - I don't even know how many Watts that must've been equivalent to - then after an impossibly long loud minute he unplugged the AC cord, calmly hooked the speaker up to their demo amps again and went back to playing music through it. It didn't smoke, didn't even get hot. Incredible.

We bought four of them, and less than a year later we went back for five more when we expanded our system with eight new cabinets. One was a spare but I don't think it ever was used. At least not while I was with the band.

The cabs were huge bass reflex subwoofers with a reverse-firing 18" in each, maybe two feet high, at least six feet deep, and probably eight feet wide. Absolutely thunderous. In clubs with low ceilings or stages that weren't deep enough, the crew would stack the subs two high across the front of the stage. The outer pairs had the PA stacks on them and the middle two became stage extensions to hold our floor monitors and step out onto for dramatic solos.

I have no idea where those speakers are today but it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn they were still cranking it out.
 
Sorry to learn of this Greg, but I like Rays idea.
Buy the materials or a rebuild kit from Scumback and learn yerself some reconing.
With your skills and attention to detail, you'd be a natural for it.
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Materials & shipping would probably be in the $50 range.
Once you see how easy it is, you'll be reconing speakers for everyone in your area code.
 
SkyMonkey said:
On the bright side, we will all be coming to you for advice on how to repair the speaker connections once you have fixed it yourself (as I'm sure you will).
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Good attitude! Thanks... :cheers:


RVA said:
I assume reconing is now a viable DIY project.
Click to expand...
Hackmaster said:
Sorry to learn of this Greg, but I like Rays idea.
Buy the materials or a rebuild kit from Scumback and learn yerself some reconing.
With your skills and attention to detail, you'd be a natural for it.
Materials & shipping would probably be in the $50 range.
Once you see how easy it is, you'll be reconing speakers for everyone in your area code.
Click to expand...
I'll be researching some options. First, I'm going to look if there's anybody locally that can repair and recone speakers properly. I'll also try to seek more advise from Jim Seavall about DIY. And of course there's that beautiful world called the internet... :alien:! Well, here we go...

But before I posted this thread, l have already ordered a new Scumback speaker. Jim Seavall informed me that he had a couple speakers in my particular model, ready-to-go. Part of Scumback's service is to break in all of their speakers for 24 hours. And sure enough, a couple hours later after I placed the order, I got an email from FedEx on tracking and shipping. How's that for customer service?
 
Here's the "best" way to damage a good speaker:

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Hey those big magnets come in handy around the house so its not a total loss.
:bash:

You are not alone.
You have never been alone.....
That jarring feeling of realization the moment you understand what just happened really SUCKS!

I hate when I do things like that. Damn hindsight is always sooo obvious too.

"I should have seen that coming......."
but noooo.gif



I need an emoji that shows the dude hitting HIMSELF with the hammer.
Rock on.
 
Son of a bitch!!! I officially placed the order for a new Scumback speaker yesterday at 1:30 PM. It arrived today at 12:30 PM...

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jtcnj said:
That jarring feeling of realization the moment you understand what just happened really SUCKS!
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Yeah... I think I just stood there, staring at the torn-off leads for about 15 seconds. Then realized I wasn't breathing... :sick:
 
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