Avatar 3 way 15/6/tweet part 2

[lomo]

* pole mounting would sck the lows out, making it pointless

* a 150 dollar peavey PR12 would be just as loud throughout most of the vocal range

It'd be a good keyboard or electric drum monitor cabinet. Bad choice for a PA main--not enough midrange sensitivity and the destructive interaction between the horn and mid will be MUCH more obvious at a distance with vocals than with bass guitar.

Makes sense. Thanks for the edumacation.

 

[mikeddd]

BTW: What's the power rating for the TB153? The Avatar website doesn't list it (a gross oversight, IMO). I'm debating the 4 over the 8-ohm; I understand the implications of either one...and that's why I'm stuck in the debate. LOL! I'm also contemplating getting the flipped baffle. Someone mentioned getting the flipped baffle even if you're only buying one cab now b/c later on when the used market opens up, Viola! Stacked cabs with proper alignment for cheap! What a great idea that guy had.

 

[BurningSkies]

The Thermal rating on the 3015LF is 500W, but the displacement limit is closer to 800W.

 

[Blues Bass 2]

Power should be about 400 to 450 watts .

 

[BurningSkies]

Power should be about 400 to 450 watts .

Its probably closer to a real world 600-750w.

 

[mikeddd]

Hmm. 600-750w. That's a lot of juice. Maybe I'll get the 8-ohm and bridge my power amp for 1050w@8ohms (and keep the gain low, of course.) My amp does 300w@8ohm (single channel). I don't think that will do the cab justice. It does 525w@4ohm (single channel). Thoughts?

 

[BurningSkies]

Just because you can put lots of wattage into it doesn't mean you have to. Right now. I'm putting about 500w into my 15/6 & 500 into my 15/sub before that i was using a 500w amp for my whole rig.

 

[mikeddd]

Thanks, BurningSkies. You know how this goes, when you're buying a new cab. You don't want any Buyer's Remorse down the road, so you try to buy the perfect cab. But there is no spoon (cab) so we do the best we can. You think a 4-ohm cab would have any perceivable difference in tone vs. the 8 ohm version? Different crossover and all that. Thanks for your thoughts.

Mike

 

[BurningSkies]

Thanks, BurningSkies. You know how this goes, when you're buying a new cab. You don't want any Buyer's Remorse down the road, so you try to buy the perfect cab. But there is no spoon (cab) so we do the best we can. You think a 4-ohm cab would have any perceivable difference in tone vs. the 8 ohm version? Different crossover and all that. Thanks for your thoughts.

Mike

Tone wise it should be about the same, assuming that Eminence did their job in designing and the 4ohm crossover was well designed.

I guess I should also say a few things about the wattage rating of the speaker vs. the cab, and how this all plays in.

First off, while that speaker may have a thermal rating of 450-500w, seldom do we bass players ever play sine waves...we generally have enough gaps between the notes of what we send the speakers that the voice coil doesn't see or retain the heat as one would with a continuous signal.

Also, remember that while many speakers are 'rated' for whatever wattage, usually that's a thermal rating and has nothing do to with how loud or low your speaker can go before reaching its mechanical limit and distorting (or as so eloquently put by most TBers: Fart out). So what you have is many cabs rate at 500w, but start sounding like crap when you feed it anything beyond a few hundred watts...even less if you're using boosted lows.

The 3015LF, which is handling all the lows below ~800w (?) which is a base guess, given that I don't have the Avatar and haven't seen the crossover or its specs, is getting the bulk of your amp's power. It has an extremely high x-max (the mechanical distance the speaker can travel before the voice coil leaves the 'gap' and the speaker goes 'non-linear'). Meaning that it reaches the point of 'farting out' at a much higher wattage than other cabs, thus getting those loud clean lows that everyone on the fEARful/nEARful/TB153 scene is always talking about. And thus also me speaking about it having a 'real world' usability beyond 500w.

The other thing to think about when looking at that 450w number (beyond the thermal rating & and accounting for the extended x-max this speaker has), is when people are quoting that number they're talking about a single speaker. The Avatar TB153 (fEARful, etc.) are not one speaker full range cabs. They're 2 or 3 speaker cabs. With a properly working crossover If your amp produces 500w, your 3015LF isn't seeing 500w (even if an amp did produce peak power all the time, which we know they don't). The crossover is dividing the signal so that the MID is seeing part of that power (the tweeter a much smaller part, but some too). So hypothetically, if you're hitting that cab with 500w, you're only hitting that woofer with a percentage of that...maybe 350-400w? The mid is also taking a portion of that power, but to a lesser percentage (maybe 50-200w, depending on what you're feeding it).

