Karaoke Forums

need help from speaker experts, I have ran this system 3 night a week for more than 5 years,,,,
Mackie cfx12
bbe482
crown 2000
pair peavey sp2
pair jbl 1500
speakers wired in series
jbl on top of a peavey
have seperate amp to run monitor
I setup last night and I had a fuzzy sound it was terrible night sound was bad
I struggled to fix it but could'nt I got thru the night... today I unloaded this stuff and hooked it up, through a prossess of elimation I switched amp to amp determined the amp was not the problem, I have another cfx12 I switched them mixer ok, I had another bbe switched them bbe ok, unloaded all the speakers hooked them up, the horns in all the speakers (peavey and jbl) DO NOT WORK  and all the bottoms sound fuzzy, is it possible I blew all these speakers , or built in crossovers or ?
this really hurts, I do have another pair of jbl powered speakers, I can get through a couple of shows with them,,, any ideas I don't recall a power spike, I do play them loud, but I've been doing that for years, I'm baffled help me...... Ken

I guess if it were me, the first thing I would do would be use an ohm meter and determine if the drivers on the horns are blown. It seems unlikely they all went at once, perhaps you just didn't notice until all of them were gone. In any case, thats were I would start, if they test ok of course you need to turn your attention to the passives.

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Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

I forgot the 15's, if they are sounding fuzzy thats not a good sign obviously, It is possible you took everything out. I had that happen just once from a situation that I didn't catch in time. I lost the compression driver, crossover and the 12 in a monitor. I've never lost 4 speakers at once though, that sounds pretty odd. It would seem for that to happen the power amp would have had to malfunction, perhaps hitting the speakers with DC voltage. You did say your amps worked fine, right? I was able to repair the compression driver (solder a lead) and the crossover (replaced a resistor) but alas the 12 is now a doorstop. If the 15 is sounding fuzzy, there is probably damage to the voice coil.

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Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

I assume you have swapped out all the cables....

That would be the first thing i'd rule out as he is getting signal to the speakers to begin with & seeing he has no horns BUT has low end drivers - even though fuzzy - chances are the cables are fine.  If they were bad cables, he wouldn't be getting any signal at all or would be getting a 'fuzzy' signal in the high end as well as the low end.

I would also take out each driver of each cabinet & test them individually - you just hook them up to the amp with a low volume signal, making sure it either is or isn't the driver.  If they work while they are hooked up separately out of the cabinet, it isn't the driver & you need to look into the crossover of the cabinet at this point.  Possibly blew a capacitor - but seeing it's in all of your cabs, you may just push your volume too high & may need a more powerful amp to match the speakers properly - you didn't really specify which model Crown, they have a couple of '2000' series in different models that puch MUCh different wattage at different ohms.

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

Lonman the amp is a crown CE2000 (400 watts per side at 8ohms and 660 watts at 4ohns....assuming the peavey sp2's 15s are blown would I have to replace the speaker @about $139 or just the driver at about $60 is the voice coil part of the driver ? I don't know where to start on the JBL's 1500 passive, where do you get the parts, they may not be worth fixing they was $400 ea. new..I've used them for five years and made quiet a bit of money with them, and if the are dead I can write them off as a loss and also deduct the new purchase.I do intend to do as you suggested remove one at a time and check them,, I just have a feeling I'm in trouble
thanks agian for your help......by the way when I stacked the 8ohm JBL on top of the 8ohm Peavey sp2 don't I end up with 4ohms overall and would the 660 watts be under matched.....

Well Peavey are very power hungry, the SP2 (at least the current model) should have an amp that pushes about 1000 watts per channel into 8 ohms.
The JBL need about 500 watts into 8 ohms so the Crown is much suited better - a tad under powered, but not to the point it's not useable.

