Rewiring 4x12 Speaker Cabinets

[BeZo]

I have posted about this a few times before, and it just came up again. I have a buddy who recently blew up his Peavey 5150 sig head. I was talking to him about it, and he mentioned having to fix his cab. When I inquired about it, he told me the board heats up and the jack needs slodered back to it. This is not the first time I've heard of the PC boards in the Marshall 1960 cabs going bad. It is just not a good idea to run that much current through a cheap PC board.

I'm about to rewire my second Marshall 1960 cab this year. The wiring inside the newer cabs is garbage too. They use such a thin and cheap wire with cheap clips. I have been using 14g oxygen free speaker wire and soldering them to the speakers. Then, I'll gut the PC board and replace it with a single Switchcraft jack. I just wire them mono, since that's how people use them. That way there are never any problems in the signal chain. Remember that a chain is only as strong as it's weakest links.

The other thing about rewiring cabs is to seal them up well. If you look on the back of newer Mesa cabs, they have black caps covering the unused jacks on the back plate. Their secret is out. If you seal a closed back cab to the point where no air gets in or out, you get a tighter responce out of it. The speakers jumping forward will create a drop in pressure in the cab, and that causes them to snap back quicker. I always tape off any other holes in the jackplates when I rewire cabs and seal them with silicone RTV. Is important to use RTV designed for automotive purposes, because it is specially formulated not to be corossive to metals. Doing all of this will improve the performance of the cabs, and save you troubles down the road.

Anyone else rewire their Marshall cabs? Have you guys ever seen or heard of this problem?

 

[sixstringking713]

I havent heard of melting of the PC boards, but idk.. I'm rewiring a 1960 4x12 I just bought from the late 80s used and the wiring inside is a joke. I opened it up at the guys house before buying it and saw that someone rewired it for 4 ohms and the back of the cab still said 16ohms. I asked the guy if he knew about it and he said he had no idea this whole time. I was like, how many transformers have you had to replace, hahaha?

I have to redo the wiring in it, and yeah I hate how thin of wire they use in cabs, it's a joke.

 

[Digital Jams]

Save yourself a few bucks and just use lamp cord, it is heavy gauge of good quality copper and you can get it anywhere by the foot.

 

[racerevlon]

I bought a spool of Monster speaker wire and thought what the heck. Turns out there is a huge difference in the quality of sound after the upgrade and that one spool of wire has done 14 4x12's and a 4x10 and I still have some left.

 

[JTyson]

I've had 2 of those dam boards go out over a long stretch of years, I always get rid of them and wire it with lamp cable, its cheap and works great buy it from Lowes, home depot or any hardware store

 

[Nigel]

Two series pairs in parallel ftw!

 

[BeZo]

I bought a spool of Monster speaker wire and thought what the heck. Turns out there is a huge difference in the quality of sound after the upgrade and that one spool of wire has done 14 4x12's and a 4x10 and I still have some left.

If you think the Monster Cable sounded good, wait till you hear the good stuff!

Just kidding. I just hate Monster Cable. Evil bastards and overpriced crap. I thought the SP1000 speaker cable was more of a pain in the ass to work with than it's worth IMO. I just get regular spools of oxygen free copper wire and go to town. Best results I've had so far.

 

[Scumback Speakers]

I buy 14 or 16 gauge lamp/zip wire on 250 foot spools. I buy the red & black wire so it's easy to wire and trace down to the speaker terminals.

 

[SLOgriff]

So if I re-wire my 1960B replacing the stock Marshall wiring with 14 or 16 guage lamp wire, what tone difference should I expect??

 

[glip22]

Been using a spool of this for awhile now. Seems good to me.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdet ... er=100-942

 

[LP Freak]

So if I re-wire my 1960B replacing the stock Marshall wiring with 14 or 16 guage lamp wire, what tone difference should I expect??

None.

 

[SLOgriff]

So if I re-wire my 1960B replacing the stock Marshall wiring with 14 or 16 guage lamp wire, what tone difference should I expect??

None.

Seriously?!?! Then I guess I'll stick with the "twisty tye" wire thats in there....

 

[BeZo]

So if I re-wire my 1960B replacing the stock Marshall wiring with 14 or 16 guage lamp wire, what tone difference should I expect??

Marshalls especially get fatter and have more attack after they get rewired. To me, they sound punchier and fuller when the speakers actually get full power, instead of being choked off by the thin wire and PCB. Try it for yourself. I can garantee you'll be happy.

Besides, those switches in the Marshall cabs are shit! I've posted this picture all over this forum as a warning to people about the Marshall boards in their cabs. If for no other reason, rewire it just so that you never have this happen to you.

 

[JTyson]

So if I re-wire my 1960B replacing the stock Marshall wiring with 14 or 16 guage lamp wire, what tone difference should I expect??

I actually heard little if any difference.... but there is no board in the circuit to go out. I never used the mono/stereo thingy anyway.
Maybe we should do an A/B recording and see what happens

 

[LP Freak]

So if I re-wire my 1960B replacing the stock Marshall wiring with 14 or 16 guage lamp wire, what tone difference should I expect??

None.

Seriously?!?! Then I guess I'll stick with the "twisty tye" wire thats in there....

It's definitately not going to sound worse but if you're looking for something to do try it and see.

 

[Scumback Speakers]

So if I re-wire my 1960B replacing the stock Marshall wiring with 14 or 16 guage lamp wire, what tone difference should I expect??

I use copper stranded zip/lamp cord. When I have upgraded the wiring in Marshall cabs I find you get more mids/low mids, but you also get a more immediate attack (punchy, etc) back from the speakers. It's just more responsive after the wiring change.

Everyone I've done it for has noticed an improvement.

 

[racerevlon]

I've never seen one of those little boards go bad but I HAVE had to re-solder some connections to one in my singer's cab.

Monster wire a pain to deal with = TRUE

 

[Nigel]

Those boards mean your cab is wired parallel-series, or two parallel pairs in series at the jack. I do not like that wiring, and many who've rewired their cabs to two series pairs, parallel at the jack, value that more than the original.

Try it and see.