Karaoke Forums

 I was doing a karaoke gig last night and we had my Peavey speakers thumpin' to a dance song and someone came up to me and told me my speakers were glowing inside.  Freaked me out!!!  Started messing with the mixer and it finally stopped when I turned the "Hi" down.  Anybody know anything about this?

It's just a protection circuit to protect the high frequency driver.  It will illuminate to draw some of the power away from the driver - kind of like a pre-clip light!

http://peavey.com/products/browse.cfm/a ... ircuit.cfm

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Yep.

Actually it is a regular automotive tail light bulb, a standard 1187 or is it 1157?...Anyway, it is designed to limit the power going to your horns so you don't blow the horn diaphrams....The bulb acts like a resister to limit power then will actually blow if you fail to do so....

You should keep a couple of them as spares in your gig bag along with a screwdriver cause if they blow, you will lose sound from that cab....All you do is remove the screws that hold in the jack plate on the back of the cab and pull out the whole crossover then pop in a new bulb. Roadhouse bands have been known to steal one from a car in the parking lot to keep the show going.

If you are using the built in passive crossovers and see the light glowing inside the speaker, then you are clipping your amp due to too much mid and bass boost. When running full range off one amp thru the passive crossovers, it is easy to blow your horns when the amp clips, so take care cause lots of times the light bulbs won't save you.

Trust me, most of the time the horns will fail first if you clip your amps...They just can't handle the power. You should now inspect the horn diaphrams cause you might have damaged tham....They are easy to inspect and replace.

Best way to go is to use a external active crossover and separate amps for the horns and woofers along with a 31 band EQ.

Good show guys I never knew that. But what technology a tail light bulb in the crossover, glad I never bought any Peavey equipment.

The light bulb is not in the actual signal chain so it adds no distortion.

The "tech" has been around for about as long as you have been alive and has saved thousands of horn diaphrams and allowed the show to continue..

You could benifit from something similar as some of your comments clip also.

It's incorporated in MANY speaker manufacturers as well including JBL, McCauley, Turbo Sound, EV just to name a few.  And it isn't actually a part of the crossover, it is a side circuit that absorbs excess voltage from the high frequency driver causing the light to light - relieving the excess from the driver itself.

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Thanks for the info and link Lonman.  Kinda makes me glad I went with Peavey speakers.  Since I havent noticed or seen it before, that must be a good thing, eh?  

The only strange speaker problem I had was every now and then I heard a slight rattle or vibration.  You can't hear it in the music, only from behind the speaker.  Drove me crazy till i found it was simply a couple of screws had vibrated loose and had to be tightened.  Anyone else find this, or is this 'normal' to check and tighten 'em up?

Thanks for all the help guys.  I played a gig last night and everything was ok, so I'm assuming that after some minor adjustments on my amp, everything is ok.