ampeg svt 4 pro and 2 gk cabs connection dilemma

[adishor]

Hi!
I've seen a lot of good advice here on TB and I thought I’d ask for one too, so here goes:
I have an ampeg svt 4 pro head (1200 W continuous mono bridged at 4 ohm/ 2 x 490 W continuous at 4 ohm) and I am planning on buying 2 gk cabinets (115 & 410) each rated at 400W at 8ohm. I am thinking that I can hook these up together in 2 ways (see pics attached):
A. mono bridged, with the 2 cabs in parallel
B. in dual mono
Any pros and cons for these setups?

 

[Gearhead17]

It's best for you to try it out and play what you like.

Mixing & matching cabs is not the best idea because one cab will be louder and/or sound better than the other cab. For many though, the resulting combination of a 410 and 15 creates a sound that cannot be replicated. If you are familiar with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, he now plays in the band Them Crooked Vultures with a SWR 410 & 15 as his stage rig. It might be on a crossover or he just might like the combined cabinet tone. I would say he is nuts, but if likes the tone, why should I condone it?

You could put the cabs on the crossover function and have the 410 do the low end and the 115 do the 200hz and up range. Could turn out decent.

You could put both cabs on the mono-bridge function and probably get everything you could imagine out of them.

Or you could just run each speaker independently on the two power channels. Pretty much the same as mono-bridging without the extra power.

So there are three ways to run your cabs. Try them all and kill some guitarists!

 

[adishor]

Thanks, great input!

I guess what you’re saying is that until hearing the “mixed” cabs together and deciding for yourself if you like it, you’re safer with 2 cabinets of the same type. That makes sense especially because of 2 other reasons:
1) I can only buy these cabs online so I can’t really hear the combination in advance;
2) You’re right about the crossover function but I wasn’t gonna use it – this might sound silly but that isn’t naturally who I am as a bass player.
And I guess that way you’re also free of the phasing effect, which frankly I consider to be a bit exaggerated.

I’ll very much consider the same type cabs option!

Although you MUST be cool to be 64 and still rock with the best of the best! Way to go John Paul Jones!

 

[Gearhead17]

JPJ - yeah! The guy has been around forever and still plays! Still sounds good too.

I highly suggest two of the same cabs. Two 410's is plenty for just about any stage. 15's are cool in their own right, but if you want a large variety of tones, better low end, and that edgy pick attack, 10's or 12's are the way to go. If you want the vibe of a 15, get two of them! Most single 15's don't have the sheer volume output as a 410 would (less peaker surface area), 2 15's would be a better purchase. Still, it depends on what kind of band and the volume requirements you have.

With two of the same cabs - the amp will split the wattages evenly between the two, the combination of the same tone and volume will make a massive tone for sure. You will get everything one 410 has and more! I use two Mesa 410's - Love it!

ALSO: I agree with the 8 ohm cab idea. For big stages, both 410's in 4 ohm mono bridge, and with smaller stages, 8 ohm bridging. Do you have the correct mono-bridge cable?

 

[RickenBoogie]

+1 to everything gearhead said, especially about mixing a 15 with 4 10's. Think about it this way, one speaker, against 4 speakers. Naturally, the one with 4 will outperform the single, meaning the single 15 becomes the limiting factor in your rig. Doesn't work for me at all, but then, it DOES work for JPJ and many others. Without the ability to test drive it first, I'd go the "safe" route. But I'd go with 2 15's. YMMV.

 

[adishor]

Thank you guys both for the much apreciated advice! I’m definitely gonna go with two of the same cabs!

P.S. Gearhead, great question about the mono-bridge cable! It made me realize that the typical ampeg mono bridge cable is not going to be of that much help to me due to the fact that GK cabinets don’t have a second speak-on output for daisy-chaining (damn your 2 410 mesa powerhouse) not even on the RBH and NEO series (see attached)!
What do you do in such a situation if you want to monobridge at 4 ohms? You just custom build a cable with the typical ampeg mono bridge speak-on at one end and 2 another normal speak-ons at the other end(s) connected in parallel (if possible)? Or should you just use a speak-on splitter?

 

[Gearhead17]

I don't think this mono-bridge idea will work out too well. Can someone else advise? I have no idea how to do it!

 

[adishor]

Why do you think this would not work?

 

[Gearhead17]

You really do need that other speakon connector on the GK cab to daisy chain the other cabinet. With the back panel of the Gk as it is, I don't see how you could do that. You also have only one speakon Mono-Bridge jack on the 4 PRO - can't do 2 connections from the head itself. I might be thinking too hard...

 

[adishor]

I’ve also thought long and hard about this but here’s the simplest solution that I came up with:
You know when they say about the 2 speakons in the back of the cabinet that they are either for input either for daisy chaining another cabinet? You can use either one of them for input or either one of them for daisy chaining, there’s no “technical guideline” that you should only do it from the left to the right, or the other way around when you want to daisy chain other cabinets. And that’s because both inputs are connected to the speakers exactly in the same way, and that’s exactly what parallel wiring is!
So if a cabinet has 2 inputs (in my case, one speakon and one ¼”, it’s exactly like having the 2 speakons, because they are both connected to the speakers in exactly the same way (in parallel). So I’ll have to double check by opening one of the cabs when they arrive, but I’m 100% percent sure that I can daisy chain the second cabinet from the other input (1/4&#8221 of the first cabinet to the single speakon of the second cabinet. That’s without any modification made to the cab whatsoever!

Or maybe just to be on the safe side, I’ll replace the ¼” with a speakon on the “first” cab.

 

[Jack De Levo]

Hi. All speakon outputs on the SVT 4 can be used with the same speakon connector, there is no "special" adaptor. In mono-bridged mode (switched in) the center connector uses the + (positive) from each of the 2 channels that are driving 180 degrees out of phase from each other, providing your cabs with the AC signal needed to move your voicecoils. All you need to be careful about at all times is your total speaker impedance and obviously your individual cabs power handling capacities. For all of the above reasons, I would highly suggest using identically rated cabs when running in mono-bridged mode. ~ Best. JDL