Speaker Cab Burning Smell

[Guitarfreak]

Lately when I turn my amp up to or past the point of speaker distortion the cab begins to smell like it is burning. Not like something left in the oven for too long, but it certainly is a smell that you aren't expecting to come from your cab. It is reminiscent to a doctor's office smell, like that sterile smell mixed with rubber.

Basically, is this normal for such a high volume or can the speakers just not handle it (they are rather poor quality).

[garww]

That used to be common for me. Carboned voice coils ?? Sometime, you can feel/hear the scratching by moving the coil by hand.

Even lesser speakers can handle clean watts beyond the rating sometimes. But, I did this a lot with my Twin Reverb. Anyway, that's a normal fix for drivers sent in for re-coning.

It's also possible there might be electronics in the cab that are melting. Most guitar amps are designed to operate at clip levels, but maybe it is now outputing a signal that will fry voice coils( not a clean signal).

[newkid]

Originally Posted by Guitarfreak

Lately when I turn my amp up to or past the point of speaker distortion the cab begins to smell like it is burning. Not like something left in the oven for too long, but it certainly is a smell that you aren't expecting to come from your cab. It is reminiscent to a doctor's office smell, like that sterile smell mixed with rubber.

Basically, is this normal for such a high volume or can the speakers just not handle it (they are rather poor quality).

Well the speakers can't handle that indefinitely.

Normal?
No not normal, as in designed to do that.
Normal as in what happens when you overdrive them , yes.
You are going to destroy your speakers.

Expected , yes. Natural result, yes.
Abuse the speakers with more power than they can handle and they will smell like that. Continue doing that and they stop working completely.

Abuse them with clipped distorted and compressed sound and they will start smoking at less than rated power which assumes RMS voltages over a wide frequency band not near maximum peak volts at most frequencies.

If you want louder then buy more bigger speakers and run them from an even bigger amp that can drive them to the max without clipping or distortion. And avoid doing that earlier in the chain too. And don't overdrive them !!

Check out some of the manufacturer sites on how to damage speakers. They explain all this in great detail. Some live sound reinforcement sites have articles on this too.

[Guitarfreak]

Hmm, so you think they can't handle the wattage load? I wasn't expecting that. My amp is only 80w at 8 Ohms and the cab has 4 speakers. The individual speakers would have to be pretty damn low wattage to not be able to handle that load don't you think? I am running the clean channel on the amp and raising the volume until it starts to breakup on the louder picked notes and then goose the amp with an overdrive. That's gotta be pretty standard right?

Both of you think that with prolonged use in this manner that the speakers will crap out right? I thought that speaker distortion was a good thing and desirable in most instances as long as they can handle the load and wattage? I don't know, I've got to do some more research I guess.

[garww]

I never worried about it too much with guitar - stereo speakers, yes. For guitar, I wasn't going to give up the Utah sound. I just kept replacement Allied Electronic(Utah) versions on hand and sent them off to be re-coned as they fried.

[garww]

Ya, you are probably over driving the amp. The speakers don't have a chance.

[Guitarfreak]

I can't find any info on the speakers. SLM Electronics ten inch drivers. The only thing that I gathered was the thought that maybe, just maybe, these are bass speakers lol. I couldn't find specs of any kind.

[garww]

Look at it this way. You crank clean, but what you are hearing is the AMP clipping - not the speakers. You have to stay away from the clipping. You ears will be able to tell the difference. Also, you have to be careful about the frequencies when you get into cranked territory. Yes, it's possible that the speakers are the weak link, but it's also probable that the amp is clipping.

[Guitarfreak]

hmm, interesting thought. How would I know the difference between the amp clipping and the speakers clipping. The amp isn't up that high, it's only at or a little past half total output potential so why would they design it like that if it would fry any speakers after that point? That is pretty unusable if you ask me.

[garww]

unusable ? did you spend usable or unusable dollars on it ?? The volume knob is only relative to the level of the signal coming in. But, I would be suspicious as you are.

Amps have electronic distortion, speakers have mechanical distortion.

Loudness is a doubling of amp power. If you are cruising along at a comfortable 50w and punch in a pedal that adds 3db to your input signal, you are then asking the amp to deliver 100w.