New Avatar Cabs are up on the site

[tallboybass]

Wow, tough crowd.

Dave has never been known for cutting edge design. He just takes parts that are widely available and makes nice cabs that tend a little toward the 'generic' side.

 

[Handyman]

So this is larger, heavier, and more expensive than the Carvin LS1503? Thats kind of a bummer.

 

[shoot-r]

I'll wait to pass judgement till I've actually heard one...

 

[jtc_hunter]

Wow, tough crowd.

Dave has never been known for cutting edge design. He just takes parts that are widely available and makes nice cabs that tend a little toward the 'generic' side. Not sure he did his homework on this one though.

I am a huge f an of Avatar cabs. There is no better company out there as far as bang for the buck and customer service. But I will leave a 65 lb. cab for the younger bunch. I love my 39 lb. 112's and 2 of them sound sweet together. I am sure this 1510 will sound great too. Just a bit too heavy for me is all.

 

[Limeman]

So, a piece of crap?

I'm just joking with you. No need for me to open that phase-issue mismatched speakers can of worms, someone else will do it for me in under an hour, I reckon.

Good point about potential phase-issues... also possible issues with over-driving the 10 and under-utilizing the 15 as far as the lowest frequencies are concerned. Maybe a quick call to Avatar for an clearer understanding of the cab construction might be helpful? Also - until someone actually tries one, then we're all just blowing opinion and nothing more. Kind of hard to take the chance though, when Avatar has a "no return" policy.

 

[Big Mike Ipp]

I was really hoping that 1x15 was going to be in a smaller enclosure like the 1x12, I'm not saying anything until I try one of the cabs, however my interest is no longer there...and the 1x10 1x15 seems like, as someone said, a can of worms, heres to hoping dave has some gems, but im very skeptical...

 

[rptrsn2]

I'll wait to pass judgement till I've actually heard one...

best post yet. i've loved everything i,ve play from avatar so far,surely dave deserves a few user reviews before the flame fest begins.IMO

 

[mikeddd]

True: All this blustering is just opinion...albiet some highly informed and experienced opionions. Much if not all of this guessing/assuming could be eliminated if Avatar posted more info about the cab on the site, however!

I.E. "The new Avatar 1510 uses a separate "Noblowamid" chamber for the 10" mid to ensure optimum transient response. Additionally a new "Menagatois" crossover ensures all drivers produce their optimized frequencies as efficiently as possible."

I realize that coming up w/the adcopy and building/test the box are two different things but you gotta give people info if you want them to buy. Maybe the 1510 is a real gem and within weeks word of mouth will spread and Dave wont' be able to build them fast enough. Maybe not.

 

[ehque]

From the wordings, it looks like the 1510 has a tweeter and a 2-way xover between the tweeter and the 10+15.

It would make more sense if the crossover was between the 15 and the 10+tweeter. IIRC the frequency dependent electrical properties of the tweeter will already act like a "second crossover", will it not?

 

[billfitzmaurice]

It would make more sense if the crossover was between the 15 and the 10+tweeter.

Not with those drivers. Even if they do have separate chambers there still would be little reason to high-pass the ten, it's not a midrange driver.
As noted above Avatar is not a company that puts out highly engineered cabs. The fact that they use the same box with a different baffle for so many driver combinations is proof enough of that. So no, this is not going to be the engineering equivalent of a fEarful 15/6 or LDS 15/6 or Carvin 1503 etc.
OTOH they do offer good quality drivers and decent construction at a price point where many others give you cheap OEM drivers and flakeboard construction, so it is well worth considering if this is the price point you're comfortable with.

 

[mikeddd]

OTOH they do offer good quality drivers and decent construction at a price point where many others give you cheap OEM drivers and flakeboard construction

+1 Absolutely. And that's precisely the reason why I have purchased a bass and a guitar cab from them over the years. This 1510 however...mmmm, no.

 

[rptrsn2]

True: All this blustering is just opinion...albiet some highly informed and experienced opionions. .

yeah some the same sources that advise aginst the 210,115 mix which i think is the best sounding config there is. It just bothers me to see alot of the negative speculation when no one has even tried these yets.I think Dave deserves a bit more. if you try it and find fault by all means post it. but i think theres alot of younger users on here that take some opinions as written in stone fact , when the truth is what sounds good to one might not to another regardless if it makes a nice graph or not.

 

[4Mal]

Went to the site. Those 'new' 15 cab's are a total non starter for me... Ceramic Deltas in 2010 ? crazy, mon. Hey Dave ! The last decade called and they want their speakers back...

