Thanx cl400. do you know if there is much difference /(loss of upper mids) with the 1505-8DT vs the 02?
IMO, there is no loss of UPPER mids in the 1505. If anything, they're a little clearer, more "present".
What the 1502 does well is play loud, then when you get louder, it gets some breakup/aggressive tone of its own in the mids.
What the 1505 does well is also play loud, but you can hit it with more power and it stays cleaner/clearer up to really loud levels. So, it doesn't get that speaker breakup tone. Well, it can...when it's taking so much power it looks like it's about to fly out of the box....but it handles more power from the bass and gives it back to you as clear sound.
If anything, at lower power levels, I'd call the 1505 a bit more prominent in the uppermids and the 1502 a bit more prominent in the middle mids.
At high power levels, the 1505 will keep giving you what you shove into it and hold together, where the 1502 will start to give a more aggresive speaker breakup sort of drive. Some folks like that sound, and that's cool, the 1502 is the choice then. If you want to lay on the power and have the speaker give it back to you without putting its own breakup tone on everything, at least not until it's so loud it hurts, then the 1505 is the choice.
Oddly, the 1502 (the one that breaks up earlier) was used in most bass cabs and advertised as a bass speaker. The 1505 was used more in PA gear, including some small bandpass subs, but is very much the more robust speaker for clear bass. This kind of goes against the conventional wisdom of the '80's, where bass was supposed to be clean and clear, and guitars were supposed to be dirty.
Leave it to Peavey.
The performance aspects of the 1505DT-8 still meet or beat many of the "good" bass speakers of today, and the basic design is a good bit over 30 years old now. Only (relatively) recently have we neos with that sort of performance blend, of strong lows, high spl, and good topend performance (for a bass guitar, or to pass off to a good quality mid/high driver in a PA cab) where you can have a single 15 that can actually carry a small bar room on its own (and I mean carry it, not just be heard), or 215's that can blow the doors off the place, without giving up some aspect of performance, be it giving up real bass for overall loudness, or making real bass at the expense of overall loudness or being limited such that they need to be crossed over to a smaller driver to get definition in the sound. For example old JBL's, EV's, and Altecs can run that loud or louder but they can't bring with it the lows of that Widow without crapping the bed at high power.
God didn't design them, so they're not perfect, but Peavey did, so they're damn good.
