American Viking

Check this out, I've got a weird tale for you...

So I've had a pair of Marshall 1960 cabs I bought a year or two ago. I've gigged quite frequently with them and always played them as the full stack so they've never been separated. I've noticed something rolling around in there whenever I'd move the angled cab in and out of the van and so forth but it sounded fine and it didn't seem to hurt it or anything. It's had the little rattling when moving it the whole time I've owned it but it never bothered me enough to mess with it.
Anyways, so I was at our shop/rehearsal space and was doing some routine maintenance on everyone's gear, the usual, just checking cables, batteries, speakers, and making sure everything was in perfect working order. One thing I do every once in a while is take a multimeter and check all of the speaker cabinet's impedance to see if all of the speakers are OK and there's not a fried one in there waiting to destroy an amplifier. I noticed my one angled cab was reading the same as the other three 1960 cabs we have in our spot. It was reading two or three ohms higher than the other ones and when plugged into the 4ohm jack it was reading like 9 or 10ohms! I was really baffled so I grabbed my drill, lucky me, dead battery... SO I grabbed my screwdriver and took the back of the cabinet off and was looking for the obvious little object that had been rolling around all this time but the first thing I saw was a screw stuck on the magnet of one of the speakers, then I saw another screw on another speaker, and a third screw stuck on a third speaker, and then the lonely screw rolling around at the bottom of the cab. I was even more confused now and started looking all around to see what these unused, perfect, clean screws and washers went to. I had to sit and ponder for a minute until something caught my eye...

The mounting of the top two speakers had never been complete.

The bottom screws on each of the top speakers had been rolling around in these cabs since they were assembled in 2006. I shook my head in disbelief at how looses those speakers were. I tapped and pushed on them, and they had a bit of give. Eh, I put the screws back where they should have been in the first place. I looked at everything long and hard and there is no way these screws could have vibrated out of place, they were just never put in. Must have been one of those cabs put together right before lunch. Or the first one assembled on a Monday or the last one on a Friday!

Oh yeah, almost forgot... Somehow the screws touching the magnet and the housing of the speaker somehow managed to change the impedance reading. I don't know how exactly but it did. Put everything back like it's supposed to be, took another reading and it was showing the same results as the other three cabs. Weird.

Thought some of my fellow Marshall geeks might get a little kick out of this story.

Hey Jim, tell DUX to stop holding in his hits too long. No hard feelings, still a Marshall man for life.

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gtrman

Cool story ... yeah usually if things are ratteling around something is wrong .. glad u had it fixed before anything got damaged.

I am gigging alot too .. almost every weekend and do a little bit of travelling around. Here's a question for you heavy giggers out there ... how do you protect your amps/cabs ?
I use a hardcase for the amp .. never bring a Marshall tube amp to a gig without it. But cabs is another story. I bring a fullstack - two 1960 4x12. Bought both of them new and figured yeah Marshall cabs can look cool when they are dinged up but when they are new I might as well try to protect them so I bought 2 Marshall softcovers. They still get a few dings here and there but thats just cosmetics. Never really though I'd bother with hardcases for cabinets. They are super expensive and just a lot of extra cases to stash away on gigs ...

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American Viking

I hear you on that one. As far as gear protection we're not too great in that department. I really need to grab some ATA cases for my heads but right now we're just packing them in and strategically covering them with other gear that won't poke the knobs or hit it funny. Would like to get cases for those real soon. As far as the cabinets go, those are taking one hell of a beating. Rips, tears, dents, and scratches all over the place. The front grill cloths are all still great condition since we load them always front to front. It's like $350 for a decent cabinet case and if I were to have $700 to spend I probably would be thinking about another Marshall instead of a road case.
New York Case Co. has some good deals on cases right now. Emperor Cabinets from Chicago makes them up too. I was thinking about getting them to make some up for me. Emperor backlined a show for us on our last tour and it was really awesome. They're trying to break in to making amps also, they had a prototype at the gig but I didn't have time to mess with it.

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satchfan

Hey AV, have you considered making some headboxes in heavy duty Ply? They wouldn't have to be all blinged-up with flight case ali edging & all that, could paint them matt black but would still protect your precious cargo, wouldn't cost too much either!......Just a thought.

Steve.

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Ken

Funny story! I will say though, if I heard something rolling around I'd check it out right away; I'd be afraid of a speaker cone getting dinged! I'm glad nothing got damaged!!

ken

American Viking

You're right, probably should get off my ass and put the tool belt back on. lol
That is a good idea. I can probably find some stuff searching on google but maybe you already know. Where can I find the recessed hardware for stuff like that? I only trust the heavy duty recessed latches for my babies!

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Riffraff

No shit.

If you do make cases you might want to try painting them with truck bed liner. It's tough as nails and looks cool too. That's one way you can give plain old plywood a more professional look. Here is a place where you can get everything you need: Reliable Hardware Company

jcmjmp

There are many more stories of shoddy workmanship on the newer cabs. Its a pity really.
In saying that, every cab owner should go over their cabs every year or so and re-tighten everything.

American Viking

Awesome link, thanks

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V-man

Father Marshall gives oddball stuff to guys like you, who can detect, fix, and relate, and fortunately he gives the solid stuff to guys like me who wouldn't have the first clue about such things until black smoke taps us on the shoulder.

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thrawn86

That's an awesome link!

My father in law and I do Rhino Linings for truck beds here, and we've done some really cool custom work on boats, off-roaders, etc.....we've also done tool boxes, real similar. The stuff is bulletproof and won't peel off.
Might check if you have a local dealer; if they're cool, they might let you put em in when they do a truck and may not be too spendy.....definately would last longer than Herculiner.......stuff flakes and chips off within a year most of the time!

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reasmfla

Good post. I appreciate it
Many thanks to ur post. I love it.

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tbwrench

I have had speakers work loose as well as screws come out. The stock screws had star lock washers on mine. I now use purple loctite on my screws to keep them from coming out.

I did a little experiment last week, I put in some v30's into my 1960 A cab and tightened them to where they were good and snug. The speakers were from a cab that they were rear mounted so I figured the gasket material on the front of the speakers was not ever compressed and the speakers may have to be re tightened. I checked them after sitting overnight and indeed they needed a little more tightening. At least with loctite they would not come all they way out if they did come loose due to gasket compression. By the way, I heard a rattle in my cab while transporting it and figured it was the casters, It turned out to be 2 loose speakers also, the top two.

Best wishes, TBW.