Question..

I dont know if it will work the way you want it too, but it may work. Rockford makes car subs, not speakers for bass cabs. If you've ever been to a car stereo shop, you know that subs are not loud in the store, but sound good and loud in your car. Also, a Rockford (or any car sub) will not have as tight a response in your house or at a gig as it would in your car. I thought of that idea, but never wanted to try it (I have four 12" Rockfords in my Blazer). Most car subs are not built to take any frequency higher than about 200hZ. 12" Rockfords should be crossed over no higher than 80 or 100hZ.
If you do this, don't be suprised if it only sounds good when placed in the corner of a small room. Sound and bass will come out of the sub, but it won't be very usable. I would not risk it, as you may blow the speaker by running your bass through it. The enclosure would be smaller, but also requires heavier wood (such as particle board or MDF). They are also much less efficient than bass cab speakers, so you will need a lot of power. I probably just told you much more than you cared to know. I guess a simple "I wouldn't try it" would have done just fine. Take it easy.

Dan

 

Musical instrument speakers are built differently from hifi speakers, particularly ones intended for bass instruments. The signal from a bass instrument has a massive transient spike that occurs at the moment of attack. This can be seen readily on an oscilloscope. This transient requires a speaker cone to be able to move quite a distance. A car or hifi speaker deals only with a recorded signal, which has had the transients compressed, and therefore does not have to move very much to accurately reproduce the signal. Bottom Line: you will likely blow up the Rockford if you use it for bass guitar.

 

I have a Kenwood 3-way box with two 12s in it that I turned into a bass cab. My plan was to use it in conjunction with my 1x15. I can't say it sounded bad, but I can't say it sounded that good either.

 

Baloney.

This logic implies all bass cabinet drivers with short excursions are prone to blow-out from transients. The facts don't support this, as Rockford subwoofers have 2x the excursion of the Eminence and 4x more excursion than JBL E-140s. These short-excursion drivers perform admirably for electric bass, even without a compressor.

I run two 1x15 Rockford RFR-2215 subs, and they have FAR more excursion than ANY of the drivers used in conventional bass cabinets. Only the Cerwin-Vega and JBL subwoofers have more excursion than the 15" Rockfords. Furthermore, I have mine running in custom cabs tuned at 31 Hz. This tuning presents the maximum damping to the cone where it would otherwise be having the most movement: Low B. I have imperceptible cone movement at low B because all the sound radiation comes from the port. The most cone movement is half an octave up, around low E, then movement drops again. Classic ported cabinet performance.

As pointed out earlier, Rockford's aren't worth a crap above 200 Hz, and they sound like pure mud when used alone. This applies to all true subwoofers. I bi-amp mine with a pair of JBL E110 crossed over at 100 Hz. This restores all the missing sparkle and punch, and lets the subs crush your chest like they are supposed to do. I drive my Rockfords with a 3,000 watt QSC amplifier because they are tremendous power hogs, which is typical of all true subwoofer designs. They ain't very loud at all, but they are rated at 1,000 watts RMS. If you want to make any real noise with Rockfords, you will have to run more than one.

The Rockford RFR-2212 is ideally suited for 3 cubic feet, ported, and is dead flat (-1 dB) to 31 Hz. It doesn't move as much air as the 15", but it is optimum in a smaller cabinet. I don't care for the RFR-31xx series because they are even more inefficient and more expensive, but they do run in smaller cabs. They don't go down as low, either.

 

I put a Rockford PD212 in my anemic Crate BT1000 hoping for a little more output and it really gives a smooth mellow sound that really gets felt. It has 2 2ohm VC windings and a hefty magnet assembly with a kevlar dish instead of a cone. It also eliminated all the hiss from my single coils! LOL