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fEARful Cabs

#21
::::BASSIST:::: may be referring to the custom 3015LF driver in the 4 ohm version of the Avatar TB153. It's been discussed a number of times here, even recently. Don't know the deets on this one, they should be on the fF forum but also somewhere on here in past posts.
 
#22
Maybe the 8ohm versions are "better" because they are less expensive and readily available compared to the custom-made, proprietary 4ohm variants? I recall Duke writing that he discontinued manufacturing his Thunderchild 115 (an excellent cab that I used to own BTW) because it was too expensive to order the 4 ohm drivers in small lots.

At any rate, the ultra high excursion of the LF line enables even the 8ohm driver to get very loud. My Fearless 110 gets as loud as a good 210. Plenty of micro amps pump up to 500 watts into 8ohms and the LF drivers easily handle that load. You buy the cab design that fits your needs. There really is no debate here.
 
#23
Ukiah Bass said:
Maybe the 8ohm versions are "better" because they are less expensive and readily available compared to the custom-made, proprietary 4ohm variants? I recall Duke writing that he discontinued manufacturing his Thunderchild 115 (an excellent cab that I used to own BTW) because it was too expensive to order the 4 ohm drivers in small lots.

At any rate, the ultra high excursion of the LF line enables even the 8ohm driver to get very loud. My Fearless 110 gets as loud as a good 210. Plenty of micro amps pump up to 500 watts into 8ohms and the LF drivers easily handle that load. You buy the cab design that fits your needs. There really is no debate here.
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The issue is not expense per driver, but minimum order requirements for a custom driver. Eminence requires quite a large number of speakers being ordered prior to them taking the time to manufacture a custom driver for a box maker. Most small, boutique manufacturers do not sell enough volume to justify that.
 
#24
KJung said:
The issue is not expense per driver, but minimum order requirements for a custom driver. Eminence requires quite a large number of speakers being ordered prior to them taking the time to manufacture a custom driver for a box maker. Most small, boutique manufacturers do not sell enough volume to justify that.
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Yup, that is what I said ... too expensive to order in small lots. One reason I sold the TC115 was the potential longer term unavailability of the custom driver.
 
#25
Ukiah Bass said:
Yup, that is what I said ... too expensive to order in small lots. One reason I sold the TC115 was the potential longer term unavailability of the custom driver.
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Again, it isn't that it is too expensive to order small lots, small lots are not available at any price. Put another way, it is too expensive for Eminence to make in small lots, so they don't.
 
#26
DukeLeJeune said:
Thanks for replying.

The greenboy forum being a fairly large place, I'll have to put off searching until another day.

I also used a custom 4-ohm variant of the 3015LF in the original version of the Thunderchild 115. In this case, my variant was quite a bit more efficient than the stock 8-ohm version, trading off a fair amount of low-end extension to get that efficiency. I would readily concede that the stock 3015LF is "better" for a fEARful, but would claim that my woofer was "better" for what I was trying to do. In other words, I think that which is "better" probably depends on the application, as any woofer with that mighty Kappalite motor is going to be quite capable.
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Makes sense. Good stuff.
 
#27
Minimum order at Eminence used to be 50 units, but I don't know if that changed recently.

Trouble is, you don't get the big price breaks until you get into orders of several hundred at a time. Small builders don't have that sort of ability.

By contrast, look at something like Ampeg's 810. 8 drivers per every one cab x how many cabs sold. They're making orders for potentially thousands of drivers every year.
 
#28
I've never heard anything about the 4ohm version being anything lesser or substantially different from the 8ohm KL drivers. Maybe I wasn't paying attention when it was said. I can't imagine that Eminence would let a driver that suffered serious degradation in performance due to impedance option out of their factory.
 
#29
Last summer (?) there was a 4 ohm version for sale in the TB classifieds and I thought it would be cool to put it into my 15/6. When I inquired about it on the greenboy forum I was told the 4 ohm is inferior (and I think they said the crossover would need changing too?).
 
#30
::::BASSIST:::: said:
Last summer (?) there was a 4 ohm version for sale in the TB classifieds and I thought it would be cool to put it into my 15/6. When I inquired about it on the greenboy forum I was told the 4 ohm is inferior (and I think they said the crossover would need changing too?).
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You would definitely need a different crossover to do it, and probably a different mid.
 
#31
BurningSkies said:
I've never heard anything about the 4ohm version being anything lesser or substantially different from the 8ohm KL drivers. Maybe I wasn't paying attention when it was said. I can't imagine that Eminence would let a driver that suffered serious degradation in performance due to impedance option out of their factory.
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It's Avatar's OEM, they manufacture it however Avatar wants. It's not available to the public as an off-the-shelf Eminence driver. If it sucked, it would make Avatar look bad and not really Eminence.

I don't think it sucks at all, but I do remember some banter about what concessions may've been made compared to the 8ohm, although, the off-the-shelf, publicly available 8ohm versions specs have changed a time or two since first introduced as well.
 
#33
For awhile there the minimum order for a Kappalite motor custom driver was something like 150 or 200 units, I don't remember which. I think it's back down to 50 units now, so it's once again tempting.

Ukiah, I do have a stash of custom 15" woofers that, if the present rate of attrition continues, should last for about 20 years. But I don't blame you one bit for your concern, it's a perfectly valid one, and is one of the reasons I'm mostly going with off-the-shelf woofers now.

::::BASSISTt::::, if the 4-ohm TB153 woofer's T/S parameters and/or cone are significantly different from that of the stock 3015LF, then indeed the stock woofer would almost certainly be better in a greenboy-designed box, not to mention the crossover issues.
 

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