How can I tell if a speaker is bad in my Mesa 4 x 12?

[vbf]

Hi everyone, I hope y'all had a great 4th of July!! I bought a used Mesa 4 x 12 (compact 3/4-back w/Black Shadow's) and was playing at a relatively (small club) low level. I was playing a Gibson Les Paul in the neck position with just a little OD. I played a standard pentatonic scale starting on the low E @ the 12th fret and worked my way towards the high E. The cab sounded farty playing the 2 low E notes, even more farty when I played on the A string, and started cleaning up from the D string downward. Some variables...the cab has hard plastic wheels and it was sitting in a wooden floor above a crawlspace. So either the low frequencies matched the resonate frequencies of the floor/surroundings or a speaker could be bad. But I have no clue what a blown speaker sounds like or even how to test to find out. The cab sounds fine at the same volume with the pickup in the bridge position. Is a bad speaker more apparent at lower frequencies?

I sure would be grateful for any advice on what to do to determine if it's a speaker. Is there a series of things I can try? Any tried and true methods? Thank you in advance!!

 

[screamingdaisy]

Doesn't sound like a blown speaker.

In my experience (which isn't definitive by any means) blown speakers that still function tend to have scratchy sounding voice coils. They'll chirp and distort as the rough spots in the voice coil pass in and out of the driver. You can test for this by pushing the cone in and out... if it's movement is smooth it's fine. If you feel it rubbing and dragging it's blown.

Farty low end sounds like it's either an issue with the floor it was on, or an issue with how the amp was EQ'd (or a combination of both).

 

[THE TUBENATOR]

Were you able to determine if there is a bad speaker in that LS cab or is that cab not giving you the tone you desire?

 

[THE TUBENATOR]

I don't know if you are still experiencing problems with the new 4x12 cab. Hopefully all is good now but if not I came across this tidbit of information at the Celestion Speaker website regarding checking speakers for proper operation. http://professional.celestion.com/guitar/features/drdecibel/index.asp I hope you find it usefull.

 

[vbf]

tunebator, thanks for the follow up. I couldn't hear any decipherable speaker damage and believe I was hearing plates and similar in a cabinet a few feet away vibrating at the lower frequencies. The cab sounds fabulous otherwise so I think I'm good to go.