• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Double Bass 12" vs. 15" speaker

#21
I use a GK MB115, and have been using it for all of my upright bass gigs for a year now. It is not "sloppy, woofy, overly boomy" or "slow" in the slightest.

In fact, it's the "tightest, most articulate, and mid-present" 15 I have personally used. IMO - it's a great amp for DB with very nice clarity, and it gets louder than most of us ever need to be.

Today's 15s are not the same as your Pop's 15s.
 
#24
Yes, the only drawback to these older speakers is the lack of power handling for larger gigs. But for smaller gigs, oh, the tone! I once had the privilege of gigging with a 15 inch mid-'60's Jensen Concert model (the ones used in hi-fi's, not the musical instrument speakers like the P or C series). It was my favorite 15 in a ported Showman cab until I blew it with a Bassman head (silverface 2X6L6). I should have gotten it reconed, but other things got in the way. This picture is not it, but the one I had looked like it, complete with "can" over the magnet and the thumbscrew terminals:
Link Removed
 
#25
robgrow said:
Those Tannoy Dual Concentric drivers are some of the best speakers ever IMO. I once had a chance to buy a pair of 15-inch Monitor Gold drivers in Tannoy cabinets. They sounded magnificent. I am still kicking myself for not getting them. :crying:
Click to expand...

Single 15" Monitor Silvers have sold on eBay rather recently for around $3k with no cabinet. :eek: Mine is in a 9 cu-ft bass reflex cab and driven by the Bell 2200C that drove it from 1954 to 1971. Took me five years to restore the amp. The Monitor Silver turns 60 years old this year (as close as I can date it).


TannoySmall.jpg


Okay, sorry for the derail of the thread... we now return you to double bass amplification. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: WyreAndWood
#26
I am pretty sure that within speakers of a given design type, such as the ported box, you can't decouple frequency and transient response from one another. If one speaker sounds "faster," it is likely to be due to having a preferable frequency response curve.

I'm a DIY'er, but when faced with the driver size dilemma on my latest project, I figured it this way: A single 12" is capable of getting loud enough to drive my bass far beyond the threshold of feedback, and also, louder than I really want to play. Thus a 15" would have been overkill.

Now that I'm doing virtually no electric bass work, I've contemplated building a really lightweight 10" box, but my garage workshop only operates during the summer.
 
#27
fdeck said:
I am pretty sure that within speakers of a given design type, such as the ported box, you can't decouple frequency and transient response from one another. If one speaker sounds "faster," it is likely to be due to having a preferable frequency response curve.
Click to expand...

Some would argue that time-alignment of the drivers contributes but that shouldn't really be much of a factor for DB cabs.
 
#28
fdeck said:
I'm a DIY'er, but when faced with the driver size dilemma on my latest project, I figured it this way: A single 12" is capable of getting loud enough to drive my bass far beyond the threshold of feedback, and also, louder than I really want to play. Thus a 15" would have been overkill. Now that I'm doing virtually no electric bass work, I've contemplated building a really lightweight 10" box, but my garage workshop only operates during the summer.
Click to expand...
It's not necessarily about just volume, but the tonal and inertial aspects of the various cones, along with the Thiel parameters to get the desired resonances and efficiencies at any particular point in the spectrum. The ten-inch 2-way, if designed properly, has a lot of the sonic characteristics that lend themselves for DB, just like in my younger days I preferred the 1X15 or 2X15 with a ported cab to get the upper bass push for EB to support the band.
 
#29
iiipopes said:
It's not necessarily about just volume, but the tonal and inertial aspects of the various cones, along with the Thiel parameters to get the desired resonances and efficiencies at any particular point in the spectrum.
Click to expand...

Volume? Tonal and inertial aspects? Sort of. What's mixed up here are physical and perceptual quantities-- volume being a perceptual quantity related to but differing from the perceptual quantity of loudness. Sticking with the physical quantities, what it's about in the frequency domain is achieving a smooth and extended response. The Thiele-Small alignment parameters are not in addition to but, rather, embrace and incorporate a number of physical parameters of the driver (e.g., diaphragm mass, suspension compliance, resonance, etc.) in addition to parameters of the cabinet. There are a number of trade-offs such as extension of low-frequency response vs. peaks in the spectrum caused by the interaction of resonances. Add to all this the efficiency of the entire system and the designer is juggling the frequency response and the sound-pressure level achieved for a given input. One of the "laws" of such design is that you can only simultaneously have two of the following three:

1) Extended low-frequency response
2) Small cabinet
3) High efficiency

As for the time-domain response (intimately tied to the frequency domain), that's another chapter. Not going there now... :)
 
#30
drurb said:
Single 15" Monitor Silvers have sold on eBay rather recently for around $3k with no cabinet. :eek: Mine is in a 9 cu-ft bass reflex cab and driven by the Bell 2200C that drove it from 1954 to 1971. Took me five years to restore the amp. The Monitor Silver turns 60 years old this year (as close as I can date it).


TannoySmall.jpg
Click to expand...

FWIW< George Martin set up Sir Paul with one of those in the studio early on.
 
#31
drurb said:
Volume? Tonal and inertial aspects? Sort of. What's mixed up here are physical and perceptual quantities-- volume being a perceptual quantity related to but differing from the perceptual quantity of loudness. Sticking with the physical quantities, what it's about in the frequency domain is achieving a smooth and extended response. The Thiele-Small alignment parameters are not in addition to but, rather, embrace and incorporate a number of physical parameters of the driver (e.g., diaphragm mass, suspension compliance, resonance, etc.) in addition to parameters of the cabinet. There are a number of trade-offs such as extension of low-frequency response vs. peaks in the spectrum caused by the interaction of resonances. Add to all this the efficiency of the entire system and the designer is juggling the frequency response and the sound-pressure level achieved for a given input. One of the "laws" of such design is that you can only simultaneously have two of the following three:

1) Extended low-frequency response
2) Small cabinet
3) High efficiency

As for the time-domain response (intimately tied to the frequency domain), that's another chapter. Not going there now... :)
Click to expand...
Exactly. Pardon me if I "mixed my metaphors." My only point was that volume is not the be-all end-all like it was when we were all teenagers with our first electric instrument.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back