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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | Instead of hijacking another thread I thought I'd move this discussion over here...
Northcountry: You mentioned that you upgraded your Peavey Ecoustic 112 by replacing the Blue Marvel speaker with a different speaker plus a tweeter. Did you have to build a crossover circuit between the two new components? and was the new 12" speaker an extended range speaker?
Anyone else care to chime in about how they've done this also, or have a good link like "Upgrading your Speakers for Dummies"?
I think I'd like to do the same thing to two other identical amps. If I do, I'd want to get some really good speakers to make it worthwhile, but don't know where to research which type of speakers would be best for this application. I also need to know whether I would need to build a crossover circuit, and whether it would need to be active or non-active? |
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Location: NJ | if you need another ecoustic let me know |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | I already have one that's working fine and donated one that was used once as a bass amp and is isn't working right now. So ... I'm thinking that I can repair the one with the same type speaker OR look at upgrading the speakers in both. I have been ok with the performance of mine, but if I can get a little more umph out of it by upgrading the speaker/s, that sounds like a fairly inexpensive option. |
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| Vince,your right this might be of some interest to everyone.
There are a lot of nice acoustic guitar amps out there now. So far I have found the coolest sounding are "OK" if you are doing a quiet solo act in a restaurant setting or want to sound good in any small gathering. But even in a small bar the crowd can get kind of loud and you have to be heard over the noise. As you trun up the sound gets less and less like what you want.... I have also noticed I have yet to find an acaoutic amp that delivered a decent low end sound, similiar to a small PA system with 15's.
I found the Ecoustic Peavey 112 about the best for the price range and it worked for some time for me like it was. Foolishly I pushed it real hard with a band that I hooked up with for a while (as they were doing a couple of YES tunes and I could not resist). Might have been the only band in the world that played Starship trooper and Mustang Sally in the same set. ! ya can't make that up.......I digress.........Not being instrument mic'd to the board I cranked the 125 watts this amp has to its max and must have done some damage as it soon developed a buzz.
The Coax speaker peavey uses has the crossover built in, There are seperate wires that run to the main speaker and to the center section for the tweeter. All I needed to do was find a 12" speaker that was rated for slightly more than the 100+ watts? this thing has and then to find something that had good number ratings across the board but (FOR ME) I wanted a little more low end than what it had. I found that the Eminence "Swamp Thing" 12" speaker looked good, (Hate the name but you'll love the sound) it had the correct Ohm rating and fit like a glove. Then I searched Ebay for a good tweeter speaker. The Amp produced 25+ watts for this.....So I found a 4" speaker with a 1" driver (I think that is correct? I do not reatain these things) and it had the correct Ohm rating and it was a 40 watt RMS speaker with a good solid metal sealed frame so I bought it and cut out the upper left corner and mounted it and hooked up the wires. You need to get Positive and Negative hooked correctly so mark the wires as they come off the old speaker first. After that you turn it on and stand back.
I have a real nice Custom Baritone Al brokered for me and when I use it now, the low end I get from this amp is like a transportable PA system for me. The fact that this amp has an imput for another guitar is great. I use a Zoom pedal with my 12 string and get just the sounds I want through the other channel and you can also run a Mic in this with it's own effects. I only use the Ecoustic for the guitars now on stage. I can channel through different sounds quick with the three way foot switch and this amp is way better sounding than any of the Fender, Marshal, Crate, Behringer or various other acoustic amps I have been able to compare it to in stage side by side.
If you want super clear crisp with little or no noise you might want the Trace or other more expensive amps that are out there. For me unless I am in a recording environment or very intimate space the Peavey is a real work horse and the small amount of hiss I get is not noticed. If I did not abuse it like I did I would not have found out how much better this is now with new speakers.
Do some research, I am sure there are guy's in here who know more about what I did than I do. You might find better speakers. I think this thing is 8 OHM's but don't quote me.
Hope that helped
Randy |
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Location: NW Washington State | EDIT: I see that I let this sit around too long, Northcountry had already responded.
