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Bass cab with frontward AND backward facing speakers?

#41
Ludwig said:
Keeping speakers firing in different directions having same phase at point of listener is not easy. Much easier to have them and the reflection outlet (if you have one) all pointed in same direction. If you have a speaker facing to the front and another facing to the back, the sound can be diminished depending of distance to wall and to listener for some frequency ranges. If the sound wave reflected is not in phase with direct sound wave, that reduces loudness for that frequency instead of adding to it. That is what happens in a room with "difficult dimensions" as well with the sound waves reflected by the walls out of phase with sound waves reaching the listener directly.
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This is partially why most Audiokinesis cabs (mentioned as AK above) use rear-firing mids and highs only, mostly for audibility. The woofers on most of their cabs face forward, though Duke has sold some with other orientations, including 10” woofers on 4 sides!

PS: @Altitude beat me to it! AK cabs are a marvel, but getting hard to find. Most of us who have them won’t part with them :).
 
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#42
TomB said:
This is partially why most Audiokinesis cabs (mentioned as AK above) use rear-firing mids and highs only, mostly for audibility. The woofers on most of their cabs face forward, though Duke has sold some with other orientations, including 10” woofers on 4 sides!

PS: @Altitude beat me to it! AK cabs are a marvel, but getting hard to find. Most of us who have them won’t part with them :).
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Those are the last bass cabinets I’ll ever buy, barring fire or theft. They really are great.

Actually, that rig I pictured above - Changeling 1203 cabs, GK Legacy 800 head, Valenti J5 (passive, Nordstrand single coil pickups, GHS Pressurewound strings) is extremely dialed in for the tone I want on rock/Top 40 gigs!
 
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#43
I have a Acoustic Image Doubleshot which is essentially two opposite facing 10" speKers. I originally bought it for smaller jazz groups but I have used it for rock bands for the stage volume but with PA support. It's nice for its size, it fits in a drum Tom case and is about 15 lbs. I will say it will create all kinds of audio chaos or sound like nothing at all if you place it the in a bad position on the stage. The physical surrounds seem to make a big difference on how the speaker sounds.
 
#45
The first thing I thought of when I read the thread title before opening were the Cerwin-Vega B-48MF and B-36MF bass cabinets. Front-firing 12" mid-range and 18" rear-firing (horn loaded) woofer.

Cerwin-Vega B-48MF.jpg

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#46
rockdoc11 said:
So what I don't know about bass amp and cab design would fill several books.

But I found myself idly wondering about the possibility of a bass cabinet that would have both forward AND backward facing speakers.

Imagine, say, a small cab with a 15" speaker facing forward that had a second identical speaker mounted on the "rear" of the cabinet, facing 180 degrees opposite.

Might that work? Advantages/disadvantages?

I got no idea whatsoever on how such a thing would sound. I'm guessing terrible, since I've never heard of such a thing.

But I would love to hear from the knowledgeable amps and cabs folks on this forum.

Thanks!
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I have an Ampeg DD-15 and the SVR-215. Both cabs have a front firing and rear firing 15" driver. The rear driver is crossed at 150hz, so it is just low end support. It makes a compact 4x15 stack. lol...

20211021_184521.jpg
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#48
I had at one point the SVR-212 and the SVR-215. The 212 had more of a midrange "bark" than the 215, so I sold it. The 215 just sounds good. It is too heavy to move a lot though... Quite the compact tank. I haven't moved it for a while now. With a decent head inthe 4u rack, it was also a little tipsy to move - not the best design on small casters.
 
#49
Altitude said:
The Audiokinesis Changeling cabinets have a rear-firing 3” mid driver that duplicates the front mid driver. The idea there is to spray the back wall with some of the high end to make the cabinet sound a bit more present onstage and less directional.

I have two of the 12” cabinets. The effect is useful if perhaps more subtle than you’d think. They are fantastic sounding bass cabinets in any case.

View attachment 5363230
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If you flip the top cabinet (putting the two mid/tweeters together) you'll get smoother coverage in the mids and highs.
 
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#51
rockdoc11 said:
So what I don't know about bass amp and cab design would fill several books.

But I found myself idly wondering about the possibility of a bass cabinet that would have both forward AND backward facing speakers.

Imagine, say, a small cab with a 15" speaker facing forward that had a second identical speaker mounted on the "rear" of the cabinet, facing 180 degrees opposite.

Might that work? Advantages/disadvantages?

I got no idea whatsoever on how such a thing would sound. I'm guessing terrible, since I've never heard of such a thing.

But I would love to hear from the knowledgeable amps and cabs folks on this forum.

Thanks!
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I have an old Schroeder 1515L which has a forward facing 15 and a side facing 15. The primary advantage of this configuration is portability. It has NEO speakers and weighs in at a lightweight (for a 2x15 cabinet, anyway) 40 pounds and is about the size of your typical 1x15 cabinet. It's old school with no tweeter and is a relatively deep sounding cabinet. However, with a P-Bass and its inherent midrange bark and the right EQ, it sounds great to me.
 
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#54
SemiDriven said:
Huh...you've tried this out?

Makes sense. It also elevates the top woofer!

I'm gonna have to try this out. :thumbsup:
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I haven't tried it with your specific speakers, but with others, yes. My degree is in Acoustical Physics, which enables me to "see" opportunities in a lot of places - sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse.

The high end home audio folks do similar stuff on really expensive speakers - woofer, mid, tweeter, mid, woofer is a theme that show up fairly often:

The Most Expensive Speakers If Money is No Object

That approach gives you vertically symmetrical polar patterns, which can be helpful in getting the sound to be similar for short and tall people listening to the same speakers.
 
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#56
If you needed sound behind the cab (say, for the drummer, depending on limited stage setup), this makes a lot of sense. You could always turn one cab to face rearward if you had a multi-cab stack. No idea how this would play out with frequency cancellations within the sound field.

When I was gigging local bars, guitarists both used an open back 212 cabinet, and at one point we had to put some cardboard behind the amp bc the drummer complained the guitars were too loud. The amps were on stands, right at the drummer’s ear level while seated. Of course an open back cab doesn’t work on bass, but the idea of creating a sound field* (I might be using that term wrong) with the combined front speaker and open back cab is something that has been around forever.
 
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#57
Altitude said:
Yeah, probably so!

Duke left the enclosure for the 3” mid open at the top to let some of its sound escape upward. You’d lose that.
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There's a gap there that will remain if you flip the upper one - whatever is coming out of those "ports" will be acoustically summed by their proximity to each other and radiate to some extent out of that gap. I don't know if that "port" was a good idea or not - usually mid enclosures are sealed. Who knows? Try it.
 
#58
silky smoove said:
You’re describing one variant of an isobaric cab design. This is a time tested design that, for my money, isn’t very popular for good reason.
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Pretty sure that this is NOT an isobaric cab. An isobaric cab - Orange made a couple and I bought a used one from GC and returned it because the speaker surround foam was shot. Both speakers face the same direction; the second speaker kind of functions as a spring for the driven one. Not a rear firing speaker.


Also - I think a rear firing speaker would only work if you have a wall behind you.
 
#60
walterw said:
not sure why anybody would want that, bass amps are not subs

there's no good reason for any speakers in the amp to be pointed anywhere but at the player
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You know I've learned this the hard way over the years. I've never been complety happy with any bass rig, because what I'm a actually after is the sound of.my bass through foh with deep lows of subwoofers. If it were practical I'd have a dual 18 box on stage in my bass rig.
 
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