Fender Rumble 60 - what mods to clean this up?

[nazaroo]

...
I've been suggested to get thinner, as long as, if the speaker has some sort of unbalanced frequency responses, thin wood would sort of balance it, in a way that it would eat up some frequencies (of course we're not talking about some certain measures - just experiment)....

I think this has to be bad advice.

The speaker pushes air by pushing against the frame and front-plate.
Any 'play' or motion in either would distort the sound.
It cannot correct any real or imagined 'imbalances'.
If you suppose that the speaker's excursion is greater in one direction
than in another (e.g., for the same voltage, it moves further out than in with the opposite polarity),
then the flexing of the front-plate cannot possibly correct this.
How would you make a face-plate that was more resistant
to motion in one direction than another?
How would you know which way to flip it?
It sounds like science-fiction to me.

But since its physics, with equal and opposite reactions,
and the magnet (the main receiver of the reaction)
is MASSIVE compared to the speaker cone,
I can't see how there could be much imbalance
if the speaker is resting in the middle and pulls with
the same strength on the magnet in each direction.

Any speaker with such a property would have to be a really bad speaker.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

But if you're lugging the speaker cabinet to and from gigs,
in cars or up stairs, then it probably becomes significant.

Depends if you can afford the extra expense or not - you could always that extra on better drivers.

Way back in the 70's, we made some Altec style bins for our band - and cost was a serious issue. The chipboard cut to size cost £8.00 for two 12 inch sized bins, and the drivers cost £12.00 each - we didn't even cover them, just painted them with matt black paint.

 

[Woodstockz]

Well, I pulled the speaker in the cabinet,
and it looks underpowered. claim 100w but looks more like 50.
It could be distorting. There doesn't seem to be any rubbing,
but I'm not a speaker expert.

...

Has anyone got better bass sound by switching out speaker or cabinet?

I replaced the speaker on my Ampeg combo with an Eminence Neo basslite -and went from practice amp to solid coffee shop amp. It is more efficient, and handles more power. Neos are more expensive, but are lighter. I was surprised at the small,dinky magnet, but it works.

You need to isolate where distortion is coming from, cabinet, speaker, pre or power amp. I think that the speakers are a weak link on most combo amps.

My combo had 1" voice coil diameter. That's the first thing that I look for. A replacement with a larger voice coil will generally handle more power. But speakers with larger voice coils are more expensive.