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Interesting conversation about speakers and ohms

#101
Passinwind said:
Please cite who still does this rather than using band limited noise of one flavor or another, I haven't seen it in years and none of the modern standards are set up that way. I recently posted a link to Eminence's take on the subject, here it is again: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
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Yes anyone citing AES ratings would I expect be using the AES2-2012 standard. And while that is more useful as it some level of standard, I cant think of a single bass cab manufacturer that cites AES ratings off the top of my head. If they all are not using that same yard stick, it gets even more confusing as their "units" might look the same but are not. I am not even sure how the free air ratings would line up with what goes on in actual bass cabs. The loading (or lack) on the driver makes a difference for sure.


khutch said:
Sometimes industries will self regulate in response to consumer complaints and even the barest threat of government action. In recent years this has become fairly common although certainly not universal. Other times you do need to go to the government and demand some action. If this is a real problem for people and the industry has not addressed it then it is time to go to the governments. We TB members come from all around the world, all it would take would be for one government anywhere in the world to demand fair ratings because then we could all go to the websites of the companies that sell in that country to see the ratings on their products. If that caused the sales numbers for the other companies to tank because we would only buy products with true and appropriate ratings they would all get religion pretty fast.

Or we can just continue to beat each other up about it. As I have said none of this is a problem for me right now but if one of you wants to draft a reasonable letter or petition to the appropriate US government departments or to Congress I would support it. Other governments would probably not pay much attention to the concerns of US citizens so I can't help those outside the US, you'd need to get your own country-men and -women on board. In the end perhaps no government will perceive it to be a big enough problem to get much of a response so success is not certain, but if we don't make the effort we certainly will not get a response.
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Tell you what, you draft a real petition, and I will drive to Chicago to sign it in person.
 
#102
CL400Peavey said:
Yes anyone citing AES ratings would I expect be using the AES2-2012 standard. And while that is more useful as it some level of standard, I cant think of a single bass cab manufacturer that cites AES ratings off the top of my head. If they all are not using that same yard stick, it gets even more confusing as their "units" might look the same but are not. I am not even sure how the free air ratings would line up with what goes on in actual bass cabs. The loading (or lack) on the driver makes a difference for sure.
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They don't. The article I linked addresses all of that, and explains pretty well why bass cabs will never be an easy thing to give a bullet proof power rating for.
 
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#103
fxdwg said:
Once an amp starts clipping it will produce a square wave that will in turn keep the speaker at a high wattage longer than it was designed for. In some cases the speaker can not rid it self of the excess heat and walla "um what happened" Be careful
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Well it looks like we're going there!! All the old myths are being trotted out!!!! :rollno:
 
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#104
BurningSkies said:
The reality is that few cabs suffer mechanical failure (or often thermal failure) without giving the user warning. The real answer is 'user error' or 'user abuse' is the cause of these problems rather than over or under-powering.

I'm OK with that. If people haven't bothered to learn how their gear works, they'll keep wrecking the stuff they spent all their money on. The reality is that it's not a 'wave type' or clipping that kills speaker cabinets. It's too much juice. If you go in without an understanding about how both speakers and amps are 'rated' you sort of get what you deserve. If you don't bother to listen to your cab while you're playing it and notice when it starts to fail, that's not the fault of your speakers impedance or the voltage coming out of your amp's output.
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+1
In most of all cases (for the bigger part) the gear works well allright because the gear is not abused by user. And in most of all cases even compressed or dirty sound does not cause hazard to cab and/or amp because the average power stays in a range amplifier and/or cab will handle well. In general the approved suggestion "same power for amplifier and cab" meets all the needs of the average, exept to a few ones who tend to abuse gear.

Abuse of gear then makes any reasonable consideration to be inverted (to upend).
 
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#106
ThisBass said:
+1
In most of all cases (for the bigger part) the gear works well allright because the gear is not abused by user. And in most of all cases even compressed or dirty sound does not cause hazard to cab and/or amp because the average power stays in a range amplifier and/or cab will handle well. In general the approved suggestion "same power for amplifier and cab" meets all the needs of the average, exept to a few ones who tend to abuse gear.

