hypothetical

[B-string]

Here is a most pertinent sticky that applies to your question http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/mixing-cabinets-phase-response-607556/.
As I said before your ears will be the judge if you like the mix of drivers. If you have a FOH system you run through, the errors can be addressed to some degree out front where the audience is that pays the bills.

Now I am out of here. Rock on.

 

[remainthesame]

yeah, you see all these graphs and all that tech stuff, i dont get it. thats why i have to ask straight out for certain things. heck until a few weeks ago i didnt know jack about ohms. if you want to point out this subject has been done before, fine. this is all 100% hypothetical anyway.

 

[B-string]

Unfortunately there is no easy answer to a complex question? They produce sound in different ways at different frequencies and can work against each other. If you want to know how and why you need the charts and graphs to learn how they work.

The ONLY way around it is to split the frequency band up so they will not all be working at the same time in the same frequency range. The question then is what cab do you use for the low end? The 410 will go deeper and handle more power in the low end but it has a wider high frequency beam than the 15". The 15" won't handle as much power and it has a narrower beam on the high end to reach the audience. If you use old flat wounds with the tone rolled off and no treble and no high mids.....you are not going to care.

 

[Downunderwonder]

Not understanding is different to not finding the info. It's physics and maths. If you don't understand what phase means in general, you're kinda screwed.

Waves arriving at a point add up to one bigger wave at that point when they are in phase.

Waves generated in phase but arriving at the point of interest by different path lengths become out of phase due to the difference in the arrival time. They cancel each other out to some extent depending on the amount of phase difference.

Wikipedia will have it all with pictures.

 

[seamonkey]

Combing is one effect.

Have you got a tuning fork?

Strike it and then rotate it by your ear - it gets louder and softer.
Both tongs are vibrating at the same frequency. It's not going up and down in volume. The sound arriving at your ear at different times is summing on your eardrum and canceling out, or reinforcing.

Same thing happens for your bass cabinets. Depending on where the sound hits someones ears, it's going to be loud for some, quieter for others.

It's simple to see on a chart. It doesn't take much to understand what they mean.
Some people can read maps, others drive off a cliff because their GPS told them to.

 

[Korladis]

Unfortunately there is no easy answer to a complex question? They produce sound in different ways at different frequencies and can work against each other. If you want to know how and why you need the charts and graphs to learn how they work.

The ONLY way around it is to split the frequency band up so they will not all be working at the same time in the same frequency range. The question then is what cab do you use for the low end? The 410 will go deeper and handle more power in the low end but it has a wider high frequency beam than the 15". The 15" won't handle as much power and it has a narrower beam on the high end to reach the audience. If you use old flat wounds with the tone rolled off and no treble and no high mids.....you are not going to care.

Not unless it's a very unusual 410, it doesn't. The advantages in dispersion you gain with a smaller driver diameter are negated when you align two of those drivers horizontally. Two 10" drivers aligned horizontally actually have worse dispersion than a 15".

 

[Chef]

MODERATOR INSERT:

Shame on the lot of you!!!!!
No one is making you participate here.
If you feel anything has been over-done to death,
exit the thread instead of giving someone asking for help a hard time about it.

Next time I get hailed into a situation like this, it'll be infractions for the lot of you;
and people wonder how amps has descended to a bickering condescension-fest.

Do better or don't post.

 

[Musiclogic]

Not unless it's a very unusual 410, it doesn't. The advantages in dispersion you gain with a smaller driver diameter are negated when you align two of those drivers horizontally. Two 10" drivers aligned horizontally actually have worse dispersion than a 15".

Glad this was posted, The sheep structure of the 1 type driver cult is almost disturbing. Single driver dispersion is great for spectrum analysis, but once you put 2 or 4 drivers in conjunction or whatever, you have on and off axis waves crossing each other and no matter what drivers you use, be it 4 -10's or 2-10's with an 18, the amount of cross wave cancellation is going to be almost constant no matter what drivers.

Using 2 amps will even the amplifier load on the amp by driving the same motors, but each amp will function differently because of which motor structure they are powering, thus adding more variation in the sound.

 

[Chef]

And none of that means it can't work acceptably well,
and, that people can't hold that as a preference.

 

[Nev375]

...you're kind of heading into bi-amping territory -basically separate amps powering separate cabinets doing separate frequencies, of course the use of two heads isn't 'technically' bi-amping however with decent tone controls on each amp you kind of aproximate the idea...perhaps you could tweak the two 4x10 cabs till they sounded great then back off the bass a little bit, if adjusted properly both 15's might be able to fill in the bass you took out of the 4x10's, conceivably the 4x10's could better maintain their tonality at high levels since the amp's not dealing with quite as much power robbing bass, of course the lows a 4x10 produce usually outperform single 15 cabs. Perhaps putting both 4x10's together under a common amp (that's able to run 2 ohms if needed) and then use the other amp to drive a sealed 2x12 guitar type cab, the combination of eight 10" speakers offers quite a punch while a growly 2x12 might top the rig off well

I think Billy Sheehan does this and uses the 410 for the lows and the 15 for the highs.

