P.A. Mains are super raspy and "razory" sounding!

[TNJ]

Played a gig last nite with the funk fusion band.
Nice evening, partially ruined however by a P.A. problem.
I have a pair of EV Eliminator 15" mains with woofer and horn.
They have more than done the job for the past 2 years I've owned them.
Until last nite.
We started off o.k., and then our vocals went to complete sh*t.
If the vocals were very soft, they sounded o.k., but with any kind of vocal effort, this harsh raspiness kicked in, totally ruining the sound.
We fought it off and on all night.
This morning I fired up the speakers through my powered Mackie 808 mixer.
Same result, only worse today.
What's going on here? Crossover? Horn blown? Speaker blown?
Plus...where in northern Indiana am I going to get this repaired...or will cost enough that I can just get another pair of mains (Mackie, JBL, etc.)?

Thanks,
S.
j

[John Phillips]

Are both cabs doing it when used independently? If so it's an amp issue.

If not, it sounds like you might have a blown driver (shorted rather than open-circuit) or crossover part, which could be loading the amp so heavily it's making it distort (very bad for the amp BTW). That could make both sides sound dirty even if only one has the problem.

Replacing the blown driver or part is certain to be cheaper than buying new cabs.

[TNJ]

Thanks John,
I'm hoping it's the crossover, as it is going on with both sides, and other speakers plugged into the same system work fine.

Will let you know...

S.
j

[TNJ]

Well,
Turns out both speakers were blown. They are the EV NeoDymium 15's.
What do you all think would be a powerful replacement for these?

Thanks,
S.
j

[dave s]

Well,
Turns out both speakers were blown. They are the EV NeoDymium 15's.
What do you all think would be a powerful replacement for these?

Thanks,
S.
j

TNJ:

I looked at your speakers on EV site. Think they are the right ones. In any event, specs say it's loaded with a 500w handling 15" and a 100w rated 2" horn.

It's important to understand exactly what led to the 15" meltdown in both cabs. My first guess would be underpowering the cabs and overworking them in a live setting. This is the quickest way to damage a pretty high-end PA cab in the working environment.

That said, you should be feeding each cab a minimum of about 900w RMS. The rule of thumb is 1.5 to 2.0 times the cab RMS rating is required for safely powering main cabinets.

So what happened to your EV cabs?

dave

[TNJ]

Thanks for the info, Dave.
I still have the cabs...our P.A. tech has them and is awaiting our decision on what speakers to replace the 15's with.
I have a Mackie 808S powered mixer, that should do the job...1200 watts at two ohms. 900watts at 4 ohms.
I'm thinking of just putting in two more of the 15 Neo's as it originally had, and just use the speakers with the Mackie. We had used them before with power/board that our tech brought, and I dont know those specs.
I will pass this info along to the tech.
Any thought on the speak on connectors vs. regular 1/4" jacks?
Our tech seems to think the speak on are better.
S.
j

[dave s]

Thanks for the info, Dave.
Any thought on the speak on connectors vs. regular 1/4" jacks?
Our tech seems to think the speak on are better.
S.
j

Speak-ons are supposed to achieve a better connection. Safer and longer lasting before any breakdown as well.

I'd be most concerned about matching enough power to the exact and known RMS rating of your speakers. Properly powered, a quality speaker like your EVs should last pretty much forever!

For example, a former band used JBL SR series mains for about 8 years playing 75 gigs a year. They were adequately powered with Crown power amps, played small, medium and large gigs both indoors and out and took no special care of the speakers. We had two 15/2" horn cabs per side and 4 18" subs per side.

In the 8 years we owned them we replaced on crossover network in a 15/horn box once. Again, properly powered and run wisely, most good PA cabs will last a really long time without failure.

Something definitely happened for both of your 15s to go at the same time. My guess is that possibly 1/2 of the power in your Mackie mixer might have gone leaving not nearly enough to carry what you were putting through the speakers at the time.

If you're micing drums or keyboards, (keys put out serious low-end!) having at least 1.5x the RMS rating of the cabs is paramount. Your PA tech will know all this stuff.

Good luck and as you mentioned, I'd put the same speakers in that EV specs for the box. PA gear is engineered pretty well. Especially the EV stuff.

dave

[John Phillips]

TNJ:

It's important to understand exactly what led to the 15" meltdown in both cabs. My first guess would be underpowering the cabs and overworking them in a live setting.

Something definitely happened for both of your 15s to go at the same time. My guess is that possibly 1/2 of the power in your Mackie mixer might have gone leaving not nearly enough to carry what you were putting through the speakers at the time.
I totally agree - it's extremely important to try to identify the cause of failure before replacing the drivers. They didn't just blow by themselves if both went within the space of one gig - the chances of that are so remote you can discount it. It's a near certainty that it was caused in some way by the amp.

The possibilities are as dave said - underpowering leading to distortion, or an amp fault. Even with underpowering, it's not a certainty that both drivers would blow unless it was very severe, and I'd maybe expect the tweeters to fail first (or as well).

It's possible that the amp could have developed a DC-output fault, which would certainly cook both the bass drivers without affecting the tweeters (because the crossover will block it getting to them), and would probably sound like what you described - harsh half-wave distortion at anything above extremely low volume. To affect both channels at the same time, it would have to be in the common power supply, but this is definitely possible. Have the amp checked out by someone you trust to go through it thoroughly and look for a (probably intermittent from your description of the initial trouble) fault in the main positive or negative supply rail for the power section. If there is one and you just replace the drivers, you'll toast the new ones the next time it happens.