 

[babsobass]

yeah some the same sources that advise aginst the 210,115 mix which i think is the best sounding config there is. It just bothers me to see alot of the negative speculation when no one has even tried these yets.I think Dave deserves a bit more. if you try it and find fault by all means post it. but i think theres alot of younger users on here that take some opinions as written in stone fact , when the truth is what sounds good to one might not to another regardless if it makes a nice graph or not.

+1. None of the "informed" opinions here have been informed by playing through one of these cabs. Speculate all you want. But until we start seeing reviews, or I get to play through or hear one myself, I will not form a final judgment on the sound of these cabs. I don't understand how anyone can at this point.

 

[mike_v_s]

I'm a little baffled that people seem to be expecting a 15/6 competitor from a company that made it's name selling decent cabinets at bargain prices. Have LDS or another builder price out a 15/6 build for comparison. They're not even in the same market.

Mike

 

[mikeddd]

I don't think any reasonable person would expect a fEarfull/LDS/Bergatino out of the latest Avatar offering. The "bashing without even testing the thing" comes from what we already know about drivers, cabinets and how they interact.

What we know:

1. We know the drivers being used and therefore their specs
2. We know the size of the cab (airspace)
3. We know how drivers of dissimilar sizes/specs interact when sharing airspace (and it's not favorably)
4. (99% probability) There no separate chamber for the 10
5. The slot port at the bottom can be tuned for the 15 or the 10; no way it's even close to optimally tuned for both at the same time, nor is it possible (AFAIK!)
5. Standing waves/back waves/whatever you call'em will absolutely screw with the 15 and 10's performance, color the sound, mess up the freq response, etc


I'm not an EE nor a cab designer by trade and I don't even pretend to know 10% of what someone like Bill Fitzmaurice (example for a Subject Matter Expert) knows. But I have built speakers/cabs before, both subwoofer for car and home and home-brew DIY designs. I know the basics; and the basics say that based on what I outlined above, this cab is a bad idea. Again; I own two Avatar cabs (soon to be a 3rd...B210) and love them. I'll be skipping this one. Maybe a few months from now I'll be eating my words; we'll see. If I was wrong I'll admit it...but I don't see any crow on my plate in the near future.

 

[Bmorefoozler]

yeah some the same sources that advise aginst the 210,115 mix which i think is the best sounding config there is. It just bothers me to see alot of the negative speculation when no one has even tried these yets.I think Dave deserves a bit more. if you try it and find fault by all means post it. but i think theres alot of younger users on here that take some opinions as written in stone fact , when the truth is what sounds good to one might not to another regardless if it makes a nice graph or not.

Actually no.
The 1x15" and 2x10" mix isn't nearly as "shatted upon" as this is. The 1x15 + 4x10 and or 1x15 + 1x10 do however have major mathcup issues.

For this to "work" either the woofers must be crossed, or the 10" would have to have double the xmax... in which case it won't be providing any mids.

If he wants to use drivers lying around, IMO he'd be better served building a small sealed chamber with a guitar 10" and a proper crossover.
But I'm not an engineer, nor have I used this cabinet.
I have however heard enough horror stories of the similarly designed SWR and Mesa Cabinets that have had more then there fair share of blown drivers... usually 10's aplenty.

 

[rpsands]

Poor engineering is poor engineering regardless of whether I personally have listened to it. I don't need to hear every single cabinet to know whether it's well designed or not. That's a fallacy that needs to stop getting repeated.

It might sound good to someone, that doesn't make it well designed.

For the record I've never heard a cabinet with two bass 10s, a guitar 12 and two PA horns wired together in parallel without a crossover either but I can tell you it'll sound like crap and was engineered by an idiot.

 

[Mike Shevlin]

"Paging Mr. Boy...Mr. Green Boy...You are needed in hardware..."

 

[DukeLeJeune]

It is possible for two woofers of dissimilar specs to share the same airspace with very good results, but those two woofers have to be chosen with each other in mind. They way they interact inside the box is indeed considerably more compex than how two identical woofers interact, but it can be analyzed and optimized IF enough information is available.

Now I've never seen a published description of how one would go about doing this, so I'm not going to post how I would do it, but I've done some prototyping of dissimilar woofers/common airspace designs for another market. At least two high-end home audio manufacturers (Wilson Audio and Velodyne) offer dissimilar woofer/common airspace subwoofer systems.