Does it really matter? (sound engineering content)

[lemur821]

Then we have crazy cabs that have different speaker sizes in the same cab... and by the books, that must be asking for trouble, right?

You mean two- and three- way speakers?

 

[jokerjkny]

Vertical. Within the top cabs drivers are horizontally mounted, but correctly so, with the drivers arranged Woofer-Midrange-Tweeter-Midrange-Woofer. The outer woofers are crossed over to the midrange drivers no higher than their 1 wavelength center to center distance, the mids are crossed over to the tweeter no higher than their 1 wavelength center to center distance. In the stack the woofers, mids and tweeters are on the same vertical plane. This level of engineering is SOP in the high end PA world, AFAIK it does not exist in any commercial electric bass cab.

awesome info bill.

 

[jokerjkny]

All I can say is the things that Bill suggests are working for me. It's a noticeable difference to my ears. But when I plug into my old straightback 810, all of a sudden I don't care that it's built "wrong." I also think the issue is way less when you are using a bass cab for stage volume only.

Still, once you hear a rig set up vertically with a single column of matched drivers, it's really tough to go back.

kinda funny,

but just last night while i was using the club's ampeg 8x10, for the first time, i could have sworn that on different parts of the stage, my low A would just disappear then reappear. probably just me.

 

[jokerjkny]

It's all true, but at the end of the day, you put the cabs where they fit on stage, and in a smaller bar that may be "wrong", but you still do it cuz you have to............

OK to mess with it if you want to, but mostly I'd leave obsessing over it to the "PA dweebs".... A perfect speaker setup and a lousy mix is no better than bad speaker setup..... a fact some "dweebs" have yet to learn.

that's why i love my stacked UL112 pair:

fits ANYWHERE, and i'm the baddest, thickest, meanest, fastest, hardest thing onstage. and it doesnt hurt that they fit perfectly in the trunk of my '07 accord.

and whaddya know, they're in a vertical array!

 

[billfitzmaurice]

kinda funny,

but just last night while i was using the club's ampeg 8x10, for the first time, i could have sworn that on different parts of the stage, my low A would just disappear then reappear. probably just me.

It wasn't you. It was boundary cancellation. Read about it here:
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[GreyBeard]

Yes it matters. With ever improvement it takes time for everyone to catch up. Line source works better than a vertical array, no question.

 

[jokerjkny]

It wasn't you. It was boundary cancellation. Read about it here:
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billyfitzmo to the rescue yet again!

 

[JimmyM]

billyfitzmo to the rescue yet again!

Yep. I know I say this a lot, but Bill's knowledge has really helped me build a rig that sounds good everywhere and not just in front of it. I hardly knew anything about any of this stuff for the longest time. I started out using Ampeg 810's and it sounded so good to me that I really didn't need to learn anything else But for the past 10 years of not using the 810, I always struggled with my sound onstage. Then I sort of stumbled on the vertical single column thing, and I was so excited about it that I've tried to learn about it. I'm still a layman, but I do what Bill says and it always works out much better than not, except for two things...I love a good straightback SVT 810, and I love the B-15 double baffle cab and he thinks it's too seat-of-the-pants for this day and age.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Line source works better than a vertical array, no question.

A line source and a vertical array are the same thing, assuming the array is correctly configured.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

I love the B-15 double baffle cab and he thinks it's too seat-of-the-pants for this day and age.

Not at all, if it works it works. Much of what I've read written by Oliver indicates that he didn't have a strong fundamental background in loudspeaker theory and arrived at his designs through trial and error. When he came up with the double baffle he didn't understand how it functioned, only that it did, and that's what matters. In those days trial and error, also known as 'empirical design' was the rule rather than the exception. But with the knowledge base of loudspeaker design theory readily available today using trial and error now is just a waste of plywood.

 

[bassrique]

Interesting thread. I read it last night and slept on it. I then dreamed that I stacked a 210 on a 115 with another 210 + amp on top of the whole thing. It was a skyscraper of tone goodness. My clumsy drummer knocked the thing over on to a good looking chick I had my eyes on, killing her.

Anyway, this thread [and the links provided] is much food for thought [and the occasional nightmare ].

 

[JimmyM]

Not at all, if it works it works. Much of what I've read written by Oliver indicates that he didn't have a strong fundamental background in loudspeaker theory and arrived at his designs through trial and error. When he came up with the double baffle he didn't understand how it functioned, only that it did, and that's what matters. In those days trial and error, also known as 'empirical design' was the rule rather than the exception. But with the knowledge base of loudspeaker design theory readily available today using trial and error now is just a waste of plywood.

Yep, I know a lot of guys in the 70's who wasted a lot of plywood bulding cabs unsuited to their drivers. And you're right...Jess was a bassist who knew his way around a soldering iron, and it was really dumb luck that got him involved designing amps for Ampeg. Once he did it, there was no stopping him, but yeah, from what I know about him, I'd agree.