Cabs---Less power, more tone?

[JimmyM]

I think so. I think the trend with building bigger cabs to handle gobs and gobs of wattage has contributed to poor tone in them. It seems that speaker manufacturers now cater to the players who want to use excessively high wattage power amps and drive the crap out of equally high wattage speakers without blowing them. Which is fine if that's what you're into.

But not all of us are into it. Some of us play at very moderate volumes, and even the ones who use the high wattage rigs mostly use them turned way down. Even if they play loudly, most high-wattage players don't use a quarter of what's available to them. And the cabs designed to handle them all sound boxy.

I believe it's because you have to make high-wattage driver cones too stiff and thick to have good tone. The cones need to vibrate, but to vibrate at 1000w and not blow up, they have to be made very heavy duty. But if you run them at 50w worth of power, they hardly move. I think this is why smaller single speaker cabs built to take more than a couple hundred watts can sound stiff as well. But take a cab like an SVT 810 with some vintage drivers in it that are rated for 300w and it sings like a big fat bass bird. And while the Eminence Delta 15A in my Fliptops B-15N cab sounds very good and handles way more than the vintage drivers they used to come with, stick a 100w JBL from 1966 in it and it really comes to life.

SO I'd like to see cab makers make cabs with drivers that may not be able to take as much punishment but will vibrate in a more toneful manner. I'm not saying get rid of high power speaker cabs, but make lower wattage versions as well. I don't need manufacturers to protect me from myself with cabs that won't ever blow in a million years the way I use them. I want tone, and those of us who treasure tone over wattage don't have near enough choices.

At least that's the way I see it.

 

[alexclaber]

I can see how you're coming to these conclusions but unfortunately your analytical method is flawed. The first issue you need to address is what you mean by poor tone? Is that a lack of accuracy or a lack of beneficial colouration?

Alex

 

[Michael Vee]

Good post, Jimmy. This is going to get some criticism from the tech guys. But I know what you mean. At lower, more real-world volumes for most of us who aren't playing really loud stage volumes, older or more vintage-styled, lower wattage speakers can tend to sound more "musical". Hard to explain what that word means.. it's different for different players.

A couple of good examples:

Bag End S15 cabs. They don't handle tons of power, and aren't rated to go really low, but they sound terrific at reasonable levels.

Same is true with the old EVM B series speakers - 15Bs and 18Bs. Just terrific sounding for bass, although rated at 200 watts RMS, as are the Bag End cabs.

An obvious truth is that it's not necessary for a cab to go really low, or to handle 1000 watts, or to be ultra-lightweight, to sound good. Although these are design and marketing goals that would appeal to different players.

 

[Bassmec]

Many strange things are done today to avoid warranty claims. Accountants and marketing executives define todays product
far more than in the engineering lead old days.
As you say many newer drivers have very heavy voice coils
vented gap technology is only good for just so many extra watts
and it isn't twice as many.
Only choice is adding a lot more copper to the reciprocating
structure.
See it if you like as a racing car wheel and the quest
for reducing un-sprung weight to make the wheel follow the bumps better.
Well if you want to use 1200 watts rms in an idiot proof manor
and you only have two voice coils they had better have enough copper in
or you will get it back for certain.
But the salesman is stuck for a new angle and what with the "in car audio boys" the words watts are always in thousands.
"Mosfets are so cheep next year we are going 2000 watts" says the marketing executive to the salesman and accountant.
The accountant writes a memo to the engineer the engineer configures a way of using 2000 watts to do last years job the accountant writes a memo about the price of copper the engineer writes one back about first year warranty claims.
Or am I completely wrong and the engineer simply orders the new ultra lightweight copper that melts at the same temperature as a diamonds.

Agility is a different direction.

 

[alexclaber]

At lower, more real-world volumes for most of us who aren't playing really loud stage volumes, older or more vintage-styled, lower wattage speakers can tend to sound more "musical". Hard to explain what that word means.. it's different for different players.

Is that due to the increased distortion and compression from a speaker with minimal Xmax? You probably don't hear it as that, you hear it as punch and tightness.

The wattage rating of modern speakers has very little to do with Xmax. In fact you can get more watts from a lower Xmax speaker due to the voice coil being better heatsinked by the magnetic gap.

Alex

 

[Bassmec]

Eureka I have found it its all to do with them aliens we now have a registered trademark material called Roswellite tm and guess which industry this material is used in.
A Sound Equipment
B Medical Equipment
C Military Equipment
We are so lucky the good old aliens have decided to only help out our manufacturers.
Any body who put down Military equipment is a conspiracy theorist.

 

[Jim Dombrowski]

It's pretty simple: If you don't like the way a cab sounds, don't buy it.

 

[MtManiac]

I think I'd have to agree - I can't explain it, but I agree.

 

[fdeck]

Is that due to the increased distortion and compression from a speaker with minimal Xmax? You probably don't hear it as that, you hear it as punch and tightness.

This makes a lot of sense. If beneficial distortion is part of "the sound," and you are playing at a controlled volume level, then a speaker capable of handling more power will not sound as good.

Also, as a rough generalization, ported speakers will have less distortion, and speakers tuned lower will have less distortion simply by virtue of being in bigger boxes.

 

[JimmyM]

It doesn't really have anything to do with distortion levels IMHO. I really think it has to do with high power speakers not being pushed. Again, just like the tube vs. SS discussions, it's not all about overdrive.