When you tie them together, you need your amps 4 ohm rating to push about 1500 watts per channel, however you really don't want to mismatch speakers like that.  If you HAD to set up 2 different sets makes/models - at the very least you'll want to put the same speakers tied together on the same channel ie both Peaveys on Channel 1, both JBL's on channel 2.  But being their 4 ohm program power ratings are completely different (the Peaveys would need 2000 watts at 4 ohms & the JBL's would need 1000 @ 4 ohms), that you really wouldn't benefit, you'd really need two separate amps to make it work properly.
Nice thing about the Peavey SP series are the field replaceable baskets for the large drivers & the compression driver replacement diaphram - these will run less than half the cost of new drivers.  
As for the JBL I know several that have replaced their JBL drivers with either Peavey or McAuley drivers.

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Although 660 per side isn't ideal, I seriously doubt you would run into trouble in a Karaoke situation. My question would be why are you running two full range cabinets per side, you are trying to reproduce the same frequencies from two different cabinets stacked on top of each other. I guess my concern would be a possible cancelling effect. Sometimes more isn't always better especially if your running two horns on the same side pointing in the same direction. I would think the SP2's would do nicely on their own, assuming they are one of the newer generations. I know Lonman runs some pretty good equipment and has done some big shows. Whats your thoughts on running two horns on the same side Lonnie?

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Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

The problem exist in underpowering a dc clipping. When you underpower a speaker your amp is more likly to clip. With extened clipping and dc voltage internal crossovers and voice coils will be shot in no time at all.

Another problem to the equation is that if you were to have a 1500 watt output and a 500 watt speaker and a 1000 watt speaker. Each speaker would get 750 watts causing the lower wattage speaker to eventually have problems.

Depends on the horns.  If they were the same cabs, then in an array pattern, there would be no problem.  Being they are different cabinets with completely different characteristics, then phase cancellation could occur if they are in close proximity.

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

Yep,

It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Not enuff amp and mismatched cabs.

Time to re-outfit the whole mess.

Start with speakers and determine which cabs and how many it will take to provide adequate sound pressure levels in largest venue you expect to play......Then amp them up correctly.

If you end up with 4 mains buy exact matchings cabs.

If you decide to stack the mains, then turn top cabs upside down so horns couple......If instead you stand tops next to each other, then place them up tight against each other using angled sides to set proper array coverage.

AND NEVER daisy chain speakers-instead, parallel them off amp binding posts.

If your amps are kinda skimpy on power, then bypass cab internal crossovers and run outboard active xover to regain lots of watts.

Thank you  all for all your help and advice....I've got to do something before Thur. nite, this is what I think I'll do, go to guitar center tomarrow and purchase a pair of peavey PV215,,run them with the crown amp..I run another amp about the same output, one side of it I use for singers monitor, so I'll also purchase 1   PV118 and use the other side of the other amp...this is a cheap fix to give me some breathing room to figure out what to do with all this broken stuff.....open to suggestions....

Why not buy good equipment from the start.

I may suggest powered speakers since you really don't know what you are doing.

The qsc stuff has a 6 year warrenty, ask your Guitasr Canter Rep about them. They will demo the spakers for you.

Are you a jerk in real life or do you just portray one here?  The equipment he has is MORE than sufficient for karaoke.  Not everyone needs a $10,000 speaker system like you are planning...I know that any speaker according to you should cost more than $1000 each otherwise they are crap.
As far as not knowing what he's doing, is WHY he is asking questions to learn.  I'm sure you never had any trial & error with equipment?  You just knew from the start what was good & knew how to run it all perfectly?
You rarely have anything nice to say about anyones suggestions or their equipment, why are you here?  Sure isn't for the knowledge you say you possess because slamming others is not teaching them.

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

Yep

One, I'm not suggesting a $10,000 Speaker System.

Total cost of what I would suggest is just under $2000. Why does everyone have issues with buying quality equipment? What i suggested will last SIX years!!!

Two, as far as equipment goes. I have always used quality equipment. I have bought a cheap piece here or there when needed, but I have always used mid to high end microphones, speakers and amplification. You get what you pay for.

I not a jerk I'm an educator, ahead of my time uniting the common man against sub-standard karaoke.

Only a few people here get heated against what I have to say and it's because they are cheap and use crap equipment.

while I agree with what your saying , you nead to learn a bit of tact! even tho you may know what your talking about you would never make it as a salesmen.you could easly teach people the right way without bashing them or there current equipment.

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the voices arent real, but they have some good ideas