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Bass speaker in guitar amp?

vindibona1

vindibona1

Apr 18, 2015
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#1
The sad truth is that I don't have a bass amp and would love to have something I can practice with and/or take to small gigs. I do however have three guitar amps. Two would be totally unsuitable to convert for bass... But I have an old Line 6/Spider II 75w/12" SS amp which gets largely unused. My other two amps are a Fender Blues Jr tweed and a Roland Cube 40XL. So the Line 6, especially with open back would be the best candidate to use for bass.

Does it make any sense to take the old 12" speaker out and replace it with a bass speaker to use for a bass amp? Or would it require different electronics as well?

If it seams feasible to swap speakers, considering a tight budget for such a thing, which speaker would I put in? It currently has a 12" 8 ohm Celestion speaker.

TIA for your advice.
 
#4
The cost of a good replacement 12” most likely would be similar to the cost of an entry level bass practice amp or something more substantial used. Also, open back is worse for bass as the speaker cone is in free air space without any back pressure that it would see in a sealed or ported enclosure. I would suggest trading towards a bespoke bass amp if the Line 6 isn’t currently being used.

That said, at low volume at home, you probably won’t hurt anything playing bass through it quietly. Just don’t expect to use it for gigs. My current favorite low volume practice amp is a Rumble 500 head into a small Yamaha sealed 1x12 guitar cabinet loaded with an Eminence Swamp Thang and lined with poly fill. It sounds like a micro SVT!
 
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#8
vindibona1 said:
Thanks guys. I appreciate it. I had no idea about an open back cab.
Click to expand...

It is a type of speaker made by Eminence.

Regarding "swapping speakers", bass world is way different then guitar world where you can just mix and match different speakers.

Bass cabs are built around the speakers T/S parameters. Trying to just stick a speaker in that fits the hole, and only being concerned about it's rated freq response/ohm rating/watt rating is a recipe for failure.
 
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#9
Others have said it, but yeah, open back speakers tend not to be good for bass. If you can get a few bucks for the amp and put it toward a small giggable bass rig, do it. it'll work for low volume stuff, as others have said. It might even sound pretty cool at low volumes tbh. I still like my valve junior for bass.
 
#10
Forget about changing out a guitar speaker for a bass speaker. Bass cabs require a driver made for bass guitar, and a cab designed to maximize the drivers performance. Guitar amps are almost never designed with bass guitar in mind. However, their amplifiers can often perform reasonably well for bass (although the EQ is designed for guitar, it is usable for bass). So, build a small bass cab to use with one of your guitar amps. The one described in this thread (Low-cost DIY practice/coffeehouse tweeterless 110 [long]) is just what you are looking for. Your challenge will be connecting it to one of your guitar amps. Many guitar amps use a phone fact to connect the internal speaker to the amp. If one of your 3 guitar amps is like that, just install on phone jack on the bass cab jack plate, and use a phone jack terminated speaker cable (cable with phone jacks, like an instrument cable, but made with speaker wire - critical - do not use an instrument cable!). You will have a very nice bass cab for practice and small gigs.
 
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#15
I'm not much of an electronics guy, so this could totally be wrong, but guitar combos are gonna be far lower wattage than bass amps. I play on a 500w head with a 410 cab, whereas my guitarist uses 40w on a 112 combo, and we match volume with each other. You aren't gonna get nearly as much volume with a guitar amp on bass, regardless of the speakers.
 
#16
Guitar speakers are designed for efficiency - typically, they don't have much linear excursion at all - the distort if pushed, which is usually OK, or desireable.

For bass, you need excursion - lots of it. So, a different speaker might seem like a good idea. owever, an open back cabinet guarntees that the low end you gain from having a bass speaker will be lost from cancellation - the front and back outputs combine to give you almost nothing at low frequencies.

What you need is a properly designed bass cabinet. And and amp that is EQ'd for bass as well.
 
#17
I think ya'll are right... I need something built for bass. A Rumble 100 would do it, but I'd need to find one used for about $150. I made a mistake a couple years ago not jumping on a TC Electonics 250w amp for $250 on sale at GC. I was thinking space at the time... and neighbors who complain a lot. I think the neighbor thing is why I never went for bass amplification. Rethinking that now.
 
#18
OP, I would first try the line 6 as is. Many guitar amps rely on speaker distortion for part of their sound. From what I know about line 6, they are more like a modeling amp, so, I suspect they rely more on their electronics and less on the speaker for their tone. In other words, the line 6 speaker may have more excursion that most guitar amp speakers, so, it may be able to take a bass guitar a little better than most guitar amps. The only way to know is try it.

If you find that the speaker isn't suitable, one solution might be to just buy a cheap bass cabinet on craigslist and use the line 6 to drive it. I occasionally see used 1 x 15 bass cabinets for $100 - $150 on craigslist. At this price they won't be high-end cabinets, but they should work. This might even be cheaper than buying a replacement speaker.

Lastly, as others have suggested, sell the line 6 and buy a cheap bass combo.
 
#20
callofcthulhu said:
The cube can actually make a serviceable bass amp for coffeeshop sized gigs.
Click to expand...
Ben B said:
OP, I would first try the line 6 as is. Many guitar amps rely on speaker distortion for part of their sound. From what I know about line 6, they are more like a modeling amp, so, I suspect they rely more on their electronics and less on the speaker for their tone. In other words, the line 6 speaker may have more excursion that most guitar amp speakers, so, it may be able to take a bass guitar a little better than most guitar amps. The only way to know is try it.

If you find that the speaker isn't suitable, one solution might be to just buy a cheap bass cabinet on craigslist and use the line 6 to drive it. I occasionally see used 1 x 15 bass cabinets for $100 - $150 on craigslist. At this price they won't be high-end cabinets, but they should work. This might even be cheaper than buying a replacement speaker.

Lastly, as others have suggested, sell the line 6 and buy a cheap bass combo.
Click to expand...

At this moment I'm going to keep my eyes open for something to come along. The Line 6 doesn't sound all that bad as a home practice amp. The Cube with a 10" speaker is too small and just rattles.
 
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