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Mixed Driver Size Myopia!

#67
Working at a music store, it's very true that the vast majority of people have no idea about their ignorance and blind devotion to the misconceptions of bass cabs. I make it a point to try and educate my customer so they can make an informed decision.. But every time I try to veer them towards the path of knowledge and away from ignorance, they give me a dumbfounded look of skepticism and I can almost hear them thinking "This guy has no idea what he's talking about.. He must be a guitard". The bottom line is that the majority of people listen with their eyes and buy what their favorite endorsed artist is told to play.

I'm obsessed with gear and getting THAT sound in my head for tone, but at the end of the day when everyone is sloshed and the sound guy is too busy eyeballing waitresses than doing his job, no one in the audience is going to hear the difference in dispersion depending on where they are in the room. Go with the rig/cab that gets you "that" sound on stage and/or in the studio.We all just go thump-thump anyway.
 
#68
All my favorite sounding rigs have had mismatched cabinets (usually a 2x10 and a 1x15 or 1x18). They just always seem to have the most punch and weight behind the notes you play. Matched cabs always sound too pleasant and two-dimensional to my ear.
 
#69
jmattbassplaya said:
All my favorite sounding rigs have had mismatched cabinets (usually a 2x10 and a 1x15 or 1x18). They just always seem to have the most punch and weight behind the notes you play. Matched cabs always sound too pleasant and two-dimensional to my ear.
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Heh, last night I had another sub gig with the party rock guys. I took 115 and 210 instead of 2x15. Guitars are direct and drums was kick only with his own subwoofer. The lead guitar player could hear me clearly, when the 2x15 had been all lows for him last time. I prefer the tone of the JBL's, dangit, dispersion rules.
 
#71
KJung said:
To summarize the above posts and hopefully clarify, there is no benefit to crossing-over similar full range cabinets. Driver size alone means nothing. All you would be doing there is forcing one cab to handle ALL the low end, and remove frequencies the other cab could easily reproduce, hence resulting in a very inefficient system.

Think about this more in a 'PA' sense... the different drivers/boxes in a large front of house system use optimally tuned cabinets and driver sizes to maximize both the efficiency of the system (i.e., larger drivers can, in most cases, more efficiently produce low end... i.e., you need less of them to obtain high SPL than smaller drivers), and (this is key) to maximize dispersion (the frequencies from the upper midrange on up tend to beam a bit when reproduced by larger cones (i.e., they come out very directionally from a larger driver). The confusion arises with a 15" driver in a bass cab. The typical 15" driver is much more similar in frequency response to the typical 10" driver designed for bass guitar backline than a true sub-woofer spec'd 15" driver with massive low end capability. Again, driver size alone makes little difference.

So, it makes quite a bit of sense to get a large, relatively efficient driver for the low end, and then the smallest driver you can get for the top end of the tone of a bass cab, hence the 12/6 or 15/6 type designs (or in Andy Lewis's Acme cabs... 10" drivers specially voiced for low end and 5" mid drivers). Of course, if you put small drivers next to one another in a horizontal configuration, they act more like large cones, again beaming the high frequencies.

Of course, there are always trade-offs. A 410 with a good tweeter can sound marvelous, and a 15/6 with a simple crossover can sound sterile and lifeless. No 'one best way' with bass backline cabs, which are often designed to be part of the tonal signal chain versus pure 'reproduction of tone'. Any speaker design is a compromise and trade-off of many, many specs and performance/tonal goals.
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+1 well said !
 
#72
Munjibunga said:
Is there really a need for a 410+115 cab? Didn't Mesa make one of those? I think I saw one once. There are so many great-sounding cabs out there, I just don't see what advantage a 410+115 cab would bring to the table.
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It makes a few more sales by appealing to the buyer who thinks it looks boss, is willing to haul a china cabinet, and doesn't listen closely to how it compares to Mesa's killer 610.
 
#74
It's all showroom displays (and ads). It's efficient to show a product range that way. Stacking a 410 on a 115 with an amp head on top instead of presenting them as seperate rigs with on each an amp... or for that matter a 2x410 stack next to a 2x115 stack. An average store rarely has two of the same cabs in stock to do the latter. All this is understandable from a store manager's perspective if they offer a range of brands and are bound to limited floor space.

Even if there is a store manager (or salesperson for the bass section) who knows the issues of a 410+115 setup and doesn't present them in such way, a majority of bassists that come shopping will ask to try the 410 and 115 togheter (or other cabs for that matter).
So a 410+115 is an easy sale. And what sells the best you display.

I am not a music store owner (although I own a store selling something else), I experience the opposite of what lburton2 describes as a customer.
When I am in a music store and ask to test out a 115 on its own if it is sitting underneath a 410 the salesperson looks at me strange. "You got to hear how it sounds with the 410 on top." "Oh, so you already have a 410 at home?" "Why would you consider ordering an extra 115 if you buy this, we got a 410 right here to go with it." etcetera.


I feel it's the same thing as convincing guitarists they don't need 4x12 cabs, especially two of them. But stores keep fullstack on display, and they sell.

My main gig the last two years is on guitar. Not to rag on guitarist but the majority of them from other bands question why I only bring a 1x12 40W combo to play. And they comment on it in rude ways, telling me to "upgrade" to a halfstack and such.
So far I haven't played a venue where my combo isn't loud enough.
 

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