your thoughts about Phil Jones cabs

[crguti]

Usually bass players prefer 10", 12" and 15" speakers (sometimes 18"), but PJ cabs uses an array of 5" speakers. It's an innovative design, it looks awesone, but I'm wondering how does it sound?
What's your experience with these cabs?

[staindbass]

i never saw one in a store to try, or a pro band that used them. looks interesting though, i bet the dispersion is awesome. i have a vintage 5" woofer that will make bass you can feel, so its possible it sounds great.

[anonymous101511]

I think they sound mushy, indistinct and sloppy at a normal playing level. Super soft, like listening to headphones they are OK. I tried all the configurations they had at NAMM>Barely hear it above the NAMM noise floor before it started distorting and crapping out. Very disappointing.

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by staindbass

i bet the dispersion is awesome. .

That depends on whether or not they have the individual vertical lines of drivers sequentially low-passed from outside to inside, so that only the innermost drivers are run full range. If not then the comb filtering in the highs would be quite abominable. As for dispersion in the mids, that's defined by the total width of the radiating plane. Four fives side by side will have the same dispersion in the mids as two tens side by side. And that's not all that good, as it's less than a 1x15.

[lomo]

I like the tone but there's a large weight penalty for using small drivers (more metal per paper cone area) in large numbers and they are pricey. I owned several of those cabs; IME the 4x5 was about as loud as a good 112, and the 9B similar to a 212.....but both weigh and cost more than good quality competitors.

[packhowitzer]

I'm not sure about sound, but one of the Guitar Centers near me had a used one (8T/16B IIRC) back in a corner FOREVER. it just sat around collecting dust. Everybody that saw it (myself included) would kind of look at it with curiosity, but I never saw anyone interested enough to even try to negotiate a deal for it. I don't know what happened to it, but if you ever get one, good luck selling it....

[bongomania]

Incredibly heavy, no resale value. Some people absolutely love the way they sound, but you'll find that's true of nearly every other decent-quality speaker cab ever made.