Higher wattage amp or Cab?

[ThisBass]

There is a vid on youtube that demonstrates very nicely the great benefit of a HPF.
Unfortunatelly the vid contains advertising for a HPF so I don't tell the link.
I assume most of you know this vid anyway.

IIRC the player who did the vid is living in Swizerland. It was a couple of years before when we discussed excessive cone excursion that he noticed with his ported cabinet. He also mentioned that his prefered sound is little dirty (some overdrive) which can be still noticed on the vid. I told him that transient noise is likely more responsible for these random overexcursions than a vibrating/oszillating string and that compression like some overdrive even has an intensifying effect.
In the following he purchased a HPF and was absolutely happy cause all of these excessive cone excursion were eliminated.
IIRC the vid was originally (without advertising) uploaded to a bass forum in Swizerland where we also did the discussion of the issue.

The story reminds me a little bit on folks who try to protect woofers with compressors (what a misconception).
If there is no HPF present then a compressor may do similar effect to transient noise like some overdrive, which means the noise becomes even more "efficient" below the cabinet tuning.

 

[ThisBass]

(ie. slowly moving a string within the magnetic field)

Right, thanks that you mentioned this
it's even possible with a tube head to generate noticeable movement of drivers by moving a string with fingers/hand,
and that's very interstingly cause a tube head consists of an output transformer that acts as a HPF.

Although some folks claim that a output transformer does some protection to the woofers regarding lowish Harmonics, or lowish noise.

Best bet to protect woofers is a steep HPF.

 

[agedhorse]

Tube amps will have some response down to 5-10Hz. For very low frequencies, it doesn't take much power to move the cone back and forth, think about a simple battery test with 1.5 volts. Take a 300 watt tube amp, 12dB down at 5Hz, there's still about 10 watts available which is plenty to move a cone.

 

[BadExample]

Best bet to protect woofers is a steep HPF.

...and a good ear for bad distortion

 

[BadExample]

Tube amps will have some response down to 5-10Hz. For very low frequencies, it doesn't take much power to move the cone back and forth, think about a simple battery test with 1.5 volts. Take a 300 watt tube amp, 12dB down at 5Hz, there's still about 10 watts available which is plenty to move a cone.

Playing around with car subs a few years ago, I fed one a very LF (maybe 5 Hz) sine wave through a 100 Watt amp. Cone moved plenty. Amp got hot. I stopped

 

[ThisBass]

...and a good ear for bad distortion

The so called fart out which is clearly audible.

To the contrary. I think some folks actually crushed drivers over time with those transient noise. The most hated cab combination of 410 + 115 may cause the 115 cab to do random excessive excursion without audible notice which over time wrecks the driver.
Having the 115 on top of the 410 doesn't help in this regard.

 

[BadExample]

I think also one should be mindful of the sound. I could see getting caught up in the excitement and not notice the poor cab screaming for help.

 

[ThisBass]

If drivers show random excessive excursion,
remove distortion pedal
remove compressor
turn down bass frequencies
turn down total level
change the cabinet
change playing style technique
or add a steep HPF which is likely the best bet you can get to feel happy.

 

[Deezer Butler]

So just an update, i went with a hartke ak410. Seemed like a good fit. Cheers all.

Great cabs... I have 2 of them myself...

 

[Heavystringsguy]

If drivers show random excessive excursion,
remove distortion pedal
remove compressor
turn down bass frequencies
turn down total level
change the cabinet
change playing style technique
or add a steep HPF which is likely the best bet you can get to feel happy.

then wait till rebirth and try again