An honest question here - 8X10 & 2X15 paired

[Downunderwonder]

The guys reading this that think they are going to "make it" are few. The remainder need to captivate an audience in places that don't have a 50ft wide stage and a 10KW PA.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Not to mention that most 'hit' music generally comes down to a mixture of good marketing and high production costs. Pearls on swine if you will.

Jungleheat, the OP was asking why people say it is better not to mix and match, he was asking what problems exist when mixing speakers. Which is why people were telling him how there can be issues, which is why people are talking about scientific understanding.

I don't think anyone has said that the OP should under no circumstance mix, they are offering a mixture of fact and opinion to the OP, but saying any option is always open. I don't think that anywhere he has actually said he has the 215 and an 810, just that he was wanting to understand why there are issues with that kind of setup.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by walterw

right, but since the biggest visible light waves are like 750 nanometers long, holding two different flashlights at the same time puts them way too far apart to cancel each other.

(just like subs need to be either within a certain distance or outside another, larger distance to not cancel each other too much. that distance is measured in feet, so right in the zone where cab placement and speaker size matters.)

It's more to do with the lack of coherence and and general mess of the waves coming from the light sources like flashlights, in Young's experiment the slits are several orders of magnitute larger than the longest wavelength of visible light and they are spaced many slit-widths apart.

As said, was just a tag on that waves will share some properties

[Sartori]

I'd prefer two 2x15 cabs.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by Downunderwonder

T-bird, you warm my heart. The day is coming when the majority become aware of the advantages to playing by the rules.

Instead of living in dreamworld in the name of feeling the performance, the audience getting whatever washes over them from the stage, bassists and bands learn to live within the capability of the venue to support such antics while getting a great sound out. Bands prosper and DJ's go back to their basements.

There is far more than one way to get this job done, and some of the old
school methods are still very effective.

Yes we have to be aware of comb filtering and other technical aspects of waves combining in air, but the result is, we always find ourselves suffering from acoustic problems in venues that don't chose to care exactly how in phase your drivers response may be at point source.

They just like to pick up and hoot and boom low midrange bass frequencies and cancel others without regard to the levels at various frequencies originally generated by the bass rig, whatever it is.
This all smacks of music technology lecturers educating people on how theoretically you do something without having first gained any first hand experience in this trade, but in order to qualify to perpetrate this vast fraud have gained a degree in pure physics.
I would argue that engineering gigs all over the world at every scale since 1972 gives me the advantage of being involved in something music technology lecturers don't know about, called applied physics.

The rulz are there are no rulz, other than what works really well in practice like this proud unscientific beast:

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by Jim Nazium

I have one question for those of you who use a 8X10 and a 2x15 at the same time:
Do you use hearing protection?

Yes I prefer -25dB especially for standing beside china cymbals during extreme metal blast beats.
In our genre the drummer is often quite loud without any amplification.
This is the drummer of the band I work for
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=8lVg6MBQ4GA

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by Bassmec

This all smacks of music technology lecturers educating people on how theoretically you do something without having first gained any first hand experience in this trade, but in order to qualify to perpetrate this vast fraud have gained a degree in pure physics.
I would argue that engineering gigs all over the world at every scale since 1972 gives me the advantage of being involved in something music technology lecturers don't know about, called applied physics.

Because we must either have an understanding of the science or have played live, who knows, some of us might have thrown in a few gigs with the ol' degree aswell

Again, the OP asked about what the issues were, nobody said that you couldn't run an 810 and 215.

[iualum]

Originally Posted by i_got_a_mohawk

Because we must either have an understanding of the science or have played live, who knows, some of us might have thrown in a few gigs with the ol' degree aswell

Again, the OP asked about what the issues were, nobody said that you couldn't run an 810 and 215.

That's the point. Do what you want. If you like it, fine. Still doesn't alter the reality, though, that matching boxes work together better.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by i_got_a_mohawk

Because we must either have an understanding of the science or have played live, who knows, some of us might have thrown in a few gigs with the ol' degree aswell

Again, the OP asked about what the issues were, nobody said that you couldn't run an 810 and 215.

Round East Anglia you could count them on less than one hand.
What do you think universities are doing for the very competitive commercial recording studio industry at the moment.
My band for instance are doing a video today at Middlesex University with seventy extras and all of the production facilities the university has to offer, at a rate that no commercial business could possibly think of quoting against, we would be utter fools to reject the offer.
So report your friendly local university to the office of fair trading under the scheme to avoid prosecution by admitting to being a member of an anti competitive cartel.
Music technology lecturers are murdering the commercial recording and film industry in Britain as we speak.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by iualum

That's the point. Do what you want. If you like it, fine. Still doesn't alter the reality, though, that matching boxes work together better.

You have no scientific evidence for that statement at all, it's just not a proven scientific truth. Far to many cabinets = far to many variables!.
As a massive generalisation, you have a very small amount of evidence
that will disappear the moment you leave the anechoic environment
and enter the real world.

