need help with 2x12 speakers

[krdavis32]

I'm looking to replace a couple guitar cab speakers. Which 12 speakers are good for bass. I'm playing through a Bugera 1960 head. I know EV's are excellent but this close to Christmas I'm on a budget. Cant afford anything good until March.

[Chef]

You're trying to put bass drivers in a guitar box?

If that's the case, don't expect that wot work well.
Box size, box tuning, those won't be appropriate for good bass use.

[will33]

Originally Posted by Chef

You're trying to put bass drivers in a guitar box?

If that's the case, don't expect that wot work well.
Box size, box tuning, those won't be appropriate for good bass use.

+1

Though, with 100 watts to work with, you may be able to find some that would work acceptably well in sealed boxes. They won't have huge low bass, but, some of us consider that a good thing.


If you can't afford anything good until March, then wait until March. Don't waste money on something now, only to spend even more to replace it in 4 months.

[krdavis32]

The cab is an old peavey cab and it is sealed. I'm drawing on my influences when looking at 12s. Chris Squire, John Wetton, Jack Bruce and others have used Marshall cabs. I was at GC playing thru a 2x12 cab and I loved the growl I was able to get and not use pedals....If i couldve afforded the 1200$ I'd have grabbed it.
Any thoughts on speakers?? I have a few gigs so no waiting until March.

[Chef]

Thoughts? Yeah, good luck with that.

You'd be better off buying a decent low end cab, used.
Look for an avatar or something.

[RickenBoogie]

Yeah, buy a cheap bass cab instead. Much better option.

[YuppyPunk]

Originally Posted by krdavis32

The cab is an old peavey cab and it is sealed. I'm drawing on my influences when looking at 12s. Chris Squire, John Wetton, Jack Bruce and others have used Marshall cabs. I was at GC playing thru a 2x12 cab and I loved the growl I was able to get and not use pedals....If i couldve afforded the 1200$ I'd have grabbed it.
Any thoughts on speakers?? I have a few gigs so no waiting until March.

The growly tone had nothing to due with the fact that it was a 212. There is no reason to think that thowing a couple of bass 12s in that Peavey cab will give you anything close to the cab you tried at GC.

I like 212's, but not because of any inherent tonal characteristic. I like them because they output nearly as much as a 410, are lighter, have a smaller footprint and have better horizonal dispersion. Fewer speakers means fewer magnets which means lighter and less to go wrong.

[LowEZ]

A used Peavey 4x10 will be far less expensive than a couple of new 12" drivers and will sound infinitely better than anything you do with your cab. Look around. Used Peaveys and Hartkes can be had for much less than $200, with luck, some even in the $100 ballpark.

[YuppyPunk]

Originally Posted by LowEZ

A used Peavey 4x10 will be far less expensive than a couple of new 12" drivers and will sound infinitely better than anything you do with your cab. Look around. Used Peaveys and Hartkes can be had for much less than $200, with luck, some even in the $100 ballpark.

This ^^^^

[Chef]

True story.
I sold my Peavey 1820's for $150 each, and Peavey stuff flips in that price range all day long on CL around here.....

[will33]

What $1200 cab did you play at GC?

When you say you liked the grit you could get without pedals, I'm wondering if you just like the tone of bass being played through guitar speakers. Nothing wrong with that and it can sound quite cool, though to have an effective rig that way, it's usually a littke more complicated. Some get there by using 2 whole different rigs, although you can also do by using one amp, a crossover and 2 cabs, one with a sturdy bass woofer or 2 to carry the lowend, and one with guitar speakers to play the mids and highs where your tone is. You could also get all that built into one custom box.

Easiest way to get there quickly and on the cheap would be to go out and buy one affordable used bass rig, say a Peavey amp and a 410 or something, and a used, affordable guitar combo, say a Classic30 with a 112 in it or something.

Stack them together, turn the bass all the way down on the guitar amp, turn the mids and treble all the way down on the bass amp, and play through both at the same time.

