If speaker cab manufacturers would only...

[pglaser01]

Wait…..so you mean “pure sonic clarity” ISN’T a validated R&D term?!?!?

 

[agedhorse]

Wait…..so you mean “pure sonic clarity” ISN’T a validated R&D term?!?!?

Not this R&D team at least

 

[pepj]

I think a RMS figure is fine, but then I'm already expecting a passive 12" chassis to be good for 300w. (250w ceramic)
After that, all I'm interested in is the sound of it.
Once I gig it, I generally work out how hard I can, or need to push it.

I can do most gigs with 500w RMS cabs and get to hear me playing as opposed to a rumble.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

Best useful "data" would be sound samples with the amp/cab against a drummer and a guitarist.

 

[agedhorse]

I think a RMS figure is fine, but then I'm already expecting a passive 12" chassis to be good for 300w. (250w ceramic)

Depends very much on the driver and how well it's designed into the enclosure.

 

[pepj]

Depends very much on the driver and how well it's designed into the enclosure.

I tend to stay away from bespoke chassis because replacing them can be expensive and they need to stay in production. So 250w is a relatively easy chassis to find.

 

[Marko 1]

I don't have specific engineering knowledge to justify it, but I'm bias towards cabs with some size to them...

compact cabs, perhaps justifiable and practical, just reek of compromise in my mind, and I can't get past that.

 

[Snert]

I tend to stay away from bespoke chassis because replacing them can be expensive and they need to stay in production. So 250w is a relatively easy chassis to find.

This makes no sense as the cab and driver are very closely related and you can't just substitute in some other 12" driver for the one the enlosure was designed with.

Musos focus on things like power rating, when it's down the list of driver parameters I use when developing an enclosure. Also, 250W at 200Hz is very different to 250W at 40Hz, where in the latter, excursion will likely be the thing to cause damage more than thermal dissipation.

 

[agedhorse]

I tend to stay away from bespoke chassis because replacing them can be expensive and they need to stay in production. So 250w is a relatively easy chassis to find.

Not in my experience, nor the service centers that I support.

 

[pepj]

Try getting chassis for SWR Goliath, for example..You break one speaker, you pretty much write the cab off, especially with multiple drivers.
So when a cab goes out of production and the bespoke driver stops getting made, you do the math for the nearest replacement and the devalue in the spec.

 

[agedhorse]

The early 10” Goliath drivers were discontinued by the vendor almost 30 years ago, the follow-up parts were ordinary and no difference than any other manufacturer, and about 150 watts RMS.

 

[seamonkey]

PA speakers do a frequency chart. Every make and model I've ever seen. But specific instrument cabs...nope. all you get is something like "superior tone" or "sonically advanced design for so and so"

The sound engineers in those applications demand measurements, and they get it.
It is not so hard to understand measurements, just ask your sound engineer.
This site has gathered a lot of cab measurements: A collection of loudspeakers measurements

There's a few people on social media that own Klippel NFS and have been running tests of PA and home theater systems. Even Harman has a Klippel. Maybe the Youtuber's will get around to some bass cabs, but in the meantime PA works great for bass too.

 

[pepj]

The early 10” Goliath drivers were discontinued by the vendor almost 30 years ago, the follow-up parts were ordinary and no difference than any other manufacturer, and about 150 watts RMS.

Recommend those as replacements then.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

This makes no sense as the cab and driver are very closely related and you can't just substitute in some other 12" driver for the one the enlosure was designed with.

Musos focus on things like power rating, when it's down the list of driver parameters I use when developing an enclosure. Also, 250W at 200Hz is very different to 250W at 40Hz, where in the latter, excursion will likely be the thing to cause damage more than thermal dissipation.

You can if the internal volume matches up. Then it's just a matter of taste.

Like, I really like the speakers in my pf112hlf cabs. But because of the cabinet being so small, I have to scoop a fair amount of low mids from it. They sound boxy. They are boxy. They're in little boxes. A slightly bigger cabinet would eliminate everything that's wrong with them.

 

[agedhorse]

A slightly bigger cabinet would eliminate everything that's wrong with them.

Maybe, maybe not.

 

[LHbassist]

Once again, I find some very basic truths to all of this. Yes, many of us read the specs, and appreciate that the manufacturers provide them to us. But that, doesn't tell us what the cabinet SOUNDS LIKE to our own individual ears.
You see a bass player using a bunch of, say, GK gear, obtained from their endorsement- and they're your favorite bass player. So, you go and buy a nice GK rig and you're happy. Another player, will buy the same rig, it sounds great in the store- but they discover that they don't like it as much as they thought they would. There's plenty of used gear on here, and elsewhere- that fall into that category. Those of us who are still doing this, and have been around a long time, have owned, played and heard a lot of gear. I own eight speaker cabinets, and four heads now, one a great Shuttle 9.0, one a rare Pearce B2P. I have high quality cabs- a Mesa Powerhouse 12, an Epifani UL 112, and an EA CXL 112, among others. I also own two combos. I like all of it, but some are less favored than others.
I used to repair guitars at a local store that was an Ampeg and Trace Eliot dealer. It was the mid 1990's. I bought two amps during my time there.
One, was an Ampeg B-248. That 100 pound plus thing sounded impressive in the store. I took it to a gig up at Lake Tahoe, with a band playing top-40 of the time- and all were excellent players, not volume freaks. That amp, was woefully inadequate, in what I considered to be a normal situation one would expect to encounter as a sideman.
Finding the right amps, speakers, cabinets and how we need to amplify ourselves- in widely changing situations, can truly be a frustrating quest. I have yet to find a stand alone single speaker cabinet that doesn't fart out, or sound harsh in some areas of the frequency spectrum. I'll say, this is my opinion, based on my experience.

 

[Killing Floor]

Just a say Louder is Better and press it onto nameplate.

 

[Dadum]

I would like LED lights on speakers. Green means power is in low side of spec range. Yellow means 80 to 100% of max. Occasional blinking red means occasionally over specs. Solid red means damaging speaker. Kinda like what shows on mixers.

That is what I can understand.

This is especially helpful when speakers are in parallel and the amp is capable of exceeding the power handling of the speaker. Also, music isn’t the same thing as a single frequency on a graph. Compressed music has higher energy than a single pure sine wave.

I’d like the speaker to tell me when it’s getting too much input.

 

[gtirard]

I agree that specs mean (almost) nothing, and even trying a cab in the store can be deceiving, the ideal is to try in live context. But once we've said that we've said nothing, for the majority of us who can't try in context before buying.

I'm lucky to rehearse in a rehearsal studio where I play on different brands and models each week. A least now I know which ones I DON'T like.

 

[Snert]

You can if the internal volume matches up.

Nope. Suspension compliance and motor strength matter.