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How real is the 4x10 dispersion issue?

I'd also add to those saying "just get a PA" that it's really not that simple. The majority of club PA's are less than desirable- most are two 15"s being expected to handle a ton of frequencies, typically being run by a drunk hack musician who has no idea how to eq, compress, limit, or mix. Then you'll get a great PA with subs that the sound guy doesn't know how to HPF so they sound horrid and muddy. Weeeeeeeeeee.

Yep. Just last week, Had my Mesa Subway rig dialed in pretty well onstage, then the PA got turned up. Mind you, four 15's per side can ruin even the best sounding rigs onstage, which is precisely what happened. All I heard was boom coming off not only the backs of the cabs, but bounce-back from a VERY lively room. It was awful. But we soldiered on, it was a good show and people liked it. c'est la Guerre.
 
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All I heard was boom coming off not only the backs of the cabs, but bounce-back from a VERY lively room.
Yah, that's pure horror.
Had it once using a shared, way too small combo amp as a "backline" and a boomy PA in a long and narrow bar room.
All I could hear clearly was the echo from the rear wall about .5 secs after hitting the strings.

Now try and lay down a nice groove that's tightly in the pocket...
 
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Definitely if you want the easiest 2x10 build with no sacrificing of quality. If you've got good woodworking skills the BFM Jack 10 is even better.

The Jack is better (and more efficient) but it is a horn and is a whole other ball of wax (and a another thread). Go look at http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/ you wont be disappointed.

I built 2 110 Simplexx and a 210 Simplexx. I have come around to realize that all stacked together vertically is the ticket just as described in this thread.
 
...Of course the first thing I went and did was to ruin it by reading the excellent literature from Barefaced on their website. Thanks to Jim Carr for that. It opened my eyes to so much more about the speaker world. Knowledge about how speakers work is great, but remember, you don't listen with your eyes. If you liked the tone before reading something on the internet, then you should still like it after. Keep in mind that while things on websites may have truth behind them, they are also marketing intended to sell products.

Now I'm afraid that my 4x10 wont cut it in a live setting either. Of course it sounds monstrous when I'm sitting there directly in front of it, or in a small room, such as band practice, but what about the poor dispersion? How do I know that my sound isn't crapping out everywhere but directly in front of my cab? Yea, I can go out in the room and stand in different places and have the band play something and have someone pluck some notes on the bass... but that will hardly give me an idea of how I sound at FULL gig volume in EVERY venue with ME playing. There are a lot of factors at play here, room acoustics, number of people in the room, PA quality, sound man talent, etc... You can have the best rig in the world and still have a crappy tone out in the room.

Whats more is that, now that I've read all of this, it makes sense. I've seen so many bands play with bassists that just sound muddy and overly subby even though they have a quality looking rig behind them. I'm sure I've seen bass players with 4x10 and 8x10 cabs that had an excellent sound, but maybe I was just standing in the right part of the room? Keep in mind all the different sound sources going on in the room. The guitar sound coming from the amp is very directional. Low drum notes, more omnidirectional, higher drum notes - more unidirectional, Keys most likely coming from only the PA with the vocals, etc... Things are going to sound different all over the room.

So, what we have here is a lot of various factors all going on that make up your onstage sound. Your best sound is always going to come from keeping your stage volume as low as possible and letting the PA and a talented front of house engineer handle the mix. Unfortunately, that won't happen in every place you play. MO, your criteria for choosing a cabinet should always be tone! If there's a cab out there that rocks your world and it just happens to be a 410, then don't sweat it. After that, you need to determine what your other important factors are. If your'e like 90% out there playing, then your going to be spending most of the gig right in front of your cabinet, so dispersion isn't going to be that important to you. If you are going to be running all over stage, then dispersion is more important, but might you better be served by a cabinet on each side of the stage, or even in ear monitors?

The long and short of it is that yes, dispersion is important. How important it is depends on a lot of things and for a lot of players, things like tone, portability, cost are usually higher up on the list.
Great post by Roger here. It is important to keep these characteristics in perspective.

I also strongly agree with @JimmyM 's first post.

IME, several other things are going on. First of all, the room characteristics and PA setup are seldom identical. Second, omni-directional projection of the high frequency content of your tone from the on-stage cab can matter if you have audience behind or to your sides and /or inadequate PA support; which can happen, but is so uncommon for me that it isn't a big concern. Still, there are other players on here with more tonal projection discrimination than I; so, for those players, maybe it matters. Still not an earth ending event, at least for me.

