Eminence Beta 15a arrived and is installed

[SGS]

Update from this thread Need a new 15" and 10" speakers...suggestions? Quick recap - the speaker in my Dean Markley amp was falling apart due to old age. DukeLeJeune and rpsands, along with others, recommended that I go for the Eminence Beta 15a. $70 later I had a speaker on order.

When I took the old speaker out I measured and found that I had 1.8 cu ft inside instead of the estimated 1.7 cu ft from measuring the outside. It's a sealed combo amp. Not the 2 cu ft I would have preferred but nothing I can do about that. There was also no fill inside. A trip to Walmart and $3 later I had poly pillow fill. I put the whole 20oz in and the inside is now filled (loose, not rammed in).

This speaker is very transparent and also much crisper than I expected from a 15". I need to play around more but it sounds like the frequency response is very flat from my low B all the way up through to G, so about 1 1/2 octaves of flat response. The response seems to start picking up more after that so I'll have to play with the EQ a bit to keep it smooth and even. The response I'm getting may be due to the box size I have the speaker shoved into though and not the speaker itself. I'm bouncing between 2 basses (Dean 5 string and Squier Jazz) and the response is still flat all the way to G on both and how much "punchier" it gets afterward depends on which bass I'm using, where I'm picking, which pickups I'm using...


So far I'm VERY happy with this purchase. I got what I was looking for in the lower frequency range and I can easily tweak the mid-high range with the EQ.

Now I need to get two 10" speakers for the Peavey cabinet so I can wire it to 8 ohms instead of 16ohms. Plus I don't care for the speakers in it now, I just don't hear them very much with both cabinets hooked up so it almost seems like a waste to use it currently.


Thanks to all for your help and input and rock on

[rpsands]

Glad to hear it worked out

[SGS]

So far its working out very well. I don't have too much play time on it yet and most of it is playing with EQ settings. I've spent too much cash on bass stuff in the past week (picked up a Squier Jazz today) so I think I need to wait a month or two before I play with the 2x10 speakers.

I am going to open up the 2x10 cabinet this weekend and put some poly fill in it and see how that reacts. When I fired up my amp earlier tonight the 15" was so clear I didn't even know that the 2x10 cabinet was unplugged. It doesn't seem to be adding much depth to my sound right now so some fill may help.

I'm also going to take the internal dimensions of the 2x10 cabinet and then we can discuss porting it vs. leaving it sealed.

[TheRockinRoadie]

Im glad your happy with your rig, the Beta 15a may also be my next purchase too for my MBC115 cabinet

[SGS]

So far so good with it.

I had a couple factors that were pushing me towards that speaker. The smaller sealed enclosure was probably one of the biggest we were looking at. Another, and very reasonable one, was that I paid $130 for the amp and now with replacing the speaker I have $200 into it. When I'm ready to sell it and buy a new rig I can probably break even or very close to it.


And just for fun, I'll post the same picture here I put in the Basses section. I bought a barely used but stickered up Squier Jazz tonight so I'll "show off" my amp/cab setup along with my basses over here

[JimmyM]

the beta 15 and delta 15a are very underrated speakers imho. yes, there are updated and more fancy speakers out there, but the beta and delta sound like what i want to hear out of bass, which centers around vintage ampeg cabs. not surprised the beta worked for your markley...it's probably very similar to what was in there before.

[SGS]

I couldn't tell you the specs on the original Dean Markley speaker. The only thing I was concerned about was the steep roll-off below 50hz, especially since I have a 5 string. I was told here not to worry about it since the first overtone is more important. When I was playing last night I cut the 32hz slider down to flat and everything sounded good. It was a little weak when down on the B string but not too bad. I cut it down below flat and the sound was a bit weak on the E string. I'm still going to run the 32hz slider at about +9db because it does thicken the overall sound on the lower notes a bit but the roll-off below 50hz doesn't seem to be much of an issue.

Here's a pic of the 2 speakers for comparison. The Eminence is the one with the larger dust cap.

[JimmyM]

judging by the size of the dustcap on the markley speaker, the likelihood of it giving you anything serious below 50hz is even less likely than the beta. but you're right...who needs it? just boost the slider a little if you get a little thin on the lowest notes.