Based on the manuals from the Peavey site, it looks like older models had a a single 100 watt amp, but newer ones have 100/25 watt bi-amp setup. The single amp would require a passive crossover for the tweeter. There must be one there; it could be attached to the back of the speaker. I'm assuming it's not a piezo tweeter which doesn't require a crossover. The bi-amp system would have an active crossover built in, before the two power amps. So you might not need additional components, just a new speaker or two. Looks like the original has the tweeter mounted coaxial in the center of the woofer, like a car speaker. You could use a 12" PA woofer and a separate tweeter if you're willing to take the amp apart and make a hole in the baffle for the tweeter. Maybe that's what Northcountry did.
-Steve W. |
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| Ohh almost forgot.....(I really only learn this shit for what I am doing then I dump it and go on)
I wondered about a sound hole with this newer speaker set up, as this is basically a sealed back system. When I mounted the speaker I used some standard size 1/4" washers and put just one behind each mounting screw hole this left a very small space for air to move easier but it seems as though I lost no low end from this. Not sure if this is correct or even a normal process but it worked great. (got this idea from one of the members of this forum! Smart people in here)
Experiment. its fun.... For less than $100 I got my amp roaring again instead of selling it for peanuts as an "amp with a probelm" |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | Looks like the original has the tweeter mounted coaxial in the center of the woofer, like a car speaker. ...
That's probably what blew on both his bad amp and the bad one I'm dealing with. That would explain the buzzing at certain frequencies. |
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| Yep, like I said the Speaker Peavey went with is the weak point. Built in crossover made this swap easy to do..... Experiment Vince, but take my advise on the better low end, you'll love it with the acoustics. Let me know how you did.
Randy |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | OK. I'm going to give a call to US Speaker and Loudspeakers Plus and give them all the configuration data, then I'll see which speaker configurations they recommend for the amp for maximum power and clarity in an acoustic application. |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | ... Here was the recommendation:
The only true acoustic-designed speakers they recommended at 12" was the Eminence N2012 Acoustinator (Freq. Range: 40 Hz- 3.5 kHz, sensitivity-94.7, Pwr rating-150W). The acoustically-designed speakers are supposed to have more sensitivity through the frequency ranges and have a softer/rubber mounting ring to produce better bass. The original Blue Marvel speakers are actually 4 Ohm speakers. The Swamp Things(TM) are 8 Ohm speakers, so they actually reduce the power output down to about 70 watts. The Acoustinator is also an 8 Ohm speaker, so the same would hold true, but the plus side is that you could also tie into another speaker cab for more volume if needed. TWEETERS: The one they recommended was the Motorola/CTS Powerline Piezo. They require no crossover because they have a very well-designed internal protection circuit. They can handle up to 200 watts RMS/400 watts maximum, with a frequency response of 1.8 khz - 30 khz.
This combination ends up costing a little more ($90/$33), but it looks as though the end result would be a very nicely upgraded acoustic sound.
(Time to start putting away my spare change) |
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| Just so you know. The 12" Blue Marvel series speakers are made in 4 ohm, 8 ohm, and 16 ohm ratings.......... So you information could be correct or wrong depending on how hard they researched the Blue Marvel Speakers that came out of an Ecoustic 112.
I am looking for my schematics and my paperwork as I am almost sure this amp is rated at 8 Ohms. Not to say I could not be wrong here. This was supposed to be a message to help people..... If I did something wrong I sure will now feel foolish for sharing this. Does anyone else know these Amps at all?
Sure would not want anyone to buy the wrong speakers. Jes Vince did not expect that news.
Randy |
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| Found it, OK I think I said somewhere that I just do not keep this crap in my head after I learn what I need to know. I was wrong about the Speaker I put in. The Amp is rated at 4 Ohms the Speaker I bought was a "Texas Heat" 4 Ohm speaker. Check the specs yourself on that one. Best numbers I could finds on any speaker in the 4 Ohm 12" and 120-150 watt range with a real nice low end response.
