E120 Blues

[ccw3432]

I'm having an issue with one of my E120s. They are mounted in a 2x12 cabinet. When I hit notes almost exclusively on the B string above the 12th fret I get a little buzz out of one of the speakers. There are no problems anywhere else on the neck. I thought it may be my guitar so I checked for buzzing when playing it acoustically and there was none. I then pulled each speaker out of the cab and tried them individually. One speaker worked great and the other produced that buzz. I then pulled the problem speaker out of the cab and tried it again and heard the buzz when it's not mounted, therefore I know the cab is not the issue.

So then with the speaker outside of the cab I placed it on the carpet dustcap side facing up and tried it. No buzz. Dustcap side facing down=Buzz. Horizontal=Buzz. Back in cabinet with cabinet slightly slanted backward=buzz. I checked the speaker wire terminals, and made sure they were nice and tight and they look good. I made sure those little wires that run to the cone were free to move and they were. I shook the speaker and pushed and pulled on the magnet and can not get it to rattle, move, or make any noise. Does anybody have any idea what is going on with this speaker. Is the voice coil going out. It sound like something is possibly loose but everything seems really tight.

[mkaufman]

Are you sure it's the speaker that's buzzing? Could it be something else, such as a handle on the cabinet?

mk

[ccw3432]

Are you sure it's the speaker that's buzzing? Could it be something else, such as a handle on the cabinet?

mk

Ya it's coming from the speaker. When I pulled it out of the cabinet completely and hooked it up I still got the buzz.

[ccw3432]

Ok, so here's a soundclip of the buzz. It's not overly obnoxious, but you can definitely hear it. I'm mostly hearing it on the 15th fret of the B string. If you listen to the clip I annoyingly play that note a lot to show the sound. It gets worse with the qtron which I demonstarted as well.

I'll try a friends guitar in the rig tomorrow just to see if that could possibly be the problem. It does sound kind of like fret buzz, but what's throwing me is that it is only doing it in one speaker. When I isolate my other E120 it does just fine.

Maybe it's some sort of temporal distortion in the plasma inhibiter.

https://soundcloud.com/#ccw3432/ive-got-a-bee-in-my-speaker

[paulinnc]

I have a similar issue with my cab. I have Weber Californias in mine. I think mine is an issue with a screw that buzzes, I just try to avoid those notes.

[hippieguy1954]

Have you checked for voice coil/speaker rub? If not, try it. Very carefully useing your hand wide open, place your fingers on the cone, NOT THE DUST CAP,(evenly spread over the cone). Push in gently and release, so the cone moves in and out. There should be NO SOUND. If there is "speaker/voice coil rub", you will hear it rub. Make sure you are in a quiet room.
I'm not sure this is your problem, but "speaker rub" will cause what you are discribing. The only fix that I know of for "speaker rub" is recone.
Good luck and I hope it works out well!

[TI4-1009]

So then with the speaker outside of the cab I placed it on the carpet dustcap side facing up and tried it. No buzz. Dustcap side facing down=Buzz. Horizontal=Buzz. Back in cabinet with cabinet slightly slanted backward=buzz.

Did you lay the cabinet with speaker in flat on its back?

[Smolder]

I had a speaker (pair of EV's actually) that were making a jangling buzzing sound. Drove me crazy. I looked everywhere for a fix and finally put another pair of speakers in the 2x12. The noise was still there. Turned out to be a broken weld in the metal side handle. The EV's were fine.

[ccw3432]

Thanks for the resposnses guys. I still haven't figured it out, but here's the latest.

Have you checked for voice coil/speaker rub? If not, try it. Very carefully useing your hand wide open, place your fingers on the cone, NOT THE DUST CAP,(evenly spread over the cone). Push in gently and release, so the cone moves in and out. There should be NO SOUND. If there is "speaker/voice coil rub", you will hear it rub. Make sure you are in a quiet room.
I'm not sure this is your problem, but "speaker rub" will cause what you are discribing. The only fix that I know of for "speaker rub" is recone.
Good luck and I hope it works out well!

I just checked it for voice coil rub. I couldn't hear any. I got my ear right in the speaker thinking maybe it was just a very minor rub, but couldn't hear anything. It moved freely and quietly.

So then with the speaker outside of the cab I placed it on the carpet dustcap side facing up and tried it. No buzz. Dustcap side facing down=Buzz. Horizontal=Buzz. Back in cabinet with cabinet slightly slanted backward=buzz.

Did you lay the cabinet with speaker in flat on its back?

I just gave this a try and the speaker DOES buzz when the cab is on its back and the speaker is monted within. Since it didn't when it was out of the cab, I'm wondering if the little mesh screen could be buzzing. I did try touching the screen to see and it still buzzed. I need a second set of hands to do this right so I'll have a friend help me later to check it more. The back of the speaker was sittiing on the carpet when I tried it out of the cabinet yesterday and it did NOT buzz.

I had a speaker (pair of EV's actually) that were making a jangling buzzing sound. Drove me crazy. I looked everywhere for a fix and finally put another pair of speakers in the 2x12. The noise was still there. Turned out to be a broken weld in the metal side handle. The EV's were fine.

Ya it's been driving m crazy too. There's a lot of other notes on the neck, but I seem to really like the ones that are buzzing, or at least I'm more aware that I'm hitting them now.

[mijknahs]

I've had the same situation recently when doing some recording (I didn't notice the when playing live and its only on certain highter notes). We ended up just putting the mic on the other speaker which did not have any buzzing.

[Jerry1996x]

I had this problem a while ago. I eventuallly came to the conclusion that the speaker(s) was blown. Miraculously, one day it just stopped doing it....

[mijknahs]

Mabye there is some dirt or somthing that got in through the screen on the back that is causing it?

If it gets really bad or does it more that just at some frequencies then it might need to be reconed.

But I had one once that was buzzing quite a bit and turned out that the dust cap had a small break/crack (it was dented pretty bad) and OC Speaker just replaced the dust cap and it was perfect after that.

[ccw3432]

Well it's not the little screen rattling. Sometimes the buzz seems a little worse than other times. All I can figure is that it's on it's way to needing a recone.

We had practice tonight and I couldn't hear the buzz over the rest of the band. It's still there just not as apparent with other instruments playing. Probably no easy fix for this besides replacing the speaker or maybe a recone. If anyone comes up with any ideas down the line I'd love to hear them.

[Pete B.]

Have you tried rotating the speaker 180 degress and re-installing it?

[jerrys.kids]

^^Try this. I had the same buzz around the 14th fret on the b and high e strings. Spun the speaker and it seemed to help. Do you have a gasket on your speaker?