Ever blow up a speaker... Just for the helluvit?

[apropos of nothing]

How? Why? Was it worth it?

[thunderboy]

Well, it wasn't exactly on purpose, but it was certainly inevitable.
1992, my band's last gig in our hometown before moving across the country. During some wanky distorto-freakout thing, my bass did something to my amp. It was the coolest sound I have ever caused to be made and I didn't mind the $200 price tag.
Glad I got it on tape!

jt

[fremitus]

absolutely, the first time was the 10" paper crapper in my peavey backstage plus at about 13. that's when i realized that this was the life for me...

less cool story:
once i was on tour with soundesign gear. they make these great composite carbon boxes for speakers, nice big stadium kind of jobbies, valued at about $2K each (or so i was told). i was rigging them up and swearing at the union guy that was helping me. i walked around front to see what his f#$ing problem was and watched the speaker that i let go of start rolling forward on the raked proscenium. i tried to catch it. nope... off the ten foot stage to the concrete below. bad day. very bad day...

[thunderboy]

Oh my God - repressed memory returning.

I was in high school, freshman year. I had just started playing bass. My friend and I were in the school auditorium setting up to jam out. The bass amp, a Sunn Beta Bass, was sitting on a 4' AV cart on the front of the stage. I may have bumped into it. One wheel went off the edge, and the rest followed in slow motion. Just like the movies.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

I think that amp is still in service, 20 years later.

jt

[Scodiddly]

I've blown up plenty of small drivers, either for fun or testing. Most recent was a pair of el-cheapo little stereo speakers. I was trying to test maximum microphone SPL with a 1kHz sine wave, and the cheapos were the only thing lying around. I got one test out of each, then gave up and went to my storage locker to find that old Altec horn driver, which is still working fine after that abuse. Over 130dB right at the horn mount...

[soundguy]

absolutely, the first time was the 10" paper crapper in my peavey backstage plus at about 13. that's when i realized that this was the life for me...

Im really starting to think that there is a club of us who have destroyed peavey backstage plus amplifiers. that was the first amp I ever smashed, the first speaker I ever blew.

dave

[Zeppelin4Life]

we did this to an organ speaker once for school. but I was too young to understand what was going on. but you know like 'Magic Carpet Ride' the intro is all a blown Leslie. I think that has something to do with it lol

I blew out my peavey stock speaker in my amp the second week with the amp on 4 (of 12). I replaced with a celestion greenback tho. I can crank it all the way and it still sounds great (if not a lot better). I think it was a blessing

[Soundboy]

Rumor has it that Elton John used to amaze visitors at Puk studios in Denmark by playing their Genelec S30s so hard that the ribbon tweeters burst into flames (literally). What can I say, it's gotta be good to be rich.

[housepig]

never done it, but I know some guys who used to hook up walkman headphones to thier 1000-watt Crown PA amps and watch them turn themselves inside out before melting...

[Slider]

At the tender age of 14 I plugged my 50 watt guitar amp into a radio shack 5 inch speaker and enjoyed about 6 seconds of bliss before it started smoking and died.
A great memory.

[hausofreanimation]

In a previous incarnation of my job, I did some reconing. People would bring in speakers that were rubbing but not dead. Since we had to rip out the cones and start from scratch, we would occasionally do the following:

1. Put a bunch of nuts and bolts on the speaker.

2. Put a sine wave generator into an amp and into the speaker.

3. Set the Hz for about 10.

4. Turn the amp up loud.

5. Run.

[fremitus]

In a previous incarnation of my job, I did some reconing. People would bring in speakers that were rubbing but not dead. Since we had to rip out the cones and start from scratch, we would occasionally do the following:

1. Put a bunch of nuts and bolts on the speaker.

2. Put a sine wave generator into an amp and into the speaker.

3. Set the Hz for about 10.

4. Turn the amp up loud.

5. Run.

that's hot...

[JohnDavisNYC]

i wish there wasn't an overload protect on my mackie hr824s... i wish i could really crank them without a limiter kicking in. i'd love to blow those things out.

john

[alarmo]

It's not a speaker, but i did manage to let the smoke out of my RNC earlier tonight. I grabbed the wrong wall wart cable when plugging stuff in and discovered within seconds that the RNC really doesn't like 16VAC very much at all.

I'm smart like that sometimes.

[Scodiddly]

It's not a speaker, but i did manage to let the smoke out of my RNC earlier tonight. I grabbed the wrong wall wart cable when plugging stuff in and discovered within seconds that the RNC really doesn't like 16VAC very much at all.

I'm smart like that sometimes.

Ouch!

I've gotten in the habit of labelling my wall warts. A piece of white gaff tape, a Sharpie... makes it mucho easier if I can grab the one that says RNC instead of squinting at the voltage on the back.