More speakers, more volume anomaly....

[retslock]

I have a Fender Rumble 50 watt head and a 4 x 10” cabinet. I’m happy with it, I goes well.
I also have an old TL EV 15” cabinet that has served me very well for many years as an extension to my Music Man amp.
Out of curiosity I made a cabinet comparison and found that the EV 15” is quite a bit louder than the Fender 4 x 10” cabinet. Comparing each cab seperately it’s quite noticeable and when I combine them the EV is the one you hear most. I don’t know what speakers Fender use in these cabinets and I’ve heard many years ago that EV are very efficient speakers.
Is that all it boils down to? A more efficient speaker doing the job better?
The EV sounds very good alone with the Rumble head and together they sound big - a very full sound. I doubt I’ll be carting them both to gigs anytime but I’m tempted to gig with the EV/Rumble head set-up to see how it goes on stage.
Any thoughts on why this one EV is louder than 4 10” Fenders?

 

[fdeck]

My first thought is the overall frequency response curve. There are tradeoffs in speaker design between low frequency response and overall sensitivity. And sensitivity at higher frequencies may contribute more to the audibility of the bass. Just a hunch.

 

[Foz]

Do you know what drivers you have in the two cabs?. If that 15 has a EVM 15B in it- and IIRC - they are very efficient in their operative bandwidth and therefore the 4x10 likely lags way behind in sensitivity - ID both cabs drivers and look em up for confirmation. Might need to bi-amp with a programable xover unit to get em to play nice together.

 

[two fingers]

I have a Fender Rumble 50 watt head and a 4 x 10” cabinet. I’m happy with it, I goes well.
I also have an old TL EV 15” cabinet that has served me very well for many years as an extension to my Music Man amp.
Out of curiosity I made a cabinet comparison and found that the EV 15” is quite a bit louder than the Fender 4 x 10” cabinet. Comparing each cab seperately it’s quite noticeable and when I combine them the EV is the one you hear most. I don’t know what speakers Fender use in these cabinets and I’ve heard many years ago that EV are very efficient speakers.
Is that all it boils down to? A more efficient speaker doing the job better?
The EV sounds very good alone with the Rumble head and together they sound big - a very full sound. I doubt I’ll be carting them both to gigs anytime but I’m tempted to gig with the EV/Rumble head set-up to see how it goes on stage.
Any thoughts on why this one EV is louder than 4 10” Fenders?

Yeah the "more speakers = more volume" thing usually leaves out an important variable..... "all other aspects being equal".

Those two cabs are simply different designs, different drivers, different frequency response, and (in short) completely different physics. They are (quite simply) dissimilar. It's the old comparing apples to oranges bit.

 

[walterw]

Any thoughts on why this one EV is louder than 4 10” Fenders?

those old EVs were famously efficient, meaning that 15 in the right cab might indeed be louder when fed a meager 50 watts of bass amp

the question might be what happens when they're both fed with 500 watts of bass amp! that 4x10 might get loud enough to make everybody around you angry while the EV would have long since blown

 

[drpepper]

When you say "louder", do you mean at the same setting on the head? If so, is the 115 a 4 ohm cabinet and the 410 8 ohms?

 

[GreyBeard]

(imho) The EVM-B and EVM-L are the loudest and best sounding 15" speaker ever made. I have a pr of L's in my vintage Sunn Sorado cabinet that I still use from time to time. I used to power it with an 80W Sunn 200S head, then a 210W Peavey Mk IV and now with an Ampeg Pf500. It sound the best by far with the Ampeg.

 

[retslock]

When you say "louder", do you mean at the same setting on the head? If so, is the 115 a 4 ohm cabinet and the 410 8 ohms?

Yes exactly the same settings on the head. Both are 8 ohms. I tested them at low volume - the EV is way under rated for the power of the amp so I was being careful.
It was just a bit of curiosity - I don’t intend to use them together on a gig and at home it means I can practice with a quite beefy sound at low volume. (The wife is away for a few days and the lounge room beckoned).

 

[retslock]

(imho) The EVM-B and EVM-L are the loudest and best sounding 15" speaker ever made. I have a pr of L's in my vintage Sunn Sorado cabinet that I still use from time to time. I used to power it with an 80W Sunn 200S head, then a 210W Peavey Mk IV and now with an Ampeg Pf500. It sound the best by far with the Ampeg.

View attachment 4567351

They’ve always been my favourites. I have two and they’ve been great for a long time with my old Music Man solid state combo or HD130 head.

 

[beans-on-toast]

It’s the combination of the EV speaker and the cab design that are efficient. I have a pair of EV cabs that I drive with various low power amps. Because they are so sensitive, the combination works well.

 

[Ric5]

I have a Fender Rumble 50 watt head and a 4 x 10” cabinet. I’m happy with it, I goes well.
I also have an old TL EV 15” cabinet that has served me very well for many years as an extension to my Music Man amp.
Out of curiosity I made a cabinet comparison and found that the EV 15” is quite a bit louder than the Fender 4 x 10” cabinet. Comparing each cab seperately it’s quite noticeable and when I combine them the EV is the one you hear most. I don’t know what speakers Fender use in these cabinets and I’ve heard many years ago that EV are very efficient speakers.
Is that all it boils down to? A more efficient speaker doing the job better?
The EV sounds very good alone with the Rumble head and together they sound big - a very full sound. I doubt I’ll be carting them both to gigs anytime but I’m tempted to gig with the EV/Rumble head set-up to see how it goes on stage.
Any thoughts on why this one EV is louder than 4 10” Fenders?

is the 1x15 4ohm and the 4x10 8 ohm?

