Buzzing Bass cabinet

Adey · February 2022

I bought a second hand Ashdown RM210T cabinet recently off Ebay.

I have found it has an annoying buzz when playing F, F#, G in any octave. I have opened it up and secured the cables with zip ties and padding so that they can't "buzz" against anything - no difference

I have touched and pressed everything inside to see if there is something loose. All seems fine.

The cabinet doesn't seem to have any splits or cracks

I can push and hold and squeeze the drivers and body of the speakers and it makes no difference

Horn on/off makes no difference.

Unscrewing and pulling out the connections plate makes no diference.

All feet and corner protectors are firmly done up.

I even trimmed off some excess material that might have been flapping about around the handle and connector cut outs - no difference.

I thought about disconnecting the speakers one at a time, but wasn't sure if I might damage my amp when testing it, so didn't...

Anyone any ideas?

ICBM · February 2022

Listen to the speakers carefully one at a time with your ear close to them. If they both buzz, it's unlikely to be a speaker fault. If just one does, it will be. A loose voice coil winding can do this.

It should be safe to disconnect each speaker as well if you're not sure - just be careful with the volume. I'm almost certain they'll be wired in parallel so the cab impedance will rise and restrict the power of the amp anyway.

Adey · February 2022

Thanks. Will give that a go tomorrow when I get a chance.

If its a loose winding, I presume it's another speaker that's needed?

ICBM · February 2022

Adey said:

If its a loose winding, I presume it's another speaker that's needed?

Yes.

Adey · February 2022

Solved.

It wasn't the cabinet at all in the end!

After struggling to hear the buzz in the speakers, I decided to move the whole lot to another room (with carpet, not a timber floor), and no buzz.

Back in the other room the buzz was back. It really did sound like it was the cabinet still, but it must have been something else in the room vibrating and somehow transmitting the sound back through the floor and out via the cabinet. A piece of spare carpet under the cabinet and it was gone again.

Really odd. When I was opening up and checking the cabinet for loose bits I had it in a different part of the room, still on the hard floor though, and the noise still appeared in it when I checked it each time. I suppose it shows how these deep bass sounds can pervade everything - particularly a floating hard flooring layer.

Whistler · February 2022

It sounds like either a room dimension or something in the room has a resonant frequency close to F#.

Well done on trying it in another room to work out that the cab is not faulty.

BillDL · February 2022

Perhaps one of your copper radiator pipes is immediately underneath the floorboards. I have that issue in my spare room that has a very worn carpet and all the rubber underlay perished to dust a long time ago, so an amp on the "carpet" is really just on wood. I know it's my radiator pipe because I once put a screw through it while putting down a new threshold strip and had to yank up the carpet and boards to repair it. I made a diagram for future reference exactly where the pipe went under the floorboards and it coincides with the dodgy spot for amp placement. That's with a guitar amp. With a bass amp I'm sure it would buzz from amp placement much further away.

Reggaebass · February 2022

This is interesting, I had a really annoying buzz in my bass room, but only when I played the A on the E string, the big baby ll cab does put out some deep bass, I listened everywhere and moved everything, it turned out to be one of the door panels on the old Victorian door that was vibrating over the other side of the room but it sounded much nearer

ICBM · February 2022

Great

.

Rocker · February 2022

It might be as simple as slightly uneven cabinet 'feet'. It is almost impossible to get four cabinet feet to sit on a floor with each foot bearing equal weight. One will float and bear little or no weight. So it might buzz on a shiny wooden floor but a carpeted floor or a piece of carpet under the cab will usually solve that problem.

Getting the four spikes of a hi-fi speaker to bear the speakers weight evenly is a bit of a challenge. The best way is to set the cabinet using three spikes and lock the spikes, then lower the fourth spike {by hand] until it contacts the floor - then lock it. This might solve it first time or more likely after five or six goes as the speaker must be vertical and no rocking on the spikes. I am only saying this as it seems the bass bin problem alluded to above has parallels with hi-fi speaker placement.

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Buzzing Bass cabinet

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