Powerful/lightweight 10" speakers for Mesa Boogie 8x10

I have a feeling that even with Neo drivers in your cabinet it will not be substantially lighter. There is a heck of a lot of wood in that box. It will also not sound the same with different drivers installed. Most folk who use an 8x10 quickly learn the best way to move the cabinet around.

 

You will need to measure the internal volume of your cab, and the porting, then model around different drivers to see which may work, and which will work best, as drop in replacements.

 

It's not just about an "awesome speaker" but also how it fits with the design of the cab since these things are engineered all scientifically. Best to get an equivalent of whatever the original spec was.

 

^^^ OP, I think (unfortunately) this. Plus, the 3010HO (while being a monster 10" driver) isn't even that light at 7.6 lbs. The 8 drivers would run you ~ $1600 & you'd end up with a 3200 RMS 810 . For that kind of bread, you could build a super box from scratch, like a 1515/66 for instance (~85 lbs., maybe a hair less).

I don't know if they'd work, but if I was going to do something like this, I give a hard look at Eminence Alphas or Faital 10FE200s. You'd still have a 1200 RMS @ 4-Ohms cab. And for just over a quarter of the 3010HO price tag. And they're both ~3 lbs. a pop lighter than the 3010HOs (a 24 lb. savings).
http://www.usspeaker.com/ALPHA10-1.htm
http://www.usspeaker.com/faital pro 10fe200-1.htm

 

The mesa cabs are heavy even without speakers loaded in.

 

Maybe it's an idea to take one of the drivers out and weigh it so you can compare it to other drivers, that way you can calculate how much lighter the 810 is going to be.
Maybe the Eminence S2010 is a well suited drop-in, it has pretty flexible TSP's so it's able to handle a lot of different port tunings and enclosure sizes, it's also very light.

 

Oh, you can do that...if you have unlimited money. Even the cheaper speakers are going to be $70-80 per and they won't even be neos, and you need to replace all of them to see how it works. And if they don't, you've got 8 speakers that just cost you a lot that you'll need to sell at a loss, and you'll have to buy 8 more.

 

Those Mesa Cabs with the Eden Drivers in are far too good to mess with, its what it is.
It's very suitable for a studio or installed system where weight and transport costs are irrelevant.
There are lots of good Neo built cabs about today that are far more suitable for the hard touring
musician of limited physical capacity.
PS. In India it appears western ideas about what's sutable equipment for loading to a tour truck, may not be universally catching on.

 

What is the impedance of each Eden speaker?

Are these 32 ohm speakers wired in parallel like an SVT 8x10 or 8 ohm speakers wired series parallel as in my Acoustic 8x10?

 

A quick calculation tells me the enclosure volume per driver is approx 30liters (1cu ft), that's pretty much perfect for the Eminence S2010. If the tuning is somewhere between 45-55hz then I see no reason why the S2010 wouldn't be a good and lightweight replacement for the Eden drivers. The only thing that may be different is the impedance of the driver, a different type of parallel/series wiring may do the trick here.
The netto weight of the S2010 is 1.59kg(3.5lbs), the Eden driver will weight approx 4kg (8.8lbs). For eight drivers the difference will be almost 20kgs difference and that's a lot of weight IMO.

 

As an owner and lover of a 90's Road Ready 2x15 cab, I can only imagine A, how good the Road Ready 8x10 sounds, and B, how heavy it is! Any pics? (As you said it's the older style Road Ready series, correct? Don't know that I've seen the old 8x10 RR before- or if I have, it's been a very long time and I've forgotten- thus why I inquire about seeing a photo). What head(s) are you running through the 8x10?

 

Really, just have LDS build you a light 8x10 with s2010's. It will weigh about 90lblbs max and just kill. If I liked ported cabs, thats what I would have had years ago.

 

You bought a legendary 810 that is proving prohibitively heavy. The tone of that cab is primarily due to the drivers used and the bass alignment used in the design of the cab. You may be able to find a driver that will 'work', but you will not find one that will cop the tone of the stock drivers. Seems like you have 3 reasonable choices:

1) chuck the tone of this legendary cab and put in light weight drivers that 'work'.
2) Sell the cab for something that you both like and can handle.
3) Reduce the weight of the cab. Either have a new, light weight cab built for the drivers, or reduce the weight of the stock cab. You can probably route out 3/8 - 5/16 inches of wood from the interior and add modern bracing.

I suspect that #2 is the easiest path forward, but, if you are really attached to that tone, go forward with #3.

 

OP, you looked 5 yrs. You love it (must be tone, right, not weight, lol). It lives up to all expectations. It sounds awesome.

If you really love it & if you think it really sounds awesome, then it's the Edens (even though you were hoping for EVs). The problem is the insane weight. Go with suggestion #3, above. Remove the drivers & have a new, modeled/optimized box built for them. If anything, I'd suspect that the tone will get even better from the new enclosure. Take the Mesa Boogie emblems off the (insanely heavy) RR cab & put them on the new one.

If you're looking for an alternative (810 or whatever format), if you want something different, then pick whatever new drivers float your boat & have a new box built around those. And if an 810, then yes, the 3010HOs would make a King Kong cab. Ciare NDH-3s would make a different King Kong cab. They own serious 8.5mm Xmax (approaching double the 3010HO's 4.43 ... 294 cc per speaker vs. 162 cc) & go to 5kHz (vs. 4kHz). They're 3 lbs. heavier (10.1 vs 7.1) & 4dB less sensitive (96 vs 100) than the 3010HOs, though.

A Ciare 810 cab would be 24 lbs. heavier than the corresponding Eminence, but still a lot lighter than the RR. Of course any 810 cab isn't going to be light. Total Ciare 8-speaker dB would be 105, vs. 109 for the Eminences. Total Ciare displacement would be massively larger (2353 cc vs. 1296). And you know what they say … "There's no replacement for displacement."

http://usspeaker.com/ciare 10ndh-3-1.htm[/QUOTE]

 

That Ciare 10ndh-3 is indeed a "serious" driver, 6mm voice-coil overhang......My only concern would be the steep rising response around 650hz.

 

Trade-offs are involved with everything.

 

It's very important to remember that much of the TONE of a bass cab comes from what's happening in the midrange and that is down to the minutiae of the cone, surround, suspension, voice coil and dust cap. Modelling the low frequency response is easy but unless you want to use a bass cab as a subwoofer, not for playing bass through, then that's far from the most important thing.