• 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 freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Are you a Tweeter Lover?

What do you do with your tweeter?

  • Always turn it off

    Votes: 79 31.0%
  • Always full on

    Votes: 29 11.4%
  • Always have it attenuated

    Votes: 52 20.4%
  • Adjust it depending on need

    Votes: 79 31.0%
  • What is a tweeter, some type of carrot?

    Votes: 16 6.3%

  • Total voters
    255
  • Poll closed .
I've never turned the tweeter off on a bass cab that I've used. I like to have enough top end so that there's some brightness to the sound, particularly when playing the odd lick up the dusty end of the neck.

Some are awful and like ice picks, some add a nice sweet shimmer.

Either I've been lucky enough to not come across any of the ice pick versions or i've been able to EQ it to taste.
 
I can't stand anything above 3-4 kHz on bass. Tweeters on a bass cab has about as much meaning to me as running a piccolo flute through a three-oktaves-down effect and hook it up to a sub with a low-pass filter set to 80Hz. I play BASS, not string noise.

(actually, the piccolo flute thing might be cool...)
 
No.

For the life of me (and this is after having more than a few very smart people explain it to me. . . .), I don't know why I need a bass guitar cabinet that goes to 18 or 20khz, and I've never heard of a bass guitar pickup package that's putting out any useable content up there. Of course, it's entirely possible I'm a complete dooofussss when it comes to this, but I still have never been presented with a practical reason that it's useful in the real world, not the world of scopes and measured responses. I'm more than happy to have hiss, line noise, and pickup anomalies trapped above the frequency response of most average cabs.

So if I want some extra high end, I'd prefer smaller cone-type speaker matched to the design.
 
Because I run a pre-amp that has cab modeling, tweeter loaded cabs sound a little more authentic.

That being said, my next project involves 8x6.5" drivers in a 3-2-3 honeycomb pattern and a ported enclosure. No tweeters, no crossovers, just a lot of full range drivers with fast transients. Still in the conceptual phase, but it looks good numerically. Will A/B against my current 3 way once I get some time to spend with my power tools again.
 
I found the horn type sometimes has it's uses if you play an ABG.

I have zero use for a piezo tweeter and always turn them off if I can, or attenuate them as much as possible if they can't be fully disabled.
 
Last edited:
Because I run a pre-amp that has cab modeling, tweeter loaded cabs sound a little more authentic.

That being said, my next project involves 8x6.5" drivers in a 3-2-3 honeycomb pattern and a ported enclosure. No tweeters, no crossovers, just a lot of full range drivers with fast transients. Still in the conceptual phase, but it looks good numerically. Will A/B against my current 3 way once I get some time to spend with my power tools again.

Sounds interesting. But what advantage does the 3-2-3 arrangement bring to the party? Are the banks of three angled off axis in some way?