Cab troubleshooting

Thankfully cab faults are a rare thing but to save repeating myself via email, I thought I'd add a page to the site to help guide you through how to narrow down a suspected problem so we can work out what to do. You may be reading this because you've got a brand new Barefaced cab, you may be reading this because you've got a very old Barefaced cab which has done hundreds of gigs with many different owners, or anything in between - regardless, the start of the troubleshooting process is the same.

First point - the vast majority of emails we get about suspected Barefaced faults end up concluding that the cab isn't the problem and that it's something else in the signal chain (or something rattling/buzzing in the room). But to ascertain that we usually need to go through this process of elimination.

1. ELIMINATE THE OTHER VARIABLES:

If you can, change everything in the signal chain and change the location - instrument, guitar lead, amp, speaker cable, power cable, room. Obviously everything in the signal chain matters because it can create or change sounds. The room can cause issues with dirty power or interference, either through the mains electricity putting noise into the amp power supply or from radiated emissions that are picked up by the instrument pickups or lead.

2. IDENTIFY THE ACOUSTIC SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM SOUND/NOISE:

This is why sending us videos or recordings is rarely helpful. If there's a problem, we need to know where on the cab that problem sound is coming from. Fortunately your ears are very good at identifying sonic locations from these kind of bad noises. What you need to do (without deafening yourself) is to scan your ear all over the cab from a fairly short distance, up and down, left and right. Don't just check the baffle (speaker side), check all over. If you think you've found it, swap ear and check again, see if you end up in the same place.

A good process, especially with the baffle is to scan like the raster scanning on a TV - google that if you don't know what i mean.

If your cab has a tweeter or HF driver, please check with the HF control at both maximum and minimum and note any differences (if the bad sound disappears with the HF control at max then we know it's coming from the tweeter/HF driver or crossover). If your cab has more than one 10" or 12" speaker then please listen closely to each of them because if you get the same bad noise coming from both then it's highly unlikely to be a problem with both 10" or 12" drivers but something earlier in the signal chain. If the bad sound is coming from one or more speakers then try to hear which part of the speaker(s) it's from - main cone, dust-cap (central dome), surround, frame (front gasket). Other places that can generate unwanted noises are the HF driver or tweeter itself. Any joints between speaker or horn or backplate that might be suffering from air leaks. Rattling wheels, handles or other hardware. Buzzing badges or grills.

Then email us to let us know where the sound is coming from and what the sound is like. Don't worry about recording or videoing it, it's really all about finding the source of the sound.

All these unwanted noise/sound sources all pretty low probability - you can't go selling cabs direct to guitarists and bassists all over the world and not only survive but have a great reputation unless you make really reliable gear - so faults can be really weird rare things - but we usually suss them out and work out a solution pretty quickly.

Please don't go taking grills off or dismantling anything - just make the problem sound happen and find where it's coming from, then report back - we'll reply as fast as we can but for sanity's sake we only check emails at various points during the working week (Mon-Fri 0900-1700 GMT) so don't expect an immediate response! We will do our best to help however old your cab is or how many hands it has passed through during its life.