 

[Old Fart]

I have stereo speakers which are 89db sensitive. I also have stereo speakers which are 102db sensitive. The 102db speakers are easily three times as loud as the 89db speakers. At least. I have come to believe that the way to loudness is not watts but speaker sensitivity. My Bergantino HT-322 is my loudest bass cabinet and also my best-sounding.

 

[Fynn]

I have a Fender Rumble 50 watt head and a 4 x 10” cabinet. I’m happy with it, I goes well.
I also have an old TL EV 15” cabinet that has served me very well for many years as an extension to my Music Man amp.
Out of curiosity I made a cabinet comparison and found that the EV 15” is quite a bit louder than the Fender 4 x 10” cabinet. Comparing each cab seperately it’s quite noticeable and when I combine them the EV is the one you hear most. I don’t know what speakers Fender use in these cabinets and I’ve heard many years ago that EV are very efficient speakers.
Is that all it boils down to? A more efficient speaker doing the job better?
The EV sounds very good alone with the Rumble head and together they sound big - a very full sound. I doubt I’ll be carting them both to gigs anytime but I’m tempted to gig with the EV/Rumble head set-up to see how it goes on stage.
Any thoughts on why this one EV is louder than 4 10” Fenders?

I have an Ampeg BA210 with 450w at 4ohm. On it's own it runs at about 250w. I once added my other 210 as an extension cab to it and at about the same volume settings (third of the way up maybe), it seemed to be pretty much the same volume.
I also never understood how people came to the conclusions that certain 500w amps are too quiet. Even my BA combo on it's own is loud enough to deliver enough bass for a medium sized venue, when I put it at like 1 o clock.
So my idea feeling is that the speaker efficiency is probably the most important factor and after that comes the amount of speakers. It's all going into diminishing return territory though and at those low frequencies the cab design and where it is placed in a room (or maybe even outside) will make a huge difference on it's perceived volume.

 

[drpepper]

my idea feeling is that the speaker efficiency is probably the most important factor...

I think there is certainly an interesting object lesson on sensitivity here, but where the tendency is for people to become overly or singularly focused on one aspect of a whole (whether max wattage numbers, impedance, amp topology, speaker size, etc.) to the near exclusion of all others, it's probably best not to fall into the trap of just making sensitivity the tunnel-vision flavor of the day. It's one aspect of the whole and better to have some understanding than not.

 

[coy garcia]

I'm no expert in any way but as a player for decades I have become very partial to 15's. They sound fuller to my ears. If it was me I would just be gigging with the 115 and as a added bonus it's usually lighter.

 

[Ewo]

(imho) The EVM-B and EVM-L are the loudest and best sounding 15" speaker ever made. I have a pr of L's in my vintage Sunn Sorado cabinet that I still use from time to time. I used to power it with an 80W Sunn 200S head, then a 210W Peavey Mk IV and now with an Ampeg Pf500. It sound the best by far with the Ampeg.

View attachment 4567351

Wow--now there's an old warhorse speaker cab! (And howdy there, neighbor. I'm in Huntington.)

 

[Tim Skaggs]

I have a Fender Rumble 50 watt head

the EV is way under rated for the power of the amp so I was being careful

The EV is rated for less than 50 watts??? Is it in a ported or sealed cabinet? Sounds low for even an old bass cabinet.

 

[drpepper]

The EV is rated for less than 50 watts??? Is it in a ported or sealed cabinet? Sounds low for even an old bass cabinet.

In context (including that I'm not aware of there ever being a Rumble 50 watt head), I'd assume he meant 500 watts.

 

[Fynn]

I think there is certainly an interesting object lesson on sensitivity here, but where the tendency is for people to become overly or singularly focused on one aspect of a whole (whether max wattage numbers, impedance, amp topology, speaker size, etc.) to the near exclusion of all others, it's probably best not to fall into the trap of just making sensitivity the tunnel-vision flavor of the day. It's one aspect of the whole and better to have some understanding than not.

And that's why just testing stuff out directly is probably the best way. It is really difficult to calculate or estimate how something will work in different environments...

 

[micguy]

I think there is certainly an interesting object lesson on sensitivity here, but where the tendency is for people to become overly or singularly focused on one aspect of a whole (whether max wattage numbers, impedance, amp topology, speaker size, etc.) to the near exclusion of all others, it's probably best not to fall into the trap of just making sensitivity the tunnel-vision flavor of the day. It's one aspect of the whole and better to have some understanding than not.

Many guitar speakers (and some bass ones as well) are designed for very high sensitivity. To do this, you put all the turns of wire in the voice coil inside the magnetic field of the speaker. The thing, with low power applied, is really loud - every turn on the voice coil is working for you. But, if you turn it up, and have any bass running through it, the cone moves, and now some of the coil wire wanders outside the magnet's field. So, it distorts - often in a pleasing way, at least when used with guitar.

But...say you want to be able to produce a lot of low frequency energy. Now you need a speaker that will keep producing sound louder and louder, with more movement, as you crank up the power. To do this, you generally make a longer coil, with some of the coil wire now outside of the gap at rest. Now when it moves, it doesn't distort - it's more linear. It will produce more low end, but if you apply a relatively small signal to it, it's not as loud as the "guitar" speaker.

The EV you talk about are a product of another era - it's not designed with a lot of linear travel (aka Xmax). Some (not all) modern bass drivers are. You probably want to know how loud it will go when pushed hard on stage with a lot of low end, not how loud it is at home with a relatively small signal. If you do that test, you might get a different result.