I Hate My 15 inch cab

[tfer]

BTW, I hate autocorrect...!

 

[BurningSkies]

BTW, I hate autocorrect...!

Something we can all agree on.

Sigh.

Within the first handful of posts, the OP is told he's wrong for mixing driver sizes at least 4 times.

I did bring up comb-filtering because it's one of the arguments that the driver size police keep mentioning - not on this thread, but I could link multiple other that do.

I go back to my argument - if it sounds good - it is.

I'm simply telling the OP to find what works for him, regardless of what he's read on the Internet. Experiment until you find your sound, and don't be surprised if what you like changes. I've stumbled across a gear setup that keeps me happy 95% of the time.

The other 5% I just ignore.

By mixing what I've got, I have 2 different 2X10 configurations, a 4X10 cab, a 1X15 cab, 2 different stacked using 2X10 and a 1X15, and when I get around to adding another LH 500, a 4X10 1X15 stack.

It works for me - it might not for you.

But find what does, and be happy.

I think my point in this is that there are a bunch of different ways to skin the cat. In fact, there are a million different cats here. Some people will never use their amp as more than a monitor, and others won't ever have a gig with a monitor. Some people won't get out of the bedroom, livingroom or basement. We play a wide diversity of music and each and every one of those musical settings is as different as the gig situations. Our personal idea of 'good tone' varies just as much as any of those other variables.

A disservice is done by ignoring or trying to discredit EITHER 'philosophy' or the people who hold those philosophies. They're both valid and both have places of functionality. They both have pluses and minuses depending on what you're trying to do. No matter what you believe, people need to stop acting like 'the other' isn't listening. We're all musicians, we're all listening. It would be awesome if we could talk about this without people trying to get in little jabs or digs, or big ones.

The bigger REAL issue that comes up in threads like this as well as others, is some of the obvious outdated mythology that gets asserted repeatedly as fact. The " 15's go lower," "15's work better in a band, while 10's punch more and don't fit in the mix" junk.

 

[tfer]

Agree with every single word.

 

[tfer]

I would reiterate my original point - cabinet design is where it's at.

Sealed vs ported. More volume vs less.

I hear it every time that I switch between my 2 2X10 cabs. Exact same drivers, completely different sounds.

 

[BurningSkies]

I would reiterate my original point - cabinet design is where it's at.

Sealed vs ported. More volume vs less.

I hear it every time that I switch between my 2 2X10 cabs. Exact same drivers, completely different sounds.

The age of driver-stuffed boxes should be long dead at this point. I'm not so sure that all manufacturers have moved on though.

 

[tfer]

You've lost me.

Unless you are a champion of ribbon technology, drivers have to be stuffed into something.

 

[gumtown]

My 15" goes lower,
but only because it is sitting on the bottom of my stack with a 4x10" on top
Sometimes it's plugged in and sometimes it is just a stand for the 4x10",
and sometimes I just use my 8x10"
either way I seem to be happy with my tone for a few weeks and then want to change things.
Last gig I tried the 1x15" by itself (because it's lighter to carry), I had never tried it on it's own before.
It produced a nice grindy mid tone, but the bottom end was a bit 'wooly?' (with some mud),
I was thinking the 1x15" might work well with a 200Hz HPF, and paired with the 4x10" for the tight bottom.

 

[Downunderwonder]

yes both the 360 and the 370 had 18"s. The 360 and 370 project like crazy, bit that is what that W box is designed to do - throw the low end out there, at the expense of throwing it right past you. A W box is a low end cabinet. If you are standing too close to it, all you hear is mids - no top and no bottom. But at least one of the W ports is about ear level, so there's that. I once used a pair of the 370 series W cabinets, and on stage, there wasn't much low end at all, but 12 feet into the audience was an entirely different story - they would rattle tables. Note Jaco is using a pair of 360's in the pic......

If you are point blank to a 15" box, it will sound very different compared to 15 feet away. I think a single 15 sounds weak on stage, but much better off stage. You want to take somebody's breath away? Use 4 15's in ported cabinets. You want to get thrown out of a club for too much bass, then use 4 15's in a rear loaded folded horn box configuration.