 

[taurus1]

Lemmy stacks a 4x12 on top of a 4x15 and drives them with one 100W amp.
he's done ok for himself, sometimes "wrong" is good, especially in rock n' roll.

 

[lustersilk]

so i was thinking, what if you use different heads? for example, two svt 4 pros. one hooked up to two 115s and the other hooked up to two 410s. would this fix the problem? or is there more to it than that?

Sounds like a lot to have on stage with you. It will work though. I play two amps through two 4X10's at outdoor gigs sometimes, when I know the P.A. support is going to suck.

I think you might not make friends with the sound person if you bring that much to a club though. Good luck, have fun.

 

[remainthesame]

Sounds like a lot to have on stage with you. It will work though. I play two amps through two 4X10's at outdoor gigs sometimes, when I know the P.A. support is going to suck.

I think you might not make friends with the sound person if you bring that much to a club though. Good luck, have fun.

i know its insane and i would never need that much amp. it was just an example.

 

[JHAz]

To my mind, a couple of issues with the 115 plus 410 using different amps concept. First, as discussed above, the problem of tonal variations caused by differences between the cabs. If you like the sound where you're standing, great. But it is possible (but not guaranteed) that the sound is significantly different at some locations in the room because of the different ways the two cabs spread their sound.

The power handling thing can be relieved by using separate amps. But unless the 15 is very efficient, it means you're just carrying it for show, in the end. Theoretically, the 410 cab might be able to handle twice the power of the 115, and if drivers are similarly specified, might be 3 dB louder than the 115 at the same power input (called "sensitivity"). The doubled power also adds another theoretical 3 dB of output in favor of the 410s. So let's say our theoretical 410 can get 6 dB louder than the 115 when both are pushed to their max. If you run them together, each at its max, the 115 is adding almost nothing to total volume/SPL simply because it is so much quieter than the 410. So that you'd be just as loud with just the 410.

Now, if you're not pushing either cab to its limits, find you like the combination, and can use the multiple amps as a weird/fun tone control to get the mix between the cabs you want, then it could be cool . . .

 

[xk49w]

... i know that the idea of matching a 115 with a 410 isnt the most favorite around here. i still dont know exactly why this is, but i know part of it has to do with stressing the 115 out.

so i was thinking, what if you use different heads? for example, two svt 4 pros. one hooked up to two 115s and the other hooked up to two 410s. would this fix the problem? or is there more to it than that? ...

The "stressing out of the 115" has to do with the case where both the 410 and 115 are wired in parallel and run from a single amplifier. The 410 is usually rated for more power so when the drive voltage is cranked up to where the 410 is happy, it is too much for the 115. In this case your idea of separate amplifiers would help protect the 115. There are certain 115/410 combinations that could be selected to not have this issue. Barring one of those, your suggestion of two separate amps seems the easiest to me because it would work with any 115/410 combo.

 

[B-string]

Not unless it's a very unusual 410, it doesn't. The advantages in dispersion you gain with a smaller driver diameter are negated when you align two of those drivers horizontally. Two 10" drivers aligned horizontally actually have worse dispersion than a 15".

Very true, I did not expand the thought fully. (I tend to do that intentionally so more than one poster answers and a consensus forms which can carry more weight.)

 

[Thor]

subbed

 

[BassmanPaul]

The question is, hypothetically, why would you want to put a 1x15 under a 4x10 in the first place??? What are you hoping to gain over what the 4x10 is already giving you?

 

[remainthesame]

The question is, hypothetically, why would you want to put a 1x15 under a 4x10 in the first place??? What are you hoping to gain over what the 4x10 is already giving you?

i dont. i hate 15's and would never use them (unless somebody shows me one that meets my expectations)
i was just thinking maybe it would work for the people who do use the 115/410 combo.

 

[Vince Klortho]

The power handling thing can be relieved by using separate amps. But unless the 15 is very efficient, it means you're just carrying it for show, in the end. Theoretically, the 410 cab might be able to handle twice the power of the 115, and if drivers are similarly specified, might be 3 dB louder than the 115 at the same power input (called "sensitivity"). The doubled power also adds another theoretical 3 dB of output in favor of the 410s. So let's say our theoretical 410 can get 6 dB louder than the 115 when both are pushed to their max. If you run them together, each at its max, the 115 is adding almost nothing to total volume/SPL simply because it is so much quieter than the 410. So that you'd be just as loud with just the 410.

Cabinets from the same company often have their sensitivities matched fairly closely by design. As an example, these are the values for 4x10 and 1x15 cabinets from Hartke.

Hx115 98
Hx410 99
4.5XL 99
410XL 98
115XL 98