When I was tearing down a ceiling at a laundromat, I got 4 8" Radio Shack speakers out of it. I was thinking they be good for a practice amp for my apartment, as a lot of power wouldn't work. Be all right in my buddies garage, too. Any design tips for a cab? They're only 15 watts peak.
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4X8 speaker cabs
- Thread starter dan stanton
- Start date
No offense intended, but for a bass guitar cab it would be a waste of effort. They would more than likely fail with as little as 30 watts RMS feeding them. 
Honestly, these speakers aren't designed for bass(or any instrument for that matter). Even at low wattage, the tone would be horrible and there would be no real low end. There are, however, 8" speakers that are designed for bass and keyboard that sound great. A friend/fellow bassist in my regional club circuit uses a Mesa 4x8 cab paired witha Hartke 115XL. His sound is killer. Many companies offer 8's in some configuration or another, and they have a unique sound that, depending on your needs/tastes, sound great. Hope this helps.
If you were going to use 8s you would need something like this Invalid Link Removed that was made for bass..
Thar she blows. Sorry, Dan they would either just fart or totally crap on you with very little volume. Eminince and B&C build neo 8" that sound very good but their expensive. If you're lookin' to build a DYI cabinet there was a a nice one in the TBBG amp threads by Duke LeJune.
Ric
Because recorded music is compressed to hell, it only requires a short speaker excursion due to lack of transients. Bass guitar on the other hand has massive transients and so requires lots of excursion. My old SWR 4x8 is 240 watts and is a killer cab. I will never, ever sell it.
And who knows how long(years, decades?) the speakers were in the ceiling, exposed to moisture, heat, dirt, and fumes from bleach and laundry detergent. The cones are probably brittle and the voice coils oxidized.
IME, they probably wouldn't be useful for anything musical where you were expecting a high quality, full range sound, not even for an iPod system. As far as the 15 watt rating goes, that's wishful thinking and marketing nonsense by the manufacturer. What? 15 watts at 10% distortion level at 1k Hz? Probably something like that.
I know they're not great bass speakers, they weren't designed for that. I can't have too much volume in an apartment. The amp will have 10 watts rms, max. Hooking them up to my little gem, they sound pretty good.
dan stanton said:
Agreed!
I think it'd be a cool little rig to have the 4x8 paired with an epiphone valve jr. You could redo the head to have the same look at the cab and it'd look really cool!
Sounds like they'll work out great for quiet apartment practicing.
Based on that scenario, good find!
this thread made me think of a ques for some tech gurus. wouldn't it seem like these were probably used with that 70v source? and the real question-what the hell is 70v? is this a more 'robust' output to overcome really long speaker wiring? really low or high ohm loads? does it only refer to a type of amp, or are specially designed drivers needed? i'm not asking for any other reason than curiosity. and to the OP--- luke, go back!!! it's a trap! free is cool, but farting cheap drivers aren't.