And Alex, it's neither a lack of beneficial coloration or a lack of accuracy. Do I know exactly what it is? No, but I have a good idea that it's the drivers being too stiff to work well at lower volumes. It's a cardboard type of sound like the cones are made of cardboard (and at the point of handling 125w, a 10" driver might as well have a cardboard cone).

 

[Jazzman]

A lot of the older bass cabs used guitar speakers - to name a few, the B-15N used the Jensen C15N and the Bassman used C12R's or Oxfords 12M6's(?) that were primarily guitar speakers. Have you considered building a cabinet to work with similar typical-guitar speakers?

 

[JonathanD]

I remember once saying to a guy "I would rather hear 8 speakers at 25 watts each than 2 speakers at 500 watts each."

 

[JimmyM]

A lot of the older bass cabs used guitar speakers - to name a few, the B-15N used the Jensen C15N and the Bassman used C12R's or Oxfords 12M6's(?) that were primarily guitar speakers. Have you considered building a cabinet to work with similar typical-guitar speakers?

No because most of my cabs are vintage or made vintage, with the exception of my Markbass combo and my Tube Works 410T, which actually gets a good sound despite its 400w handling rating. But I think that companies should make new cabs where the concern is tone over power handling rather than me having to commission it. I guess I'll have to commission it in the future, though.

 

[3506string]

I dont know if it is so much an issue of power handling as spl level in general companies that go for high power handling also have high spl levels which is known to color your sound. Speakers with lower spl levels seem to have a more transparent or true sound. IMO high power speakers dont sound bad its just a matter of finding some that you like.

 

[fdeck]

It doesn't really have anything to do with distortion levels IMHO. I really think it has to do with high power speakers not being pushed. Again, just like the tube vs. SS discussions, it's not all about overdrive.

It's either frequency response or distortion. Those are pretty much your choices. Distortion can be at a low level where we would not characterize it as "overdrive," yet it could be producing the effect that you perceive.

One could speculate all day about the root cause. Drilling any deeper requires measurements.

 

[()smoke()]

when i play guitar, i prefer a 412 loaded with 25 watt 'greenbacks' over a cab loaded with 75 watt speakers...but usually when i play guitar, it's loud...and crunchy

with bass, it's different--i like the midrange information in the sound to be there, not necessarily colored, but present...i haven't thought much about the power ratings of speakers in the cabs

 

[Bassmec]

It's either frequency response or distortion. Those are pretty much your choices. Distortion can be at a low level where we would not characterize it as "overdrive," yet it could be producing the effect that you perceive.

One could speculate all day about the root cause. Drilling any deeper requires measurements.

Is there no point at which a cone and voice coil assembly has become
impactically heavy and therefore unsutable for extended frequency
response in the upward direction. Course there is.
Ok so just add a tweeter you say but it wont sound the same, it might put out a large quantity of hf but if it wont sound like what you used
back in the seventies because it isn't the same thing.
We could tell the same story using two of the most famous loudspeakers of the seventies the K130 and K140 both used exactly the same basket and magnet assembly the only difference was that one had a lightweight smooth cone and the other had a heavyweight cone
with multiple radial cone striations.
The k130 was fantasically bright, for a fifteen inch it had more at 5 k
that most 12" guitar speakers.
Fender put an even lighter cone in it with a paper edge in the D130F
signature series dual showman cabinet version.
It was a proper fifteen inch guitar speaker, on clean sounds it was
amazing but sounded harsh in the breakup the 140 with the cone striations could get some breakup in the cone between the outer edge and the part of the cone close to the dust cap but due to more copper and a heavier cone didn't have the top end for guitar but with its bright sounding ally dome was just right for bass and with a very basic eq system it could sound great even when driven quite hard.
The 140 handled twice the watts, had exactly the same spider and
linen surround as the 130 but due to the mods for power handling
and extending the LF response lost efficiency and hf.
Them's the rules of Physics.

 

[JimmyM]

Well it's not distortion so it must be freq response. On both ends of the spectrum. I used a rental SVT Classic cab this weekend in Idaho, and my old one is not only brighter but deeper sounding on the bottom. Mine just feels more sensitive while this one felt like it was compressed and muted.

After what bassmec said, I'm convinced that's the problem. If I put the 73 CTS's from my old cab in the new one, I bet it would open up a lot tonally.

And while we're at it, what has happened to the aluminum dustcap? They really seem to sound edgier than speakers without them, plus they really look cool

 

[12bass]

Distortion isn't necessarily heard as clipping. Any deviation from the input waveform is a form of distortion - it could be artifacts from compression when you stress the drivers.

 

[alexclaber]

It's either frequency response or distortion. Those are pretty much your choices. Distortion can be at a low level where we would not characterize it as "overdrive," yet it could be producing the effect that you perceive.

One could speculate all day about the root cause. Drilling any deeper requires measurements.

Exactly!

If you want to understand more, download some spec sheets from speaker manufacturers and then you can quantify what you're hearing. All these woolly terms of mass, stiffness and so on are dealt with in terms of quantifiable parameters like Mms, Cms, Rms.

These olders speakers to which you refer exhibit tons of distortion compared to many more modern speakers. You are obviously not hearing that as distortion but an interesting tone with a lack of boxiness, but nevertheless it is distortion.

Comparing old SVT cabs with new SVT cabs is sadly not very apples and apples because the old SVT speakers were very good for the time but the new SVT speakers are about as cheap as bass guitar speakers get.

Alex