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

Cab Design

B

borgward

Sep 28, 2006
378
140
#1
I have been gifted a Black Widow 15" 4 ohm driver. I noticed that the 15" Rumble Bass cab has almost identical dimensions as my Rumble 4 X10 cab. I could either replace the 10's and the piece they are mounted on or build an identical dimension cab.

My 4 x 10 cab and amp shoehorn snugly into the back of my Fiesta Hatchback with out having to lay down the back of the rear seat. Not very visible to thieves. My contoured Ripper Bass case fits nicely behind the front seats out of sight as well.

Is that 15" Rumble Bass cab a good design?

I used to have a 1 X 15" Music Man Bass cab which I think was a really great design. Really moved a lot of air but I don't think it would fit. Anybody have it's dimensions?
 
#2
You can take the T/S parameters found here and work with various programs to get a ballpark of what might work well for that driver. But, that doesn't mean it will be optimal or sound like you expect. This link has a few more suggestions for a box and that speaker. You could do some measurements and see if it "fits." But, in the end you may end up spending time, money, and effort on something you don't like/that doesn't work well.

As it's a free speaker, you could always try it out and see. No guarantees on the results, or a destroyed driver, with your tinkering.

The 15" Rumble being a good or bad design would really only relate to the driver it was initially equipped with. Any other driver in there is not going to be a "drop-in" replacement simply because the speaker fits.
 
  • Like
Reactions: shoot-r, mojo filters and Bassic_desires
#4
ninjatanzen said:
destroyed driver, with your tinkering.

The 15" Rumble being a good or bad design would really only relate to the driver it was initially equipped with. Any other driver in there is not going to be a "drop-in" replacement simply because the speaker fits.
Click to expand...
How would it get destroyed?

I was wondering if a cab needed to conform to the particular requirements of a driver, not just it's size.
ninjatanzen said:
You can take the T/S parameters found here and work with various programs to get a ballpark of what might work well for that driver. But, that doesn't mean it will be optimal or sound like you expect. This link has a few more suggestions for a box and that speaker. You could do some measurements and see if it "fits." But, in the end you may end up spending time, money, and effort on something you don't like/that doesn't work well.

As it's a free speaker, you could always try it out and see. No guarantees on the results, or a destroyed driver, with your tinkering.

The 15" Rumble being a good or bad design would really only relate to the driver it was initially equipped with. Any other driver in there is not going to be a "drop-in" replacement simply because the speaker fits.
Click to expand...
Those links are for 8 ohm. The one I have is Mod 1504 imp 4 ohm. serial # 362739.
 
#6
borgward said:
How would it get destroyed?

I was wondering if a cab needed to conform to the particular requirements of a driver, not just it's size.

Those links are for 8 ohm. The one I have is Mod 1504 imp 4 ohm. serial # 362739.
Click to expand...
Depending on how the cab is designed for the speaker, it can alter things. For example, a speaker may say 500 watts RMS. But that doesn't mean you can use 500 watts regardless of the cab. The speaker might reach xmax at lower frequencies at a much lower wattage, causing damage or failure. This will be different from cab to cab with the same speaker, as they work together for a final result. My saying of it potentially being destroyed is by putting it into your 4x10 cab with a new baffle/a cab of the same size and playing through it. It's a guessing game without doing more work to see how the speaker would work in that cab. It's more of a catch-all that tinkering without doing the research and proper design could lead to failure of the speaker. I'm not against tinkering, I enjoy it a lot. But I think it's important to understand problems can occur when doing so.

Yes, speakers and cabs for bass need to be carefully considered together.

The first link is for the 4 ohm version, but you are correct the second is for 8 ohm drivers. I also didn't know the exact model of driver at the time. el murdoque seems to be correct this driver was intended for folded horn subwoofer enclosures.

I wish I had more information to help!
 
