[Blacklabcollective] PA blown, steps to getting a replacement

[Anju Singh]

hello

So we discovered last night that the top half of the pa is definitely
blown. Everything above a certain kHz level is completely unresponsive
which means that our tweeters are completely dead.

I'll have to tell Adam this and we may have to pay for a repair because he
was hoping to sell them this month. This won't be great news for him...

The tweeters blowing is a common issue when levels are riding in the red or
when lots of distortion/noise/heavy bass/high pitched treble is put through
the speakers.

The PA is now entirely relying on the low end of its frequencies entirely
which isn't good for the speakers (this means we will end up cranking them
because the top half of the EQ is not working, which means we will force
too much audio through the bottom).* I suggest we stop using them before we
have more damage. *

Who did sound at that last show? There were a few noise acts that played,
and my suspicion is that where it was mainly blown. I have never heard it
sound so bad...

I recommend that we don't have any noise/industrial acts play unless we
have a very qualified sound person who has experience with PAs and
specifically with noise. Ideally, I don't think we should have noise
through our PA at all anymore. I rent pa's for every noise fest and it has
always been A good move, even with all precautions you can damage speakers
so renting is always a good idea) last year we rented Adams other PA that
he uses specifically for noise shows, and this year I have something
booked from long and mcquade). I suggest for noise acts we ask them to
bring their own PA (like guitar amps for bands) or for the show with noise
acts to rent pa speakers for their shows (approx 50 dollars).

Here is some info that you might be interested in to be better informed
about how PAs get blown:

--You can blow speakers without lots of volume, distortion is enough to
blow speakers, especially tweeters, even at low levels. Distortion is by
nature "clipping" the sound, standard PAs are not meant to handle lots of
distortion.

--99% of people doing noise work with sounds that require their noise to be
in the red, it's part of the sound (kind of like burning tubes in guitar
amps to get distortion), but with PAs this can be a problem if it's not
properly eq'd or handled, and even then there is potential for doing damage

--most people who do noise don't know how to do sound for noise to protect
a PA, I have heard established noise folks claim they won't blow a PA but
this is very hard to guarantee without knowing the exact PA and it's
condition very well.




-- 
Anju Singh
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