Bass cab with frontward AND backward facing speakers?

[micguy]

Silly me. Here I thought I had "decent" speakers.

Seriously, wow!

You probably have common sense about spending….

 

[Altitude]

I don't know if that "port" was a good idea or not - usually mid enclosures are sealed.

Take that up with Duke LeJeune. His design, not mine.

 

[gstaats]

I'm assuming that the back firing speaker would be wired out of phase with the front firing ones. How would this change the venting if venting is even required?

The Ampeg DD and SVR cabs are wired in phase.

 

[gstaats]

Also - I think a rear firing speaker would only work if you have a wall behind you.

The rear firing drivers of the Ampeg SVR/DD cabs are crossed at 150hz. The rear firing drivers only reproduce omnidirectional sound - no wall is needed.

 

[retslock]

Silly me. Here I thought I had "decent" speakers.

Seriously, wow!

Obviously they’ll sound better than mine but it’s hard to imagine how they can sound more than a million dollars better than mine.

 

[Michael Eisenman]

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

Is that a Leslie®-type speaker on the floor in front?

 

[singlemalt]

One 10” firing down from the bottom, another 10 faced forward, plus the mid driver forward.

About the size of a small floor tom, 600 watt removable head, and the whole thing weighs 29 lb. I’ve gone out front and listened while somebody else takes a turn on bass and it’s pretty amazing. Little folding tilt back legs are cool.

 

[zombywoof5050]

Those AI Ten2 combos were originally 800W (1000W @ 2ohms), but the power output was decreased on later versions of the Clarus+ head.

 

[rodl2005]

I've a Bergantino HG410, with the 3 front facing drivers, and one rear facing 10" driver. From the front it looks like a 310.

It's a great sounding cab and is easy to schlep, with its compact form. It's one of my all time favorite cabs.

Drummers like it too, seems to give them a little more present bass sound, especially when it's got a solid wall behind it.

 

[tombowlus]

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.

+1 I have heard multiple cabs with these types of designs, and some perform better than others. As previously mentioned, the Bergantino HG series (HG310, HG410, HG412) have one rear-facing driver. I own two HG310's and one HG412, and my drummer loves them. He always notices when I use them, and he likes being able to hear the bass a bit better. He also notices when I use my AudioKinesis cabs, and while he does like them, I think he prefers hearing more of the lower notes that he gets with the HG's. I also own a prototype 3x8 Jim Bergantino made years ago:

For the record, I also own several isobaric cabs (EA and Orange), and they are definitely intriguing - and can move more air and go deeper than most other similar sized cabs - but they are heavier than expected. I do gig with the two smaller Orange cabs (SP210, SP212), which have the neo drivers, so they are not too bad, and they sound pretty good.

 

[Astronaut]

See comment #30. I've done it that way many times but using a combo and extension cabinet.

Ehehe only 2 comments above mine. That’s cool. Still, wouldn’t it be good to incorporate it instead of a separate one?

 

[brisonic]

I have a Phil Jones combo with 4 firing frontward and 2 firing up, not quite the same thing but interesting.

 

[Wasnex]

I'm assuming that the back firing speaker would be wired out of phase with the front firing ones. How would this change the venting if venting is even required?

The drivers would be wired in phase for a bass cab. See the bipole image on the left:

With a bipole, the output of both woofers sum. The drivers are wired in phase. Both woofers move out at the same time and both woofers move in at the same time. The idea is the pressure waves created by both drivers must be in phase.

With the dipole the drivers are wired out of phase. So one woofer moves out creating positive pressure, and the other moves in creating negative pressure. As you probably know, low frequencies are omnidirectional, meaning they wrap around the cab. So the positive and negative pressure waves wrap the cab and cancel out, unless the baffle or cabinet depth is huge.