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Mesa replacement drivers uk


mrtcat
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Anyone know who to contact in the UK to get a replacement driver for a mesa boogie powerhouse 2x10. I picked up a fairly old used cab yesterday and on further inspection it turns out one of the drivers has seized. Is there a UK distributor?

Cheers

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21 hours ago, mrtcat said:

No response from Oreste, the westside distribution main phone number / email or Mesa Boogie themselves. Is there any way I can find the driver specs?

Give Westside another call, they will help you out. If you still can't get hold of them, let me know and I will follow up. They may be backed up a bit preparing for the new regulations that are taking place due to Brexit as this is "uncharted territory".

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Thanks agedhorse. Oreste just came back to me but they want £216 + vat for a single 10 inch driver. Going to rip cab apart for parts and build my own cab based around specs of better drivers. That's crazy money for a fairly low quality single 10.

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Bad luck.

What do you want to get out of this? Is this a cab whose sound you just love or just a 2x10 you want to play with? Effectively it is useless at the moment worth only a few ponds for spares so £216 for a mesa 2x10, well only you can decide that. It would stick in my throat to pay £216 though.

You'd need two drivers to replace the ones you have, mis matched drivers are likely to give you a very poor outcome. £100 for a driver isn't the cheapest you could go but you could end up paying £120+ easily enough. you could even decide to upgrade, you can get some nice drivers around the £100 mark.

If you have the cab apart send us details of the cab dimensions measured internally and put up some photo's of the blown driver. It'll give us a better idea of what we are looking for.

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4 hours ago, mrtcat said:

Thanks agedhorse. Oreste just came back to me but they want £216 + vat for a single 10 inch driver. Going to rip cab apart for parts and build my own cab based around specs of better drivers. That's crazy money for a fairly low quality single 10.

I suspect that a big portion of the cost is in shipping the driver to the UK. I just looked up the cost of shipping and even if it fits in a Priority Mail large flat rate box (the least expensive way to ship to to be UK), the shipping cost is ~$100 USD (77 GBP). There are still import duties, paperwork and such. Deduct this from the price you were quoted and the cost of the driver isn't quite so bad.

Priority Mail International® Large Flat Rate Box

USPS-Produced Box: 23-11/16" x 11-3/4" x 3" or 12" x 12" x 5-1/2"
Maximum weight 20 pounds.
Select a Delivery Option Expected Delivery Day Retail Click-N-Ship®
Normal Delivery Time 6 - 10 business days to many major markets $94.25 $94.25

There are 4 different drivers that were used in the PH series, if you are looking for the 8 ohm version, the only one still available is the latest revision and it's a cast frame driver so that may be part of the cost.

 

You can always calculate out for new drivers, but they won't sound the same as the originals so there's a bit of a gamble there. If you do install different drivers, it's common courtesy to disclose this to the buyer when you sell the cabinet.

 

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Yeah it's a tough one now. I paid £225 for the cab but only played it at low volume at the sellers house. I know he is a genuine guy and hasn't used the cab muxh so im certain he was unaware. Obviously I have no way to prove to him that it wasn't me that damaged it so I'm kinda stuck with it. 

I bought it because I have had one of these before and I love the sound. I'd love to be able to get hold of the specs of the driver to try and get a matched pair of new drivers but all I know is that they are 16ohm 300w units. I have the building chops (Im a trained cabinet maker and was a bfm builder for a while) but I've not designed a cab before. 

In reality I should probably just write it off. Whatever I do I'll have spent more than its worth. 

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There's a couple of these on ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mesa-boogie-2x10-600w-Bass-Cab  Asking price is £300-400 so working that would have been a good price. You could keep looking on Ebay for a driver or a broken spares/repair cab and make one good cab out of two broken ones, though agedhorses warning that 4 different drivers were used should be part of that. 

A lot of US cabs use versions of Eminence drivers which is why I suggested a pic, someone might be able to identify the model it was based upon. If it was indeed an Eminence.

If Bill Fitzmaurice comes along he has a lot of first hand knowledge of US speakers and may be able to help, especially as you have built his stuff. Might be worth messaging him.

If you do want a build project there are plenty of people here who will help with a design, from just suggesting a coupe of drivers that will work through to something custom designed. You could sell the working driver to help find that too, I'm sure somewhere there is someone else with the same problem as you.

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Thanks Phil that's really helpful advice. I think what I'll do first is get the measurements of the inside of the cab and the details of the port along with a picture of the driver and report back here. If anyone is able to help me work out which drivers work then I'll start looking. If not I might consider asking for help designing a lightweight 210 based around a pair of nice lightweight drivers (maybe faital pros) and see if I can maybe utilise the parts (grill, handles, crossover etc) because I also love the look of the powerhouse cabs. We'll see. Ots not mega urgent as I use in ears gigging but it would be nice to maybe do something that complements the 1x12 build thread. Essentially I want a cab wide enough for a valve head. I would have built a fearful 15/6 but am absolutely stumped for the crossover components in the UK.

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1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

A lot of US cabs use versions of Eminence drivers which is why I suggested a pic, someone might be able to identify the model it was based upon.

It would be of little to no benefit. Using the same frame and motor you can use over a hundred different combinations of voice coils, cones, domes, surrounds and spiders for over a hundred different results. That's how Eminence comes up with OEM drivers. You tell them what you want, they put together various component combinations to realize it. When you're satisfied it's yours and yours alone.

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1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

It would be of little to no benefit. Using the same frame and motor you can use over a hundred different combinations of voice coils, cones, domes, surrounds and spiders for over a hundred different results. 

This was my understanding too. I also think that reverse engineering a box to try and find driver specs could be a lot of work only to find that there is no readily available driver with those exact specs. That said, I'm more than happy to spend a few evenings trawling the Web to see if anything turns up.

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