Double Bass cxl110 vs. wizzy for doubling

[Tom Baldwin]

Bob and Michael - thanks for your input. Michael, actually my interest in the Wizzy is because of it being potentially more DB friendly, the reported tonal characteristics, and the portability, not because I thought I could get more volume from a 4ohm load. In fact, I might be sold on the thing would that it were an 8ohmer. That way, in those rare occasions when I need to move a lot of air, I could add another cab.

Here's another question. I generally don't care for tweeters, so on the cxl I can just turn it all the way down (off?) The Wizzy has no tweeter, but Bob says the highs are there anyway, just maybe not as harsh. So am I better off with a tweeter that I can attenuate, or a tweeterless cab that I have futz with EQ?

One more thing. The cxl-112 is described as having the characteristic 1K bump in the curve. But that's exactly where I'm told to notch out if I want to get rid of string noise. Does the Wizzy also have this bump? Why would they want to accentuate that frequency which to me is so annoying?

I know I should just shut up and buy the damn thing to see if I like it. I just want to get it right so I can avoid this: "What? Another speaker? Didn't you just buy one? How many do you have now? Why do you need so many? "

You know the drill.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Here's another question. I generally don't care for tweeters, so on the cxl I can just turn it all the way down (off?) The Wizzy has no tweeter, but Bob says the highs are there anyway, just maybe not as harsh. So am I better off with a tweeter that I can attenuate, or a tweeterless cab that I have futz with EQ?

In my opinion, you are better off with a tweeter that you can attenuate, such as any EA cab I know of except the "Wizzy" series. The very frequencies which annoy the crap out of you onstage are often the same ones which allow your bass to "cut" in certain (usually loud and sonically cluttered) environments. You can always turn it off, but if it aint there, you can't turn it back on.

One more thing. The cxl-112 is described as having the characteristic 1K bump in the curve. But that's exactly where I'm told to notch out if I want to get rid of string noise. Does the Wizzy also have this bump? Why would they want to accentuate that frequency which to me is so annoying?

I can't really explain it, but there's a difference between a speaker with a "hump" in the frequency response and that same frequency being boosted electronically. I know that probably sounds crazy, but it's true as far as I can tell. The CXL112 simply sounds "powerful" and can sound "aggressive" if you want, but if you EQ the annoying string noise out before it gets to the speaker, it just sounds like a hi-fi amplification of a somewhat "dark" sound. Hope that makes some sense.

I know I should just shut up and buy the damn thing to see if I like it. I just want to get it right so I can avoid this: "What? Another speaker? Didn't you just buy one? How many do you have now? Why do you need so many? "

You know the drill.

Do I ever.

 

[tombowlus]

Can't comment on the Wizzy, but I can tell you that the best doubling cab I've ever used is its big brother, the CXL112. Power to spare, transparent, clean to a fault. And it handles the low B like a champ. I've heard the Wizzy does almost as well.

The Wizzy vs CxL-112 comparision is kind of a weird thing, IMHO. In general, I find that the CxL-112 sounds thin compared to the Wizzy. But, on the extreme low end, the CxL-112 does seem to go a bit deeper. Whereas the CxL-112 (with a little bass boost) can rock out on a low B with plenty of authority, and more punch than the Wizzy, when you move up to the E, I find the Wizzy to have more girth and presence. The Wizzy will do a low B, and you will hear it just fine, but it doesn't have the same weight or impact that you can coax out of the CxL-112 or other EA cabs (like VL-110).

With regard to the comments about the Wizzy sounding "boxy", I could definitely see this if any other part of your signal chain was leaning that way. The Wizzy has lots of mids, to be sure. I find that with my iAMP 800 set flat, it is almost a perfect match. With some of my other cabs, I like to dial in a slight mid-high boost on the iAMP, but with one or two Wizzy's, I leave it set flat, sit back and enjoy! In this configuration, I find it to be very well balanced, with no noticeable peaks and valleys, although the mids are what I would call "ever present" - which I like, personally.