  • Like
Reactions: KevInDaBassment, mojo filters and borgward
#7
Just 1504. Nothing else on label by the wire connectors. Nothing on the metal basket either. Came out of Fender guitar amp at least 20 years ago. It had started bad sound. I told the guy the foam filter inside the metal screen had deteriorated and was caught between the coil and magnet. Showed him how to take it apart. After we removed all the debris it worked fine. He said I could have it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ninjatanzen
#8
In regards to the 4 X 10 4 0hm cab, I run it mostly with Peavey Mark III 400 Bass Head which is only 210 watt at 4 ohms. Is that enough power to run that Rumble cab? Can not enough power be harmful by making the drivers work too hard? Reason I ask is some guys towed a race car from Texas to California with a pickup that had a small 6 cylinder engine with automatic transmission. The automatic went out because it had to do the work that the engine could not deliver.
 
#9
borgward said:
In regards to the 4 X 10 4 0hm cab, I run it mostly with Peavey Mark III 400 Bass Head which is only 210 watt at 4 ohms. Is that enough power to run that Rumble cab? Can not enough power be harmful by making the drivers work too hard? Reason I ask is some guys towed a race car from Texas to California with a pickup that had a small 6 cylinder engine with automatic transmission. The automatic went out because it had to do the work that the engine could not deliver.
Click to expand...

Underpowering isn't going to destroy your speakers simply because the power is less than the rating of the cab. Trying to push an amp too hard to make up volume can create problems, though. When an amp (yours for example) says 210 watts at 4 ohms, it isn't going to be putting that out consistently regardless of the volume knob position. It's going to vary, and "not enough" watts is ok when run clean into a cab. A cabs RMS rating is typically a thermal rating for the voice coil(s), rather than what it can actually handle across the bass frequency. Typically, low Hz are going to reduce the actual RMS handling of the cab. Many people run high-pass filters to assist with this, whether integrated into the amp or as a pedal in your chain (between your bass and the amp input).

If you run that head into your Rumble 4x10, and aren't maxing everything out, there should be no issues. If you find yourself running the amp at max volume, boosting the bass, etc. then you may have issues. In that case, you could do a few things. One would be to get a more powerful amp to drive the cab, because having headroom on the amp means being able to give a clean signal more easily. You can also look for high-efficiency cabs if you wanted to keep the head, as a more efficient speaker/cabinet will be louder at the same wattage than a less efficient cab.

I hope you can get more information on what to do with the driver in regards to utilizing it. If it were me, I would probably consider taking the free speaker and selling it. Then putting that money toward a new amp if you need more output than what you currently have available.

There are a lot of threads about "underpowering" a cab here on talkbass. Lots of good information, and lots of nonsense. If you look around, you will likely find better and more thorough answers than mine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KevInDaBassment
#11
borgward said:
Just 1504. Nothing else on label by the wire connectors. Nothing on the metal basket either. Came out of Fender guitar amp at least 20 years ago. It had started bad sound. I told the guy the foam filter inside the metal screen had deteriorated and was caught between the coil and magnet. Showed him how to take it apart. After we removed all the debris it worked fine. He said I could have it.
Click to expand...
Fender never used Black Widow speakers, somebody just stuffed a speaker into a Fender box and called it good (even if it wasn't). Happens all the time.

borgward said:
In regards to the 4 X 10 4 0hm cab, I run it mostly with Peavey Mark III 400 Bass Head which is only 210 watt at 4 ohms. Is that enough power to run that Rumble cab? Can not enough power be harmful by making the drivers work too hard? Reason I ask is some guys towed a race car from Texas to California with a pickup that had a small 6 cylinder engine with automatic transmission. The automatic went out because it had to do the work that the engine could not deliver.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's possible to damage the speaker at 200 watts (at low frequencies) if the cabinet tuning is not very good. Blowing a speaker by underpowering is NOT a thing, it's a myth perpetuated by lack of knowledge.