The issue that is being ignored is proximity. That is, a person may say a speaker sounds great, but qualify that with where he is standing in relationship to the speaker, and the size of the room. That is why some bass players like a wad of tens. As a group they have less of a beaming effect, and more evenness of sound as you move around in front of the cabinet. You may have a cabinet that is flat down to 20hz, but, when you read the specs that cite that figure take a look at where the test microphone was placed to get that figure.

So much twaddle.

Boundaries affect sound from cabs equally, until line array effect comes into play.

Groups of tens beam worse than stacks of fifteens every time.

 

[13lues]

Let me see if I've got this right, and this is real curiosity. 15 inch speakers don't produce lower frequencies than 10 inch speaker's can? Does that mean that a 15 can also produce just as high of frequencies as a tweeter can?

 

[BurningSkies]

Let me see if I've got this right, and this is real curiosity. 15 inch speakers don't produce lower frequencies than 10 inch speaker's can? Does that mean that a 15 can also produce just as high of frequencies as a tweeter can?

Depends upon how that speaker is designed. The old saw around TB is that the only thing a speaker's diameter tells you is the diameter of the speaker.

Its why Phil Jones can build cabinets with all 4" drivers that have more deep bass than many 10's, 12's or 15's.

 

[13lues]

Thank you for your response. My main gigging amp is a TC Electronic BG250 with a 15 inch speaker. Maybe I just got lucky, but to my ears I don't hear any of the mud other people sometimes complain about with 15 inch speakers.

 

[BurningSkies]

Thank you for your response. My main gigging amp is a TC Electronic BG250 with a 15 inch speaker. Maybe I just got lucky, but to my ears I don't hear any of the mud other people sometimes complain about with 15 inch speakers.

There's a lot that goes into a speaker cabinet design. The size, porting, layout, and of course the T/S parameters of the specific speaker(s) chosen. There are plenty of 15's that belie the 'traditional' wisdom about being lower, or not having mids, etc. I had a Berg HT115 that certainly wasn't a big tubby deep low end monster.

 

[tfer]

Let me see if I've got this right, and this is real curiosity. 15 inch speakers don't produce lower frequencies than 10 inch speaker's can? Does that mean that a 15 can also produce just as high of frequencies as a tweeter can?

A tweeter isn't designed to a be a full range driver. It is filtered to reproduce strictly highs, but once you remove that filter, it has a surprisingly wide range. The size of the speaker in the iPad Mini that I'm typing this on has a smaller diameter than almost any speaker in existence, and yet it can reproduce an extremely wide frequency range.

But it can only do it at a very low volume, because it moves so little air.

Phil Jones rig can move a lot of air because of the number of drivers. But you can move the same amount of air using less drivers, if you opt for a bigger radius.

My issue with the "the only thing the size of you speaker tells you, is the size of your speaker" comment, is it is wrong. I have taken a 9V battery to test the polarity of both a 10" Hartke driver and a 5" Hartke driver and I can easily report that the 'pop' that the 10" driver makes is noticeably deeper in pitch that the 5" driver, when they've been removed from their cabinets.

That is where cabinet design comes into focus.

I can easily design a cabinet that takes multiple 5" drivers, tune it, and have it create a frequency response curve that drives far lower than the 10" driver sitting on my workbench.

All else being equal, speaker size will determine frequency response. But when the issue of SPL is removed, it's a lot closer than a person might think.

 

[JimmyM]

All else is never equal, though. That's why speaker size can never determine frequency response on its own.

 

[jbd5015]

215s 4 life!!!

Stop expecting sub-par gear to sound the way you want it! The more of it you have, the more itll sound sub-par.

Im takin my '68 Ampeg 30watt 215 combo to the Bryce Jordan Center to play for 10k people because it SHREDS!!! Its clear as a bell, or filthy as dirt (and i mean that in the nicest way). Its frequency response is TERRIFIC and its older than me!! Built in the US-of-A by intelligent designers to stand the test of time! It SHOWS. Everytime i get something new, i have to set it aside when it breaks, and bust out the OLD ampeg with OLD 15s.

My 212 has a MUCH lower frequency capability, so much so that it shook its innards apart which is why its sitting at home collecting dust, or was it because it was built in the past few years over seas?