Regarding combing projection issues; I have also not found that to be a major issue. I have two vertical 2x12 cabs, and did check out side by side (which is effectively a bigger 410) vs vertical stacking. I can hear the upper frequency variations, which folks on here refer to as "beaming" while walking around with the side by side deployment; but, I can't say the variation would matter in a cover band mix. Still, it exists. I actually ran a few frequency calcs for the interference projection in an Excel sheet; and the numbers agreed with what my ears heard. Biggest effects are above 1 kHz; which may matter for some players' tonal goals, but not so much for mine. I tried the vertical stack and did not care for what that produced at all. Based on a recommendation from @CL400Peavey , I ended up deploying the cabs in a side by side shallow V arrangement, which eliminates the comb effect and sounds awesome.

Anyhow, I would personally not sweat gigging a 410 if I dug the tone and could handle the schlepp. The other stuff doesn't bother me. YMMV

BTW, I'll just add that Will Lee still gigs his 410, an old Hartke, on a regular basis. He keeps getting gigs; so, that's not holding him back. At all.

FWIW, here are the beaming calculations for point sources deployed horizontally at various separation distances. A 410 has a source separation of about 11" to 12" for reference.
Beaming Calcs.jpg
 
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Critical listening without the band playing is very much harder to notice the bass sounds like a heap of blankets got thrown over the cab. You naturally compensate in the interpretation to hear what you want to hear. That's much harder to do when room reflections of those off axis lost frequencies aren't enough to be heard at all over the band racket.

The last time I played with a 410, hopefully the last time, it was a pub gig. The room might hold 200 if it somewhat sardined. Maybe 50 there having a good time that night. Set up and turn up to rock the joint, it's a loud band so I am suitably joining the loud party. Yup, I can't hardly hear myself to intonate fretless in the ''stage area'' 3ft from the cab so I join the dance floor 10ft out and am blown away by how unnecessarily unbelievably freakshow loud I am.

Same deal with your guitarist and his 412 only worse because if he is a guitard he actually likes tearing peoples heads off.
 
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You more often than not
people start " hear" what they read

And I've played 4x10 8x10 4x12 and 2x15 and 18" horn loaded bin
never had "dispersion" issues
and a 4x10 will carry practice and stage volume just fine. pa does the rest.

You know technically vertical is better. But these guys going on and on about dispersion is mainly selling the amp it's in. now guitar 4x12 a octave higher. yes dispersion is a issue and guitar speakers are stabbing ice picks on axis and muddy off axis. a lot is cone size even a vertical 10" is limited by beaming caused by the size. so off axis is improved only with crossed over smaller cone.

But nah off axis is more guitar problem. And poor eq and piles of mismatched speakers is more problem with bass players. some to much treble some use to much bass some are to compressed and just sound like mudd.

play the amp. stop letting people tell you what sounds like.
 
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Most of the time on stage I struggled way more with dispersion issues of the drum kit than with anything else.
As far as possible I insist on stage to stay left handed to the HiHat. At the right hand side of the drum kit I experience way to much dispersion issues of the drum kit that makes hard to play thight with the drum kit (snare-drum and HiHat). While cymbals tend to tenish hearing ability.
Not sure as much listiners of the audience consider dispersion of the drum kit if there is no PA support. Hope listeners at least can gueuss just where is the kick drum in the mix.
We as bass players way to often are focused to the bass sound rather the band sound.
(I don't feel as an exception in the case as listener)

I know to appreciate good dispersion of a cab but I have got no understanding why only the bass guitar "must" provide very good dispersion if there is no PA support while the rest of the band including drum kit is miles apart.
I'd agree if every instrument including drum-kit would provide similar dispersion which THAN would make sense if there is no PA support.
 
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Same thing I noticed with guitar cabs already in the 70's, just when I started to play music in a band.
same thing I noticed with my upright piano a couple of years earlier (different intensity but it's still there).

Indeed if I visit a piano solo concert I try to get a seat in the beam-axis of the grand piano just to listen to best sound in the venue.
 
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FWIW, I found differing resonance points in the various venues having way more influence on how good/loud/boomy the bass sounds than those created by dispersion issues.
Just grab your bass while the room is empty, preferredly with a wireless or at least a long cable, play a bit and walk around in the room.
In some spots you will be blown away, in other be way less audible, sometimes it booms like s..t, 2 meters away it might sound like speaking with a runny nose.

This will get better when the room gets crowded as people have an excellent acoustic damping factor, bit it will still be audible to some degree.
 
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So 2x210AV stack is a nice thing :) I had major AMP issues, and have to send ti back for a swap out, but when it was working, the mini stack sounded awesome. Gonna give it another whirl at home w/ my LM2 this afternoon, just to be sure. Once the second cab breaks in and loosens up a bit, this is gonna be a nice set up.
 
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