My mistake.....the other swamp thing speaker must have gone into some other project I did at one time or another. |
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Location: NW Washington State | If your amp is a single 100W output and has a passive crossover, you'll have to figure out the best way to connect the piezo. Typically piezos are used without a crossover. If there's a passive crossover inside the amp, the piezo might not work as intended. If the crossover is on/in the original speaker (and you remove the speaker), then you won't have to worry about it.
If the amp is 100W/25W biamped with an active crossover, the piezo by itself might not be a good load for the high frequency amp.
Maybe only the tweeter part of the Blue Marvel is blown. You could try a piezo or other tweeter along with the woofer section of the original speaker. If it didn't work out then you'd install a new woofer.
-Steve W. |
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| Good Point, but when you see the difference in the numbers and you hear the difference in the amp after repacing the coaxial speaker (personally my feelings are the coaxials are not the best for bass sound or longevity, their basic design alone has an opening in the center section and this can't be very good for sound transmission compared with a dedicated low end speaker) The new 12" speaker is worth the money......Now I do not remember the name of the tweeter I installed but it has an 1 1/2" cone and is was a powerful 4 ohm.... 40 watt rms rating and is very responsive and the high end is very clear now compared to the way it was before the buzzing.
I loaded a photo to the Ning Site. Still do not know how to grab it and bring it over hear but Vince take a look anyway.
Randy |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | OK ... Will do. I will DEFINITELY make sure I have done all my homework before modifying the amp. Since mine is currently working correctly, I will probably donate my good speaker toward reparing the bad one. That way at least SOMEBODY is saving some money (:
I do have quite a bit of electronics training from the military as an aviation precision measurement equipment specialist (PMEL/Calibration Tech). I haven't used that part of my brain for over 10 years and it's probably in the archives, but I should be able to revive and retrieve it. |
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| BTW, the Texas Heat Speaker was $69 free shipping and I think I paid around $20 for the tweeter.
Sorry about the memory loss on the speaker. No harm done, I was scared that I did this wrong for a while. Take your time looking for the right speakers but what you've already found may be a better upgrade than what I've done for mine.
As for saving money, fixing the amp yourself is saving money. You can't sell the broken one for $50 if it's not working right. For under $100 you'll have a monster amp....I swear....and the Church gets theirs fixed for a lot less than a trip to the shop or the price of a new coaxial
Randy
They're Running a Boston Legal marathon. My God...!! that has to be about the best series they ever made, Shatner is "brilliant" and who would have ever figured on James Spader Candice Bergan and William Shatner working so well together. Funny Funny scripts and excellent actors relaxed and at their best. |
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Location: NW Washington State | bvince, can I send you my motley collection of test equipment for calibration? :)
If one of the amps is bad and seems to have a blown speaker, you might want to start troubleshooting by connecting any old cheap speaker to it. I know this is a good idea because I've blown up a perfectly good speaker by connecting it to a malfunctioning amp with DC on the output.
-Steve W. |
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Posts: 3619
Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | After ten years, you may want to rethink sending it to ME.
I can also check the output to the speaker on the good one and compare it to the bad one. I've already downloaded the scematics for the amp from Peavey. |
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| Always good to check things before proceeeding. Again I did back then. OK... Eminence 150 watt "Texas Heat" 12" speaker you can still buy all over for $69.99 also has a soft mount ring on the one I have. Excellent sound (first hand) compared to the Blue Marvel....
Here's the tweeter I chose, they still have them they are rated at 50 watts so the 25 watt amp will drive this very nicely without so much risk of damage.
http://cgi.ebay.com/4-ohm-Tweeter-for-DLK-1-1-2-Vintage-Speaker-NEW...
Would not have bothered to post about this again as it has been covered quite well now but I found the tweeter and thought it might help if someone else is doing this as well to see what I found that worked well for a good price.
My set up cost around $90 and free shipping back when I did it. A good deal. |
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Upgrading Amp Speakers ...
