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EA meets BE!!

lowphatbass

lowphatbass

****
Feb 25, 2005
5,995
5,629
west coast
#1
Lately my gig situations have changed and I had found myself stuck "in between" cabinets.....So...anyway...I got a Bag End S15d to put under the EA VL208....what an AWESOME combination. The sound is so incredibly focused and flat. I am suprised at the mid and high end response of the Bag End, I found myself adjusting the mids and highs down on the back of the VL208!! For those who are really wondering, the S15d is really a FULL-RANGE speaker, even without the coax!! Sizes on these cabs are almost identical and mate together like they were made for each other, Oh yea, and this whole rig, with the head, fits in my trunk!!(yea it's a big trunk!!)
Anyway, for those of you that still have an old VL208 and you want to be able to enjoy it more often, the Bag End does it justice and the two work beautifully together!!
 
#3
tombowlus said:
Interesting! I've been looking for an excuse to pick up some Bag End cabs for a while now! :p
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Well, checking out your profile I see that YOU are the guy that has been hoarding all the "vintage" EA cabs!! Holy Smokes dude!!
I would have to say that if I had two VL208's(let alone some VL210's!!!) I would not have been in the market for another cab. I have not A-B'd the two cabs yet but I think we both know what kind of damage the VL's are capable of doing, of course you can't go out and buy a VL208, and if you could it would not be $370 new like the Bag was!!
 
#5
lowphatbass said:
I would have to say that if I had two VL208's(let alone some VL210's!!!) I would not have been in the market for another cab.
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Until you hear three VL-208's together! For upright, one or two is definitely all you would ever need, but if you play 5 string, adding a third VL-208 made a very surprising difference in the low end output and apparent dynamics. And then of course, once you have three, you want an even four... :p

Actually, my VL-208's have been seeing a lot of use as PA cabs (mid/highs only, and usually in conjunction with an HT112 on each side). They make vocals sound very natural and articulate.

But I have always been impressed with Bag End cabs when I have tried them in stores. I didn't realize they were so affordable! That's a lot of cab for the money!

Tom.
 
#6
wow i wanna know where they go for that cheap. i paid 400 for mine years ago and i think theyre liek 450 new now.

anyhow cool deal!

i'm very big on mixing and matching cabs (looks are for lead singers). it's always neatwhen you put together two very different sounding cabs and end up with a totally new and cool sound.

i played my be 115 and 112 stack with an epifani 210ul the other day.......good god.
 
#7
I've been using a cheesy hartke 15" cab with my cxl-112 for a while now. Combination of clarity plus low end booty sounds great. Those Bag End 15's were recommended to me a while back when I was looking for a replacement for the Hartke 15"er. . May need to go ahead and move on one.... then again maybe just another cxl. Who am I kidding I'll wind up with both eventually. :D
 
#8
My setup is not too far from yours. I'm using an LDS 2x8 cab with a Bag End s15-dx cabinet for the big gigs through my Eden TT330. Waay to much sound for me, but good to have. I like it a lot. I get really good lows from the LDS, while the Bag End provides the mid beef. Too bad I'm not able to adjust a crossover or the amount of power to each.

Glenn
 
#9
IvanMike said:
wow i wanna know where they go for that cheap. i paid 400 for mine years ago and i think theyre liek 450 new now.
anyhow cool deal!
i'm very big on mixing and matching cabs (looks are for lead singers). it's always neatwhen you put together two very different sounding cabs and end up with a totally new and cool sound.
Click to expand...
I just GOOGLED "bag end speaker lowest price" and $371 seemed to be the going rate for the S15d. I made the short trip to my nearest BE dealer and asked for a quote expecting to hear $450 and..BAM..$371....I dont think I could get my wallet out fast enough!! I'll add that alot of Bag End dealers don't carry cabs for "bass", you've got to hit-up the pro audio dept and special order what you want. I asked the bass/guitar guys why the heck they don't keep or display any BE stuff and did not recieve any satisfactory response. My un-educated guess is that the profit margin may be lower than the more traditionally "accepted" brands and IMO put alot of them to shame both in quality and price.

As a follow-up to my original post, someone inquired if the efficiency variance between the two cabs was a problem. I am running both cabs on their own channels but I have been so busy a'pluckin' & a'grinnin' I haven't thought about adjusting ANY knobs on my amp, I'm guessing that must mean that I am satisfied.
 
#10
I snagged a 2x10 w/ Coax BE cab a while back. Makes a very nice stand alone cab. I am amazed at how deep it will go by itself. On top of my 2x12 or 1x15 JBL's it's awsome.

On odd thing. The cab is 4 ohm. I'm running it from one side of a CE1000 so it is seeing about 450 watts gain depending. As I turn up it doesn't seem to be all that loud and I keep going. After a bit I realize that the walls are shaking. It only seems 'not loud' as it stays nice and clear and never seems to strain a bit. I don't really want to be in the same room with this thing when I find out how loud it will actualy get ...

makes me want to scope the 15 D cab as well ...
 
#11
4mal, i use a S15-D with a D10B-D (that i got from nightbass)

both are non-coax but i've played the coax version of both. the 2 cabs are very different sounding but sound nice togther. the 15 is just as loud even though it's 8 ohms, even when both are plugged into the same power amp. the 210 definitely has more lows, but the 15 wins out in the mids dept. BE also makes a 15 cab call4ed the S15L-D which is the same exact size as the 210. they stack well that way (the regular S15 really only fits on top of the D10B), and the "L" 15" cab has more lows than it's little brother.

Two BE 210 cabs actually sound very cool together, and the 210 sound really good with a BE 112 as that cab is all midrange cut.
 
#12
jeepers, this is a great topic.

i'm a huge fan of mixing and matching cabs to take advantage of their tonal differences.

recently i went to a local store and played thru just about everything in the place (ah the joys of working part time).

a cool example. the epifani 210 and agular 210 are very different animals. the epi has a big round low end, stratospheric highs, and a polite refined midrange. the aggie has less lows and highs than the epi, with a very aggressive "in your face" midrange with sort of an SVT vibe. (it sems that eip and aggie tent to voice their cabs to be similar to their preamps). both sound great, but playing the two together yeilds a tone that is greater than the sum of its parts. A huge tone.
 
#13
(it sems that eip and aggie tent to voice their cabs to be similar to their preamps).
Click to expand...

I suspect that you're more than half right there. Most of the manufacturer's out there seem to voice their amps / pre amps & cabs to work as a system. It makes sense really. They would rather sell you a head and cab that work well together than a head or a cab.

To me the prime example of the classic SVT and old style (sealed) 8x10. An SVT can sound OK with other cab's but never as good as it does on the old fridge. That pair flat out works.
 
#15
Just a final update on the 2x8 1x15 cab combo....after a couple weeks of gigging it...It is a winner. The additional low mids I am getting from the S15d are well recieved, I can still use the "handle-kickback" option on the VL208 even though it's on top of the S15d, when I am stuck in close quarters and the extra monitoring is great. The best part is I can now fit my whole rig into my trunk, the sad part is I am driving a car that is so old it has a trunk big enough to fit my entire bass amp in!! Anyway.....EA + BE = great tone, IMO.
 

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