* I would also make a base guess that the 450w that Eminence is quoting is a very "safe" estimate...and that a real life thermal rating is higher.

 

[rpsands]

Regarding comparison to a fEarful in power handling: Remember that with the 6nd410 you've got 3db or so of sensitivity headroom which is padded back, doubling the thermal handling, and likewise, your crossover is going to be specced to handle 1000w peaks.

It's highly improbable that the crossover components used in the TB153 crossover are going to handle the same amount of beating as Greenboy's generously specced crossover.

With the Avatar, I'd expect you would start melting crossover components before you melted the drivers. That's just conjecture of course.

 

[faulknersj]

6 months later and I am still absolutely loving this cab! My Genz Benz NeoX 212T doesnt really leave the house much these days...although it really is a great cab as well. I just can't get over How great the Avatar sounds and how deep and clean the lows are. My 12's just can't throw the same amount of bottom end. This is one of the best values and best purchases I have ever made.

 

[monkeyking]

As to the wattage question (and thanks to both rpsands and burningskies for their technical input, much appreciated), I've been running the 8 ohm version of the TB153 since January. Demeter pre into a Crown xti 1000. Bridged at 8 ohms is (I think) 1000 watts. Usually the gain on the pre is about noon and the gain on the amp varies from noon to 3 o'clock, so I'm not hitting it with peak power by any means, but it's been solid and clean all the way.

I originally went with the 8 ohm because it's what was available and I knew power wasn't going to be in short supply. It's been great to have the option on adding another 8 ohm cab. Most times I'm not running bass through the monitors so I daisy chain a 2 x 10 cab off the side and point it at the drummer (so I can pummel him into keeping a tempo). Works great and I think running the Avatar at 4 ohms makes it sound ever so much more forward and hard hitting.

With the two cabs I think the amp pushes 1400 at 4 ohms, but again, I doubt that I'm ever even close to putting out that much power.

I can't see much reason not to go with the 8 ohm cab. The added flexibility is worth it and, yes, I am toying with the idea of another TB153, just to frighten people.

 

[mikeddd]

Thanks, BurningSkies and rpsands for the detailed tech talk. Your replies are very educational and straightforward.

I guess I'll go with the 8-ohm; it is more flexible, especially if I ever get another cab. Can't wait to join this club!

 

[rpsands]

With this particular cab, because Avatar won't reverse the baffle and no other cabs are a match for it, I would almost always recommend the 4 ohm version. If you're OK with a 4ohm 4x10 as your main cab, this will be perfect.

 

[BBEgo]

Can this cab produce volume like a $600-$1000 4x10 cab?
The summer concert-in-the-park season is about to start, and I'm considering selling my 2 Eden cabs for a single TB153 or Epifani UL2-410.

 

[mikeddd]

I do believe that someone posted in this thread stating he called Dave and asked about a reverse baffle, and Dave said he would do it. Just ask when ordering.

 

[rpsands]

It'll beat the crap out of a high end 4x10 under 100hz, match from 100-1khz, and not come close above 1khz - so depends on your tonal goals. On the flipside, above 1khz or so the 4x10 starts to beam like crazy so the midrange probably will be more consistent around the room up there as well.

 

[rpsands]

I do believe that someone posted in this thread stating he called Dave and asked about a reverse baffle, and Dave said he would do it. Just ask when ordering.

Someone asked when ordering and was told no, also

 

[mikeddd]

Someone asked when ordering and was told no, also

Really? That's strange...Dave's typically an easy guy to deal with. Then again, I don't think they actually build the cabs; they're outsourced, IIRC. Cabs probably come with the baffles already on.

 

[BurningSkies]

It'll beat the crap out of a high end 4x10 under 100hz, match from 100-1khz, and not come close above 1khz - so depends on your tonal goals. On the flipside, above 1khz or so the 4x10 starts to beam like crazy so the midrange probably will be more consistent around the room up there as well.

Why do you say it won't come close above 1k? I don't really buy that. Most 4x10's have a huge hole in their upper mids that the Avatar shouldn't have.