FBT input jacks keep breaking. Happened to anyone else?

G

guitarnerdswe

Fractal Fanatic
I have a bunch of different FBT stuff, and I noticed a tendency for the XLR input jacks to break easily. Within a month, the jack on my 1 year old 12MA broke, and also the input jack on my brand new 12A, which only had been used like 6 times. With broken, I mean that there's alot of buzzing and humming noise, together with insane jumps in volume. The vibrations from the actual speaker cabinets is enough to make the plug move in the jack, causing all the trouble.

I had a qualified technician install new jacks (that I got from FBT), and one of them was broken from factory! Cost me 100 bucks to install, and one of the was broken from the start... NO FUN...

Has anybody else had any troubles with their FBT speakers?
 
tonygtr said:
I have a bunch of different FBT stuff, and I noticed a tendency for the XLR input jacks to break easily. Within a month, the jack on my 1 year old 12MA broke, and also the input jack on my brand new 12A, which only had been used like 6 times. With broken, I mean that there's alot of buzzing and humming noise, together with insane jumps in volume. The vibrations from the actual speaker cabinets is enough to make the plug move in the jack, causing all the trouble.

I had a qualified technician install new jacks (that I got from FBT), and one of them was broken from factory! Cost me 100 bucks to install, and one of the was broken from the start... NO FUN...

Has anybody else had any troubles with their FBT speakers?
Click to expand...


After a few years or so with the 12mA being used with the Axe this is the first time I have seen any mention of that problem. Have you contacted FBT about the problem?
 
Sixstring said:
tonygtr said:
I have a bunch of different FBT stuff, and I noticed a tendency for the XLR input jacks to break easily. Within a month, the jack on my 1 year old 12MA broke, and also the input jack on my brand new 12A, which only had been used like 6 times. With broken, I mean that there's alot of buzzing and humming noise, together with insane jumps in volume. The vibrations from the actual speaker cabinets is enough to make the plug move in the jack, causing all the trouble.

I had a qualified technician install new jacks (that I got from FBT), and one of them was broken from factory! Cost me 100 bucks to install, and one of the was broken from the start... NO FUN...

Has anybody else had any troubles with their FBT speakers?
Click to expand...


After a few years or so with the 12mA being used with the Axe this is the first time I have seen any mention of that problem. Have you contacted FBT about the problem?
Click to expand...

Yes, the first time, they sent me new jacks. The second time (yesterday), they forwarded my mail to the dealer for FBT in Sweden (where I live). Not sure what they're going to do, since I didn't buy the FBT products from them.
 
I have been using a pair of 12ma's for a year or so and never had a problem.

Are you dangling them the stage by the cables?

;-)
 
tonygtr said:
I have a bunch of different FBT stuff, and I noticed a tendency for the XLR input jacks to break easily. Within a month, the jack on my 1 year old 12MA broke, and also the input jack on my brand new 12A, which only had been used like 6 times. With broken, I mean that there's alot of buzzing and humming noise, together with insane jumps in volume. The vibrations from the actual speaker cabinets is enough to make the plug move in the jack, causing all the trouble.

I had a qualified technician install new jacks (that I got from FBT), and one of them was broken from factory! Cost me 100 bucks to install, and one of the was broken from the start... NO FUN...

Has anybody else had any troubles with their FBT speakers?
Click to expand...
$100 to install some XLR jacks? :shock:

I looked at the manual real quick and it looks like they don't use locking jacks. That's the first problem. Only thing that I can suggest is to make sure that you have stress relief for the cables when they are in and don't have it pressing against anything.

Next time I'd look to get something with some locks installed instead. It should just be regular panel mount or PCB mount fixtures. Neutrik makes a decent selection.

And jacks don't usually go 'bad' they usually go bad from the solder joints on the back. XLR is pretty robust internally; lots of metal in there for contact.
 
shasha said:
tonygtr said:
I have a bunch of different FBT stuff, and I noticed a tendency for the XLR input jacks to break easily. Within a month, the jack on my 1 year old 12MA broke, and also the input jack on my brand new 12A, which only had been used like 6 times. With broken, I mean that there's alot of buzzing and humming noise, together with insane jumps in volume. The vibrations from the actual speaker cabinets is enough to make the plug move in the jack, causing all the trouble.

I had a qualified technician install new jacks (that I got from FBT), and one of them was broken from factory! Cost me 100 bucks to install, and one of the was broken from the start... NO FUN...

Has anybody else had any troubles with their FBT speakers?
Click to expand...
$100 to install some XLR jacks? :shock:

I looked at the manual real quick and it looks like they don't use locking jacks. That's the first problem. Only thing that I can suggest is to make sure that you have stress relief for the cables when they are in and don't have it pressing against anything.

Next time I'd look to get something with some locks installed instead. It should just be regular panel mount or PCB mount fixtures. Neutrik makes a decent selection.

And jacks don't usually go 'bad' they usually go bad from the solder joints on the back. XLR is pretty robust internally; lots of metal in there for contact.
Click to expand...

You can't change these jacks yourself, you need special tools to be able to change them. Tools only a really technician has access to. No they're not locking, that really shouldn't be any problem on female jacks, most female jacks on gear aren't locking (males are though, but you know that). I just can't belive how easily they break, most be something wrong at the factory :? I've never had a XLR jack break, until the FBT stuff.
 
I too just got a 15ma yesturday. Seems weird that they didnt put a locking xlr in this amp. How does a xlr female jack get broken. Seems kind of weird. How does a right angle xlr input jack pretty a xlr from breaking.

My thoughts on my purchase. It seems i had to tame my settings back quite a bit the treble and bass regions of my patch ive been working on after playing through the fbt. This probably is a good thing since my sound was pushing into the bass guitar freqency realm anyways, due to the fact the PA sounded good in the bass frequencies do the the bass cabs. I really noticed alot of woofer sounds coming out of the fbt from my originional patch's bass heavy settings when the amp with into the protection mode at the amps volume limits. I started thinking that what if i was on a system that couldnt handle bass all that well and i would probably not like that to much, so i dialed the bass back quite a bit. Even after this conversion i noticed the fbt still had quite a bit of thickness and meat in my tone. I wonder if ill like the sound the next time i play. I think its improved my sound considerable.

Plus i had to scale back my output knob from 5 oclock to just below 3 oclock since the fbt doesnt seem to handle as much input as my Pa system does.

Im really not a fan of the volume limiter effect when you get to the limits of the fbt amp. Which granted is pretty loud. I should take this as a good thing since i have a tendency to play to loud anyways. My dsp 1400 amp uses a compression for limiting that seems way more transparent even though the amp is a tad on the bass guitar side of the sound spectrum. The fbt seemed to me to really kick more butt when i was sandwitched between it and the Pa speakers. I could see 2 fbt verve's being much better together for mega volume, but one will have to do for now.

As far as the sound goes it seems to be pretty good sounding currently. I like the fact that there are more high end frequencies then my Pa system so i can really dial in a smoother tone. I just hope it will translate well to the recording well.
 
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