[iualum]

Originally Posted by Bassmec

You have no scientific evidence for that statement at all, it's just not a proven scientific truth. Far to many cabinets = far to many variables!.
As a massive generalisation, you have a very small amount of evidence
that will disappear the moment you leave the anechoic environment
and enter the real world.

Might be a good idea for you to read a few threads on matching or non-matching threads.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by iualum

Might be a good idea for you to read a few threads on matching or non-matching threads.

Why would I want to read threads, I worked in an anechoic chamber back in 1972 for Celestion and have noted phase twist anomalies and their effects and decided to experiment with combinations of all sorts of speakers with or without passive or active crossovers ever since that date.
1x18" Selmer Goliath under 4x12 Marshall, November 1972.

I had the other 4X12 originally but I felt it and it sounded better with the 18".
You had to be there really.

[makohund]

Wow, red herrings must swim in schools.

What do universities, or possession or lack of degree have to do with any of it? I have none, I'm just a dumb ol' jarhead. Yet I can still grasp the concepts involved, go figure.

We're talking about sound reinforcement here. Arguments based on creative aspects (sound generation experimentation, songwriting, etc) don't really apply.

Trying to paint folks with some sort of "lab coat wearing pointy headed uncreative non-real-world-living elitist geeky nerd" brush is ridiculous. Blather, full of too many fallacies to list.

My own post offered more real, concrete support for the "contrarian position" than the stuff I'm reading here this morning.

Getting "your sound" where it needs to go involves science, no getting around that. Same as getting projectiles where they need to go. Seat of pants & intuition can make it happen, but learning a bit about acoustics/ballistics can deliver the goods with even better (or worse ) results.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by makohund

Wow, red herrings must swim in schools.

What do universities, or possession or lack of degree have to do with any of it? I have none, I'm just a dumb ol' jarhead. Yet I can still grasp the concepts involved, go figure.

We're talking about sound reinforcement here. Arguments based on creative aspects (sound generation experimentation, songwriting, etc) don't really apply.

Trying to paint folks with some sort of "lab coat wearing pointy headed uncreative non-real-world-living elitist geeky nerd" brush is ridiculous. Blather, full of too many fallacies to list.

My own post offered more real, concrete support for the "contrarian position" than the stuff I'm reading here this morning.

Getting "your sound" where it needs to go involves science, no getting around that. Same as getting projectiles where they need to go. Seat of pants & intuition can make it happen, but learning a bit about acoustics/ballistics can deliver the goods with even better (or worse ) results.

The argument here appears to have the scientific practical artillery analogy of, carefully noting the precise twist of the rifling between two different barrel designs while ranging on a target at ten kilometres with a gusting hurricane force crosswind.
It actually couldn't really matter less.
I salute you sir.

[iualum]

Originally Posted by Bassmec

Why would I want to read threads, I worked in an anechoic chamber back in 1972 for Celestion and have noted phase twist anomalies and their effects and decided to experiment with combinations of all sorts of speakers with or without passive or active crossovers ever since that date.
1x18" Selmer Goliath under 4x12 Marshall, November 1972.

I had the other 4X12 originally but I felt it and it sounded better with the 18".
You had to be there really.

How can anyone argue with that? You're right. Indeed, why read?

[Downunderwonder]

When I started applying rules my sound got out of sight better. If you don't know the rules how can you even attempt to follow them? Sound isn't intuitive.

[Foz]

Phase coherent sound reproduction using a mash up of random drivers into an analogy from ballistics would be like pulling off a Time on Target barrage... without using watches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery#Time_on_Target

And now we return to TB's coverage of the perennial Luddite parade... here comes the "Carrots" float.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by Downunderwonder

When I started applying rules my sound got out of sight better. If you don't know the rules how can you even attempt to follow them? Sound isn't intuitive.

There is nothing wrong with looking at all the available science in any subject, you just need to find which bits are relevant to your improving results, there are very real concerns with phase in bass gear and monitoring and front of house, but to be dogmatically resistant to having
loudspeakers of slightly different diameters but fairly similar frequency responses, seems odd when we are not so concerned about adding an inductive passive crossover to a bass loudspeaker in the presence of usually active monitor loudspeaker designs that don't have this phase anomaly but are normally suffering from small digital latencies these days.
I spend a lot of my time putting things in phase with expensive little labs phase tools and time alignment with micro delays in digital system controllers and analysing the results with waves software, but I don't concern my self with the very small questions, I am much more worried about getting the general phase alignment of stuff in phase from my mix position, so I can mix it as well as possible for as much of the audience as possible.
Far too many reflected phase angles at a gig in a real hall to be concerned with some very small theoretical discrepancy between two cabinets at the same point source.

[Mykk]

I use 10's and 15's, I am curious for 12's though. An 8x12 neo could be interesting

[Jim Nazium]

Originally Posted by Bassmec

Yes I prefer -25dB especially for standing beside china cymbals during extreme metal blast beats.
In our genre the drummer is often quite loud without any amplification.
This is the drummer of the band I work for
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=8lVg6MBQ4GA

Smart man! That drummer is something - any clips of you playing with him?