Abuse of gear then makes any reasonable consideration to be inverted (to upend).
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Part of it is people choosing the right tool for the job. I think a lot of people miss that mark.

If speaker 'clipping' or distortion is your goal, look for a speaker with a short x-max and long x-lim make sure it handles a decent amount of thermal abuse. Pick an amp that isn't so huge that you overpower your speakers before it breaks up if you want amp clipping/distortion. Make sure you're not feeding your speakers stuff that's too low and causes your excursion to be too extreme. Consider working with more speakers rather than more wattage to reach the volume you think you need.

Still, a basic understanding of why your gear has been rated the way whatever company made it did is a good start. So yeah, your 500w amp can produce 1000w, remember that. Remember that your cab rated at 500w may be excursion limited to 300w and plan accordingly.
 
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#107
I completely agree ratings can be very misleading and that action to correct or find a useful industry standard would be a good thing.

But I think it's important we also educate ourselves and put the myths to rest. They inhibit real understanding of the dangers and how to match cabs to amps depending on the needs and usage of each bassist.

By continuing to consider, even only semantically, that under powering is possible it creates situations where people think they will damage their cabs when there is no danger, and it prevents any real way of determining the correct match up even armed with useful specs.
 
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#108
khutch said:
You are missing the point. To the average person an 800 W amp should not be able to overheat a 1000 W cab. You have to understand the difference between sine and square waves and you have to understand that many 800 W amps will deliver far more than 1000 W to a cab when overdriven in order to understand why this is possible. The average person does not understand this so to them the statement that you can blow a speaker by underpowering it is true. They actually have blown 1000 W cabs with 800 W amps so obviously it is true. They don't know that the cab doesn't meet their needs because amps are rated by their sine wave outputs. We who understand physics understand the problem but to the average person it looks for all the world like you can blow a cab by underpowering it.
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So we need to dumb down our approach so they understand it? I think not.
 
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#112
JimmyM said:
So we need to dumb down our approach so they understand it? I think not.
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TBH, I really don't think this was khutch's intention here. He was simply stating why people think that underpowering damages speakers, not suggesting we continue to enable their ignorance. I can assure you that wasn't my intention when I posted my agreement with that post. ;)
 
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#119
I have a question, maybe in line with the first post, maybe not. It does, however boil down to a yes or no; so that'll be easy.

I modeled and put together a cab that sounds good, works well, yadda yadda. 2x12, 4 ohm using 8 ohm speakers. I wanted to offer it in 8 ohm. I went and looked up the "4 ohm equivalent" and the TS numbers are quite different, and thus so are the models...I can't even get close to the models I had for the cab using the 8 ohm version (in the same box). Now, what if the tech mentioned in the OP was noticing that without changing the cab and/or tuning, the "4 ohm version" of a speaker that the OEM had as 8 ohm results in problems? He just put the blame on the speakers, and not the fact that other things have to change, too.

My question is this: Could the very different TS numbers I'm seeing between the 4 and 8 ohm version of the "same" speaker I was looking at just be a function of them being cheapies, or are ALL speakers going to have quite different specs when the coil is tweaked from 8 to 4 ohm?
 
#120
basscooker said:
I have a question, maybe in line with the first post, maybe not. It does, however boil down to a yes or no; so that'll be easy.

I modeled and put together a cab that sounds good, works well, yadda yadda. 2x12, 4 ohm using 8 ohm speakers. I wanted to offer it in 8 ohm. I went and looked up the "4 ohm equivalent" and the TS numbers are quite different, and thus so are the models...I can't even get close to the models I had for the cab using the 8 ohm version (in the same box). Now, what if the tech mentioned in the OP was noticing that without changing the cab and/or tuning, the "4 ohm version" of a speaker that the OEM had as 8 ohm results in problems? He just put the blame on the speakers, and not the fact that other things have to change, too.

My question is this: Could the very different TS numbers I'm seeing between the 4 and 8 ohm version of the "same" speaker I was looking at just be a function of them being cheapies, or are ALL speakers going to have quite different specs when the coil is tweaked from 8 to 4 ohm?
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One question per penny please. The difference between winding count or wire gauge in the two voice coils makes a large difference, cheap or expensive.
 

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