[Thor]

I did it. Here's how it was done. Whether it was cost effective or aesthetically pleasing is in the eye of the beholder. I was and am still very satisfied with the results in terms of performance.

This was seven years ago, today I would have dumped the tweeters, shifted the position of the 12's and added a 4 or 5" midrange driver with an 800hx crossover circuit. Live and learn. I found the build enjoyable and learned a lot from it.

The box was an old guitar cab I built from RatShack plans in 1982 originally.

Upgrading the RS Musical Instrument Cab to a Bass Cab

[BogeyBass]

Good budget ceramic is the Eminence Beta 12A2

and good budget neo is the Basslite S2012

can be purchased here

hopefully the cab has decent depth
add some stuffing and screw in some dowels from the front baffle to the back wall to stiff up the baffle for bass use.

as mentioned a used cabinet could also work.
like a pair of matching 1x15's

maybe search here for this or this

15's offer the best sensitivity for low watt tubers, 12's being the next in line.

[will33]

Originally Posted by Thor

I did it. Here's how it was done. Whether it was cost effective or aesthetically pleasing is in the eye of the beholder. I was and am still very satisfied with the results in terms of performance.

This was seven years ago, today I would have dumped the tweeters, shifted the position of the 12's and added a 4 or 5" midrange driver with an 800hx crossover circuit. Live and learn. I found the build enjoyable and learned a lot from it.

The box was an old guitar cab I built from RatShack plans in 1982 originally.

Upgrading the RS Musical Instrument Cab to a Bass Cab

There is a lot of good info in this thread here from Thor.

Including this gem from BFM. It's one of the best explanatons I've seen yet regarding xmax predictions, limitations, and why displacement limited power handling always seems so low, yet we can still play loud, powerful amps on these cabs that on paper should be farting in the wind, yet don't.

A good point, but there's a few things to consider about xmax predictions. The first is that your box program is assuming that the driver is receiving 150 wattspure sineat82Hz, and if you were pushing 150w with an 82Hz fundamental- E2, almost right on the button- perhaps half of that wattage would actually be contained in the fundamental, the rest would be harmonics, so xmax wouldn't be approached. Dealing with musical program as opposed to pure sine waves you can expect that usable linear xmax predictions usually run about 3dB low. Also,xmax isbasedon thetravelof thevoicecoil within the magnetic field of the motor, and is very different from xmech, the actual physical limit of the cone/coil travel range. While the xmax of the D12LF is 4.8mm, the xmech is 26.9mm. That allows for a lot of travel beyond xmax before coil slap can occur.

Even more relevent is the xmax spec itself, which is almost arbitrarily arrived at. For instance, technically an Alpha 8 has a zero xmax. I regularly chat with a senior project engineer at Eminence who recently told me that they are now starting to use Klippel analysis of their drivers, which measures the driver in use and calculates the point at which a 10% distortion figure is reached, a far more useful spec than xmax in predicting driver performance. I wouldn't be surprised to see this spec become an industry wide standard that will eventually supplant xmax entirely.

[Technotitclan]

Can you tell us what you were using in GC. I'd say if it was a guitar cab and you liked it stick with guitar speakers. If your just new to 212's and it was a bass cab you tried and liked you will be a little disappointed by using bass speakers in a guitar cab. there not tuned the same. It may not be terrible thought.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by will33

There is a lot of good info in this thread here from Thor.

Including this gem from BFM. It's one of the best explanatons I've seen yet regarding xmax predictions, limitations, and why displacement limited power handling always seems so low, yet we can still play loud, powerful amps on these cabs that on paper should be farting in the wind, yet don't.

I learned a LOT from that guy. And he did explain it in terms that I could basically understand once I had done my homework on driver design. Fiddling around with speakers and boxes is a good thing if you can take away from it a better understanding of what you are attemptong to achieve. Like the OP, I really had a fixed budget in mind. For what I spent, I got excellent results AND an education. So it was a win overall.