How speaker cone movement should you see in a cab?

[alexclaber]

You're also more likely to see excursion in a ported cab when you're driving it below its tuning frequency. With typical basses and amps this isn't terribly likely due to relatively brief low fundamental content from the bass and preshaped preamp EQ that rolls off the lowest frequencies but I noticed a lot of movement when driving one of my new 15"s with an Avalon U5 and PLX 3002 with the filters turned off (which I don't normally do but I'd switched them off when breaking in the woofer) with a 36" scale RIM Custom 5 with Q-Tuner pickups - response almost down to DC!

It was only after the gig it dawned on me that I'd had the highpass filter switched off. Next gig I was using a slightly smaller 15" cab without PA support, used the Avalon to give about 6dB of bass boost and had the 50Hz filter engaged on the PLX. Very little visible movement and a gloriously loud fat clear sound.

Alex

 

[Basslice]

The opposite is usually the case. With cabs of equal volume a sealed box has less sensitivity than a vented box, so for equal output the sealed box driver requires longer excursion. The ELF system uses a very long excursion driver in a small sealed box to provide the same output as a standard driver in a larger vented box. The trade-off in so doing is sensitivity, so for that same output an ELF system requires on average four times the amplifier power that a vented box does.

Bill,

I didn't consider that. It does make more sense now.

 

[otis_thick]

They're PA subwoofer drivers, intended for use in a small sealed cab driven by a Linkwitz transform circuit. They're not musical instrument drivers. If SWR did use them as such without the Linkwitz transform it was a misapplication.

They were for various apps and were mated with the below Bass Guiar Cabs. They have been discontinued BUT they were bass cabs

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John Patitucci used them when he was in the Electric Band

 

[billfitzmaurice]

They were for various apps and were mated with the below Bass Guiar Cabs. They have been discontinued BUT they were bass cabs

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John Patitucci used them when he was in the Electric Band

What usage they were appropriate for I can't say without seeing the driver specs. What I can say is that a driver well suited for use in an ELF system would not be well suited for use in a non-ELF system, and vis-versa.

 

[Petebass]

.. For example, you would never put a high excursion driver in a sealed cabinet - you need to let the air move.

Bills already picked you up on this one, so I won't go on about it too much other than to say my DIY sealed cab experiments proved Bills version to be correct. In fact my DIY home theatre subs are sealed and sound great. Yep they're high excursion drivers.........

 

[iammr2]

The drivers were made by Eminence and Bag End in the early to mid 90's. They were in the original SWR Baby Blue combo amps as well as the early Bag End infra subs

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SWR quit using the BE's in '93. They went to Celestions and then Eminence which had doped cloth surrounds. The foam surrounds decayed and disintegrated in time.

They're PA subwoofer drivers, intended for use in a small sealed cab driven by a Linkwitz transform circuit. They're not musical instrument drivers. If SWR did use them as such without the Linkwitz transform it was a misapplication.

Pretty nice sounding misapplication.

 

[KPAX]

So I've played the crap out of my Avatar 2x10 neo for years, and I've finally broke it. I now have the Avatar 2x12 neo as a replacement and am trying to be a little nicer to this cab.

However, this poses a question: how much are the speaker cones in a cabinet supposed to move? Should it only vibrate a little, or is it okay for them to visibly move around a little bit? Also, should a 12 inch speaker be able to mopve around more or less than the same type of speaker in a 10 inch verson?

Thanks for the help! I realize this is a decently difficult question to answer in all it's complexity, so a dumbed down, ballpark answer would be more than appreciated!

This is a very serious question that is not asked nearly enough. First, you should obtain an interferometer (every bassist should have one) for maiking these crucially important measurements. A low E should move the cone exactly 0.1967943 inches at the dome. 0.1322675 for open A, 0.0994563 for D and 0.0698875 for open G.
If your measurements differ from these, you and your bandmates are in serious danger and should STOP DROP AND ROLL immediately.

 

[BassmanPaul]

when I turn on my amp it gives a big click and sends a huge movement through my speaker

is this dangerous?

for now I turn on the solid state head with out the speaker connected and then plug it in after it has powered up since it does not make this huge swing in the speaker like this

Pretty much all SS power amps do this. It caused by the amp settling into its operational mode. Most decent amps have a turn on delay before connecting the speakers to allow this to happen silently. Doing what you re doing is fine as long as you are connecting the amp end last.

Paul

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Doing what you re doing is fine as long as you are connecting the amp end last.

Paul

Not if he has 1/4" plugs, which can short the amp output when inserted and removed.

 

[ShaunMatthew]

I'm seeing a lot of movement in my my Epifani DIST 410 speakers. It's paired with a Mesa M-Pulse 600 at 4ohms being played with a Fender Marcus Miller MIM. I am using the active preamp but usually roll off the low end. When I do bring the low in I notice a lot of movement. The only reason I started noticing it was because I noticed a slight change in voicing the other day.

The cabs continuous rating is 1000watts. The Mesa can only produce 600 plus or minus at 4ohms.

Any ideas or opinions people? Should I be concerned about the speakers jumping around?

 

[Rick James]

When you boost the lows you increase the voltage input to the drivers. 6dB of bass boost doubles the voltage input, which doubles cone excursion. The cab rating is thermal, what the voice coils are rated for before burning up. That doesn't mean they'll take 1000 watts before excessive excursion can cause physical damage to the drivers. Most cabs have mechanical limits around half their thermal limits.

 

[BadExample]

 

[ShaunMatthew]

When you boost the lows you increase the voltage input to the drivers. 6dB of bass boost doubles the voltage input, which doubles cone excursion. The cab rating is thermal, what the voice coils are rated for before burning up. That doesn't mean they'll take 1000 watts before excessive excursion can cause physical damage to the drivers. Most cabs have mechanical limits around half their thermal limits.

I've never seen that rating on any cab or speaker before. Where would I find that information on these speakers?

 

[Rick James]

Sorry, that's Top Secret information, because you can't handle the truth. Or it's an inconvenience to the marketing department. You can try asking Epifani, but all you'll hear is crickets.

Eminence isn't nearly so secretive. You can see how most of their drivers work in various size cabs in the designs links listed on the driver catalog pages. One example is [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
It recommends, for instance, the maximum power of a 410 loaded with CA10 drivers to be limited to 250 watts, based on the driver excursion, even though the thermal limit, Pe, is 800 watts.

 

[lowtom]

i thought, this would be helpful for some people, to see what speaker movement can look like.

example for the movement of my bass speaker.
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Sound is usually very clear und bright. (not as distorted like the audio), signal is not in the red, not even in the orange section. so i quess this is ok.

and thats my amp setup.
i like the sound. bass is status S2. the thrust (compressor) is usually turned on, and is set to 12.00. (on the pic its turned off, but not on the video)
Behringer EQ is last in the chain, bevor the 2 inputs are going into the amp.
So the left side of behringer is just for high frequences. the right for the low frequences.
Cabinets are 1x15 GR bass for the low amp setup. And 1x12 for the high/mid amp setup.