Bitflipper - IS DA MAN!!!

 
 
“I have to send out a BIG thank you to Bitflipper. He suggested monitoring with a set of headphones to remove the control room as a variable in determining where the heck my midrange had gone.
 
Well, I did and here's what I found and did.
 
First, as soon as I monitored a reference track through the headphones I knew something was wrong with something other than the reference track. The reference track sounded great through the headphones. I switched back and forth between the headphones and my Mackie monitors and it was like day and night the headphones won hands down every time.
 
Second, the difference was so dramatic that it made me wonder could the room be coloring the sound THAT much. I started listening much closer to each of the individual monitors and noticed two things. The monitor on the right was putting out almost nothing but hi-end and the monitor on the left sounded like it was a bit distorted (the program source has distorted guitar so I wasn't totally sure).
 
Third, I decided to clean the monitors' gain and other pots with some electronics spray cleaner and a bunch of knob twisting. After reconnecting them I gave them another listen and noticed immediately that the midrange came back to life in the right speaker. The left speaker still sounded lower in volume and still sounded a little distorted.
 
Fourth, I switched the monitor input cables to my Big Knob mixer and discovered that the distortion followed the cable. I cleaned up the cables and reconnected them to the original inputs. BINGO! The distortion disappeared.
Now both of the monitors are firing on all "cylinders" and the midrange sounds fantastic. I still have the strange anomaly of the center channel seeming to come from above but I think some properly placed acoustic panels will sort that out.
 
Ya know, it's like very old guitar strings on a guitar. You really don't know how bad they are ‘till you replace them with new ones. The strings just wear out so gradually you don't really notice until you change them. I guess the oxidation on the pots occurred so slowly I didn't notice right away. When I did notice I looked everywhere except at the monitors.

Anyway, thanks Bitflipper for making the headphone suggestion to isolate the problem. It worked like a charm!!!”

And if you really fell like getting your hands dirty, get yourself a Jackfield burnisher and a spray can of deoxit.

Wear something you don't mind getting dirty.........

Jeff Evans


That does not surprise me in the least. Things like that can happen. I have got Mackie HR 824's and about every 12 months or more the woofer drops out in one of them. (it is quite spectacular when it happens) On the rear panel are a set of switches which you are meant to set according to placement and variables in HF level etc. If I move the bass cutoff switch to and fro the speaker goes back to normal. The switch still feels very soild and positive. 

Hey Jeff,
 
I have those exact Mackies so I'm very familiar with the switches and I know they have to be cleaned from time to time.  I was blinded by being so focused on getting a great tone from my guitar amp I never thought to considered the monitors.  There are so many variables in the signal chain it's easy to overlook the most obvious sometimes.
 
Lesson learned...I'm going to put together a 6 month general maintenance schedule.
 
Thanks everyone for all of the "input."