Towing the car with a 6 cylinder engine wasn't the problem, there was probably too much load for the transmission long term, and maybe the oil cooler wasn't adequate for that heavy of a load. Your analogy has more holes than a strainer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KevInDaBassment
#12
IDK if they'd have the info on hand, but once you have the serial number and model of the speaker on-hand, you could contact Peavey and see if they have any documentation on its original cab's design. You could then rebuild the same cabinet or see if someone else could recreate it for you. As was stated, this may or may not be what you're looking for in terms of tone or frequency response.

This is a pretty common scenario here, so no worries on making such a decision.
 
  • Like
Reactions: borgward
#13
borgward said:
Just 1504. Nothing else on label by the wire connectors. Nothing on the metal basket either. Came out of Fender guitar amp at least 20 years ago. It had started bad sound. I told the guy the foam filter inside the metal screen had deteriorated and was caught between the coil and magnet. Showed him how to take it apart. After we removed all the debris it worked fine. He said I could have it.
Click to expand...
Might be a really old BW. Does the label look like this?
https://www.talkbass.com/attachments/768df2b3-6780-492b-b45a-9b6024fd5039-jpeg.3527789/
 
#14
borgward said:
Reason I ask is some guys towed a race car from Texas to California with a pickup that had a small 6 cylinder engine with automatic transmission. The automatic went out because it had to do the work that the engine could not deliver.
Click to expand...
As a mechanical engineer with close to half a century of experience I can assure you the reason for the transmission failure was not that it had to do the work that the engine could not deliver. I suspect that the weight being towed was over the tow vehicle drivetrain's rated capacity and suspect that insufficient transmission cooling and/or operating beyond its rated capability were to blame.

I can also assure you that "under-powering a speaker can be harmful" is a bogus internet myth. If it were true, every time you turned down the volume on something, or worse yet turned something off, the speakers would be damaged to some degree. We all know from our own experiences that is not the case in real life and there is plenty of science and engineering that would back that up.

As a final thought, the transmission failure story is in no way analogous to running a speaker below its rated mechanical or thermal rated performance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Redbrangus and agedhorse
#15
They were towing a Shelby GT 350 R to Carrol Shelby to have the engine redone for an important race. As I recall it was just a plain Jane salesman's pickup. Nothing heavy duty.
www.hemmings.com

1967 SCCA B-Production champion Shelby G.T. 350R heads to auction | The Online Automotive Marketplace | Hemmings, The World's Largest Collector Car Marketplace

Photos by Darin Schnabel, courtesy RM Sotheby’s. The Shelby American G.T. 350R was created with a singular purpose in mind: transform the image of the Ford Mustang from “sporty car” into “proven race winner.” With a limited budget and tight deadline, Shelby American’s Venice, California, team...
www.hemmings.com www.hemmings.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: BassNugget
#17
I've heard about the under powering myth too. It seems like it's perpetuated in car audio circles, which is no surprise, just look at how cheesy some of the speakers/subs have looked in the past, selling to uneducated customers by looks. My guess how it may have started is by people hooking up a 100 watt amp to a 150 watt speaker and driving the amp into square wave clipping, causing the amp to put out more power. But it could have been anything, bad box design, confusion between rms and peak ratings, subs not handling rated power etc. I found this article on the internet, saying nonsensical things, mixing truth and error. Looks like A.I. slop to me.

The Hidden Dangers of Underpowering Your Subwoofer: What You Need to Know

As an audio enthusiast, you're likely no stranger to the importance of a good subwoofer. But have you ever stopped to think about the consequences of
thetechylife.com thetechylife.com
Unfortunately this garbage won't go away.
The world may never know the origins of the myth. For humor, if it were true, I would have been blowing up speakers by connecting them to an iPod in my younger years. Lol.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Al Kraft, ninjatanzen and agedhorse
#18
Probably is the driver designed for horn loading. I've never seen one. Below are the only specs I find, excerpted from
https://assets.peavey.com/literature/manuals/80300801.pdf
1504-4.png
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back