"Paul" wrote in message
...
On 3/28/2014 5:11 AM, Neil Gould wrote:
Paul wrote:
Unfortunately, Fender has either made a design flaw in this
amp, or they got a bad batch of cheap 8 Ohm speakers. This
is obvious because a Google search shows many people have
blown the speakers on these units. The particular unit
I am repairing is only 3 months old, from date of purchase, and
both speakers were blown during a gig.
The spec sheet for the Rumble 350 is 370 Watts into 4 Ohms (8 ohms
parallel).
From what I researched, these Eminence speakers should do the
trick:
http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Legend_B102.pdf
I was not able to find a 10" speaker higher than a 200Watt rating.
About $80 a pop on Ebay.
If someone knows of a cheaper, but equally good speaker, please let me
know, but I really would like these replacements to LAST.
If this is not your personal amp I'd be very hesitant to replace the
speakers with anything other than the originals because the choice of
that
amp may have been based on its sound and responsiveness. I'd be quite
upset
if some repair shop returned an amp to me that sounded or behaved
differently than what I bought! ;-)
Well, get this. It should still be under factory warranty, and I told
the owner he should talk to Fender and get it fixed for nearly
free. But he made a few good points about his previous experiences
with warranty repairs:
1) He would have to pay for shipping and handling at least.
2) The companies usually take a LONG time to repair the unit.
3) They would probably put in the same ****ty speakers that came
with the original design, and the they would probably blow
out just as quickly.
This last point is the reason the owner is willing to try
different speakers. Most people have been happy with Eminence,
from what I have read. I'll bet if anything, the tone will
improve, and it should certainly last longer than 3 months!
BTW, I tested the amp with a spare 12" 8 ohm speaker, and
it does appear to still work. I assume the more modern
amp designs can sense a no-load condition these days? Or
perhaps he simply didn't play it much after the speakers were
blown.
I'm in the UK and had a smaller Fender Rumble 75 for repair with a blown
speaker, and yes, they are the ****tiest chinese speakers you could imagine.
As is the rest of the amplifier - it is just another Chinese Production Line
jobby with "Fender" written on the front. Nothing to do with Fender really.
This one belonged to a College and they actually asked me to fit an Eminence
replacement as they too had Googled to find these speakers often break.
I had previously enquired about a genuine replacement from Fender, and was
told it would take perhaps 2 or 3 months to get here, and wasn't cheap.
As far as running the amp without a load is concerned, it doesn't matter a
jot, these are not valve amplifiers.
Cheers,
Gareth.