PA drivers suitable for a bass cab?
 

I recently came across a pair of 15" Eminence speakers that were taken from a set of 80s Crate 3-way PA cabs. According to the code stamped on them, they were manufactured in '87. Apparently, these were the drivers that were fed the lowest frequencies in the 3-way system.

Other than the ribbed cones that these have, they look exactly like the Eminence drivers in my '78 Acoustic 408 bass cab.

Anyone know whether these would work in a 2x15 shelf ported bass cab?

it's quite possible that these drivers are suitable for a cabinet, I'd checkit out with eminence to see if the driver's T/S spec.s would work in the box you're thinking of. The fEARful design uses a PA woofer, a crossover, and a PA mid-driver, and it's regarded as one of the best cabs one could have - it's very highly regarded. It's a good chance then, that in the right box these driver would work fairly well - not as good as a fEARful, but still good.

otoh you did say it came out of Crate PA speakers.
Hardly the benchmark of tone.
I'd rather push a Peavey than drive a Crate.

I had a friend who played bass through a crazy rack and used PA speakers. It sounded incredible.

Some of the better bass drivers are taken from the Prosound side of things, although Crate was a budget line.

Email Eminence customer service all the numbers you can find on the back of the driver. They will send you whatever Thiele/Small data they have on it, then you will know.

Not a big fan of Crate myself, but, I very much like the tone of Eminence drivers. I love the tone of the Eminence 15's in my 408 cab and these look almost exactly the same. The basket and magnets are identical. The only difference I can see is these have ribbed cones and my 70's Acoustic speakers don't.

I'm intrigued. Debating whether or not to pick these up. I just don't want to waste money on speakers that won't work.

Great idea. Thanks! I'll give it a try.

Eminence is an OEM. They make many different quality levels of speakers. I know back in the day most musicians would turn up their nose at Eminence drivers. The only "good ones" were JBL, EV and Celestion. It's only been in the last 10 years or so that they have started to market models directly to musicians and come up with reasonable approximations of the more respected brands.
Not that Eminence is junk, but I wouldn't expect crate PA speakers to be much good considering the price point most Crate gear was aimed at.

One way for a budget line to keep costs down is to order a big batch of the same drivers and cross-purpose them instead of ordering more, smaller batches of different drivers for specific designs. It's possible they loaded the same driver in bass cabs and PA cabs....possibly even keyboard amps or floor wedges. They wouldn't excell in any one particular design bit would make enough noise to sell in all of them.

It's all speculation without more detailed specs, but I would guess they would work "ok", though not all that great.


And yes, eminence was/is a wholesale manufacturer. They'll build what you send them. Sort of a garbage in/garbage out and/or quality in/quality out type of thing. They didn't always offer products directly to the consumer like they do now.

Good points, all. Appreciate the insight. Waiting for a response from Eminence.