If you go over to the electric bass forum, there is a current thread on good, small doubling rigs, and I posted a bunch of cab combo suggestions. Here is the link:

Opinions on Best all-around small rig for Upright and electric

 

[tombowlus]

Now it would really be nice if there were a Bergantino offering for us rowboat players...

They do! Either of the 1x12's (EX112 or HT112) would do the trick nicely.

 

[Sam Sherry]

On the subject of why there aren't more 4 ohm cabinets out there, I'm not really sure, but I would recommend trying out 8 ohm cabs anyway. An 8 ohm cab that is very efficient might end up being louder than a less efficient 4 ohm one. There is not a 1-to-1 correspondence between wattage and volume. In fact doubling amp power only gets you an extra 3dB, if I remember correctly, so the extra wattage you get out of a 4 ohm cab might not give you as much extra volume as you expect.

No offense, Michael, but it looks like only some of this is right.

"Watts" is a function of amperage ('electrical flow rate') and voltage ('size of electrical wave'). Say you have an amp putting 100 watts into 8 ohms. More or less, that's THE SAME POWER 200 watts into 4 ohms. As you note, the relationship is not exactly one-to-one but the basic gist is that the ummph stays the same.

This reflects the fact that a cabinet's resistance is not much related to its efficiency -- the actual volume it puts out. Speaker efficiency is a function of xx noise at y power at z distance -- typically, xx dB with one watt at one meter.

Check this from the Euphonic Audio website:

Sensitivity, measured in decibels, is a representation of the efficiency and volume you can expect from a device relative to the input power. This is important because it requires twice the power to increase the volume of a speaker by 3dB. For example, to increase the volume of a 350-watt bass amplifier 3dB (an audible, but relatively small amount), it would require 700-watts of power. To double the perceived volume (approximately 10 dB) you would need in excess of 2800 watts of power.

Adding to all of this is the fact that low notes (with their longer waves) soak up more power than high notes. This means that most of the time, our 200 watt amp is only using less than 50 watts to do its work, but when you stomp that low E, it's got the goods to deliver. It also explains why 100 watts is seriously damn loud for guitars but doesn't satisfy all bass situations.

Hope this helps. Gotta work.

 

[Michael Glynn]

No offense, Michael, but it looks like only some of this is right.

"Watts" is a function of amperage ('electrical flow rate') and voltage ('size of electrical wave'). Say you have an amp putting 100 watts into 8 ohms. More or less, that's THE SAME POWER 200 watts into 4 ohms. As you note, the relationship is not exactly one-to-one but the basic gist is that the ummph stays the same.

This reflects the fact that a cabinet's resistance is not much related to its efficiency -- the actual volume it puts out. Speaker efficiency is a function of xx noise at y power at z distance -- typically, xx dB with one watt at one meter.

No offense taken, Sam. I guess I am still a little unclear on how speaker impedance would affect the sound. If a lower impedance speaker does not increase the volume, what's the point of 4 ohm speakers?

As you mentioned, watts is a function of amperage x voltage. And amperage is a function of voltage/impedance. Therefore, by lowering impedance, you increase amperage and, by extension, wattage.

It seems to me that if you are measuring speaker sensitivity (i.e. volume) using watts as your measurement, then having more watts means more volume, regardless of impedance. So if your amp is putting out more watts because of it has a lower impedance speaker, then it should be louder than with a higher impedance speaker.

For example: Say you have an amp that gives 100W@8 ohms and 200W@4 ohms. You also have two cabs, each with a sensitivity of 100dB@1W/1M, but one is 4 ohms and the other is 8 ohms.

If they have the same sensitivity, shouldn't the one that is getting up to 200W be 3dB louder?

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help sort me out!

 

[Sam Sherry]

I'm in over my head at this point. I hope that someone can enlighten both of us.