Peavey Headliner 410 bass cab wired out of phase from factory?

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MetalMunkey42
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Peavey Headliner 410 bass cab wired out of phase from factory?

Post by MetalMunkey42 » Thu Mar 10, 2022 11:36 pm

Hello to you all.

This is my first post and reason for joining, since I can't find any solid info beyond "that's wrong" on any other forums, including this one, but no-one seems to have asked this specific question.

My question refers to my friend's Bass combo, he bought it as a package with a 6 string bass a while back and we have been using it for practice and also some gigs since.

Recently he lent the amp to the guitarist as he was sick and couldn't make a gig, the guitarist promptly blew one of the speakers in the cab (Not a slur on guitarists, I am one myself, this guy just doesn't know amps)

Anyway, we got it back and took it apart to replace the blown speaker (turns out we might be able to repair it since it's just come unsoldered under the main cap, but that's another story) and when we were testing we noticed that one of the other speakers in the cab moved the opposite direction when testing the remaining 3 with a 9 volt battery. From the wiring, it looks like both of the left hand speakers were wired in reverse to the right hand ones. From factory!

I know intuitively that speakers in a cab should all be in phase, and I have been searching forums and racking my brain trying to think of some reason that peavey would wire the speakers in their headliner cab this way!

My only conclusion is that it was a mistake! And it's a fairly big and glaring mistake for a large manufacturer to make when most people who buy these things will never test or open them to find out if their cab was wired incorrectly!

It just seems like something that a company that makes basically nothing but amps should be on top of!

Can anyone tell me why this might have been done deliberately? Or will I have to check and test everyone I know who has something from peavey now?

Please let me know!

Thanks.

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dak
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Re: Peavey Headliner 410 bass cab wired out of phase from factory?

Post by dak » Tue Mar 15, 2022 4:47 am

For different speakers behind a frequency crossover, it can be a matter of experimentation to decide about the orientation of the phase of the smaller, higher-pitched speakers since the crossover does a phase shift near the crossover frequencies and it's rather specific whether at the crossover frequency speakers will tend to add or subtract acoustic power.

For speakers of equal type, that is not a consideration. With high frequency speakers, there may be an attempt of beam-forming (or rather disrupting it) to avoid having only a rather small lobe where sound reaches. But for that to make any sense, the distance of the speakers needs to be significant compared to the wavelength in question. At 34Hz, we are talking about a wavelength of 10m, so this kind of consideration does not come in with bass speakers in a single non-folded speaker cabinet of haulable size.

In a nut shell: in this case it sounds like a mistake.

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Enzo
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Re: Peavey Headliner 410 bass cab wired out of phase from factory?

Post by Enzo » Tue Mar 15, 2022 8:10 am

I wouldn't suggest looking for a systematic error. I'd say a mistake happened. Gong further to decide if a company of Peavey's size etc etc etc isn't necessary.

And make sure to test with the battery only on individual speakers or at the jack wires.

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