Friday, April 10

How many of me does it take to change a light bulb??

So if you've been to SBS you know the quality of the speaker mains on the stage have been somewhat lacking for awhile. The left side horns or tweeters in the mains have been "blown" for some time now. Last week, while driving the mixer "under the influence" I lost the right sides. At least that's what I thought. Yesterday I finally get around to dismantling the cabs to see what's going on with them. I looked on-line for replacement drivers for the horns, or the "magnet" so to speak..seems there $300.00 per. WHAT??? When did this happen? Are they some sort of martian alloy I'm not aware of??

S.B.W. (saved by Wickipedia) once again.
I'm, frantically calling everywhere trying to get 2 for Friday nights session with Little Blue Pill and surfing with haste for over night delivery to no avail. Just then at the very bottom of the page for "compression horn drivers" on wikipedia I see the last entry that tells me Electro-Voice, Myers, and other speaker manufactures used light bulbs as limiters and speaker protection for their cabs.... OK....back to the stage, flashlight in hand, yep sure enough...mine got 'em to...and there blown. Now, where in the heck do I find a light bulb that looks like a fuse in Fredericksburg at 7:00pm??? Off to google search.."light bulb fuse"...zippo, "pa fuse light"..nada.."PA speaker bulb fuse"..ok! Parts-express.com has them, there 6.00 each....free shipping!! oh wait, standard ground service..5 days away....

In a crisis, think clearly Clay.....OK...call Guitar Center....(is this thinking at all?)
I ask for the guy I deal with, on hold for 5 minutes....he's unavailable meaning..."he's out back having a smoke"..."ok fine" I say with authority and like a man on a mission, <> "then..give me pro audio"...another 5 minutes goes by...SAME guy picks up..."pro audio, can I help you?" - are you f'n kidding me? Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess..."OK" I say, " I need a fuse bulb for my pa speakers". Long pause, and the reply I get, "We don't carry fuses sir"....translated means "I have no idea what your talking about, please go away, I need to sell some more of this craptastic stuff we have on the floor here." ....there's 30 minutes of my life I can't get back, thanks Guitar Center.

More google searching......I type "I need a Fuse Lamp Dammit" I get back "mini indicator lamp" @ Autozone website....no shi!!, now I'm getting somewhere....I pull up autozone, says they have them, but I can't see them cause I can't tell autozone what make and model my car is that needs one.....

OK, I'm on the right track, let's do this the 'ole fashoned way'....phone book and tele, call advance auto parts, there open till 10pm... COOL..mini indicator lamp did the trick as well. Got a box of 10 for 4.87.

After replacing them in the speakers, all is well. Glad I bought a box cause there is 2 each in each speaker cab....whew!

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