Cabinet advice (and wiring question)

[groundzero]

Hey guys, I've got a couple of question for you.

In my band I play through a Hartke 410VX with a 300w solid-state Ampeg head. I'd like just a little more volume because of our loud drummer and guitarists. I found a used cabinet I'm thinking about getting.

It used to be a Sunn combo amp back in the day. The amp half has been gutted to leave just a cabinet and speaker. The speaker itself was replaced not long ago (probably only used for 6 or 7 practices) with a 15" Eminence Delta. Has anyone used Eminences before? How do they sound?

Also the input jack is broken off, however the wires that lead to it are right there and accessible. I'm going to take a look at it on Saturday. For right now can I just clip the wires to a spare input jack to test it out, then solder them and mount the jack later?

Also just to make sure, the negative (black) wire from the speaker goes to the sleeve of the input jack and the positive wire goes to the tip, right? Is it going to horribly break anything if it's backward? I'm guessing it wouldn't be good; so I'll just have to be careful.


Anyway the person is asking $65 for it; I figure that's not a bad deal for a cabinet and 15" speaker that I'll just have to put a $5 input jack into. Is there something I'm missing?

[Jimbobntnr]

I had a lot of realy good luck with eminence speakers 10 or so years ago, I haven't had the chance to play through any recently, though.

I would go ahead and solder the leads onto the jack even just to test it. when you ust twist them on or clip them there is a chance that they will touch and short the amp during testing. When you solder them on, the polarity (pos and neg) come into play when playing through this cab with another cab. If this 15 is wired the opposite of the other cabinet it will actually cancel some of the sound, as opposed to add to it.

On the 1/4" jack, the 'tip' should connect to the positive terminal. I wouldn't rely on the color of the wire, either. Someone may have rewired it at some point.

Best of luck!

[groundzero]

I had a lot of realy good luck with eminence speakers 10 or so years ago, I haven't had the chance to play through any recently, though.

I would go ahead and solder the leads onto the jack even just to test it. when you ust twist them on or clip them there is a chance that they will touch and short the amp during testing. When you solder them on, the polarity (pos and neg) come into play when playing through this cab with another cab. If this 15 is wired the opposite of the other cabinet it will actually cancel some of the sound, as opposed to add to it.

On the 1/4" jack, the 'tip' should connect to the positive terminal. I wouldn't rely on the color of the wire, either. Someone may have rewired it at some point.

Best of luck!

Thanks. Good to hear that Eminences have worked for people in the past.

I don't know if I'll be able to solder it to test it; I'm wary of doing anything like that to something I may or may not buy. I'll clip the wires to the jack and wrap the exposed contacts with electrical tape to make sure they don't short accidentally.

I know about the polarity problem; that's why I want to make sure I get the directions right. You make a good point about wire color though. I'm sure the terminals on the speaker will have +/- markings so I'll just go by that.

[Mr. Pickle]

eminence is good stuff, i'd just leave it at that. they're not GREAT, but pretty damn good.

[rh15951]

I use eminence speakers and they are great.

[NavyBass]

I put Eminence speakers in the two cabs I made. One's a 4x10 the other is a 1x15. The speakers sound great and handle quite a bit of power.