Fearful 12/6/T or 15/6/t with an SVT/Orange tube amp

[Bassflute]

anybody playing these pairings? What's it like? Clips would be helpful...thinking of an old-school/new school rig.

Cheers,
Cameron

[Passinwind]

Cameron,

You could probably try this for yourself here, if you can swing it:

Seattle GTG

I've tried plenty of other tube amps through that sort of cab, but neither of those examples. The cabs are ultra-revealing and it takes a very strong example of any tube amp to make me happy with them. A lot of that may just be the curse of the longtime amp tech though -- everything is either broken or about to be in my world!

As far as 15/6/1 vs 12/6/1, good builds sound extremely similar in either flavor, IME.

[Jim C]

Think a 300 watt SVT at 4 ohms has enough power to push a 15/6/1 to a decent level with headroom (assuming a cleanish tone)?

Seems that some board members did not have great results using a 300 watt Walkabout.

[greenboy]

Oh? There's a Walkabout tube amp now?

[chunkstyle]

15/6 is an 8 ohm cabinet. Is it a good idea to push an SVT hard through 8 ohms?

[NKBassman]

Originally Posted by chunkstyle

15/6 is an 8 ohm cabinet. Is it a good idea to push an SVT hard through 8 ohms?

Not a good idea, no.

But I thought the Eminence 3015LF and the 18Sound [model number] were both 8 ohm speakers? How does that add up to an 8 ohm cab?

[Foz]

why not a good idea?

crossover makes the cab remain 8 ohms.

[anonymous02282011]

Originally Posted by Foz

why not a good idea?

crossover makes the cab remain 8 ohms.

SVT has dual 4 ohm taps.

[AwkwardLoudness]

Just daisy chain two 8Ω 15/6 cabs for a 4Ω total impedance

[NKBassman]

Originally Posted by Foz

crossover makes the cab remain 8 ohms.

is there any way to wire a 15/6 to 4 ohms? I really want to build one but wanted to use it with my 2-PRO.

[anonymous02282011]

Originally Posted by NKBassman

is there any way to wire a 15/6 to 4 ohms? I really want to build one but wanted to use it with my 2-PRO.

No, but you might want to consider the 4 ohm Thunderchild 115 that should be shipping soon. talk to Duke LeJeun

[greenboy]

fEARful™ FAQ - http://greenboy.us/fEARful/faq.htm#Can_I_make_a_4_Ohm_fEARful_cabinet.3F

[NKBassman]

Thanks Greenboy. I read your FAQ but must have missed that one.

[JimmyM]

well look who's wanting to cross over to the dark side!

never thought those cabs were so low in sensitivity that you couldn't kick them with an svt.

[DukeLeJeune]

Originally Posted by NKBassman

But I thought the Eminence 3015LF and the 18Sound [model number] were both 8 ohm speakers? How does that add up to an 8 ohm cab?

The woofer and midrange never really operate as two 8-ohm drivers in parallel because of what the crossover does.

And this is what the crossover does: It makes the impedance of the midrange driver side of the circuit very high at low frequencies, so the juice from your amp goes to the woofer... the "path of least resistance". In the woofer's region, in effect you have an 8-ohm load (woofer) in parallel with a very high impedance load (mid + filter to block the lows), and the net result is a very-slightly-less-than-8-ohm load.

The same thing happens in the midrange region, but this time it's the woofer's signal that's getting blocked, so the midrange driver becomes the path of least resistance.

Part of the difficulty in easily visualizing this is crossover terminology. We typically call the type of filter on the midrange driver a "high-pass filter", but it would be easier to understand what the filter is actually doing if we called it a "low-block filter".

The "crossover frequency" would be approximately where the signal going to the woofer and the signal going to the mid are both being partially blocked by about the same amount. So the woofer + high-block filter might be a 16-ohm load, and the mid + low-block filter might also be a 16 ohm load, and these two in parallel = an 8 ohm load.

I'm making some simplifying assumptions here, but the general concept is valid.

[Nightlyraider]

In regards to the tube amp driving fearful cabs, I am loving the absolute power my Bass 400+ puts into two 15/6s

Many posters will comment on their experience with 1000+ watt solid state amps happily feeding their cab. The 250ish tube watts I have can get way louder than is healthy, so loud as to not even be interested in trying to push that edge. *I* want to back down the volume before near maxxing out my amp.

[Bassflute]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

well look who's wanting to cross over to the dark side!

never thought those cabs were so low in sensitivity that you couldn't kick them with an svt.

and no, I don't want to even ATTEMPT to spell that correctly...

I did try a NEW SVT stack, the Heritage, and it sounded good, but it sounded REALLY good with that hideously ugly Orange 200 watt tube amp...but with passive tone, rolloff only, don't think I could do that...just thinking how nice a big bunch of fresh tubes might be with some modern, accurate, deep, and light cabs...maybe a couple of 15's...

Cheers,
Cameron

[JimmyM]

well you got one on me...the only svt rig i haven't tried is the heritage.

anyway, i haven't done a fearful, but i've done a prototype cab duke made with two 2012lf's and a mid horn with an svt, and it kicked it right in the ass and was super loud. sounded like if you took a di from the speaker out and ran it into the pa.

[mntngrown]

As soon as my lottery numbers hit, or some other fortuitous event transpires I wanna buy a VB-3 for my 1515/66 and see if it old school buries my Streamliner 900 through same.
Forget heavy SVT

[77PBass]

Originally Posted by Bassflute

just thinking how nice a big bunch of fresh tubes might be with some modern, accurate, deep, and light cabs...maybe a couple of 15's...

I am waiting for the opportunity to break out me newly acquired 2 Bergantino HT115 and my recently serviced 1972 Ampeg V4B. My thinking in this pairing was to get the old skool V4B sound with modern cabs that could produce the low end and provide enough high end extension where the upper harmonics wouldn't be shunted.