That would make a cool guitar cab - it's got more inherent value as that, and won't ever be a good bass cab - not by today's standards. But the Cool Factor is high!
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Restoring a Coral 6-12
- Thread starter Son of Celts
- Start date
I'd personally, as it has been mentioned here, try to remove or cut holes into the cab-separating barriers, so they all share airspace, and either plug holes for drivers or make a new baffle on which there are three or four holes and have a nice 412 that might be a fair bit more efficient in low end than as a 612. It'd still have plenty of mojo, and would cost AND weigh less than having to pay for and lug all six drivers. I'd then honestly not use it with a head with much more than maybe 200 watts at most.
That being said, cool find and you do you.
That being said, cool find and you do you.
Yeah, based on the size of the cab, if you want a proper bass cab out of it, you should be looking to do either a 4x12, with the top 4 cutouts used, with the in between barriers opened up and the bottom 2 holes covered and then install appropriately sized and tuned ports. OR, a vertical 3x12 in one side or the other (with the other cutouts covered and then ports installed).
Both options have their advantages and disadvantages. You have to figure what kind of drivers you can find in your budget. Then you have to model how they would perform with different volumes and tunings. You have about 1.8 cubic feet x3 to work with, keep in mind if port it, you will have to fit the ports in that very shallow 10.5" depth, which may take some playing around with the cross sectional area and number of ports. If they're too small and don't move enough air, you can get "chuffing", especially at higher volumes.
I think what I lean towards if you can run the numbers and get a good result, is do a 4x12, take out the pressed paper in between the chambers, get some good bracing in the cab, and then do something like 4 decent sized ports across the bottom 2 cutouts (ie 2 ports where each of the bottom 12s used to be). You would want speakers that are more or less full range (ie with extension up to something like 4-6k, ideally). Unless you want to figure out how to add a midrange and/or tweeter. You could check out the 16 ohm 12s that GK uses in their 2x12 and 4x12 NEO cabs. Those should run you about $130 or so a piece, and are rated at 300w, and I believe the GK system is crossed over at 5k, so they should be pretty good. Although I just looked up the dimensions, and that cab probably has about 2 square feet on yours, so you may be closer with a 3x12 if you use those drivers. But, then for about 400 bucks, plus some plywood and some carpentry time, you could have probably a pretty bad ass cab with a solid execution, that would still have the funky old school vibe. And doing a 3x12 leaves that whole other side open if you wanted to add like a 6 inch midrange and tweeter. That would also require adding some sort of crossover and either mounting it internally, or probably sawing a hole for a new jackplate. For me, I might also think about damning dispersion, and putting 1 of the 12s on the opposite side (ie the middle one, so RLR or LRL), just to get some of the weight balance back to the cab.
There are a few ways you could go, you just have to run all the numbers and plan it out and figure out what you think is going to be best.
Both options have their advantages and disadvantages. You have to figure what kind of drivers you can find in your budget. Then you have to model how they would perform with different volumes and tunings. You have about 1.8 cubic feet x3 to work with, keep in mind if port it, you will have to fit the ports in that very shallow 10.5" depth, which may take some playing around with the cross sectional area and number of ports. If they're too small and don't move enough air, you can get "chuffing", especially at higher volumes.
I think what I lean towards if you can run the numbers and get a good result, is do a 4x12, take out the pressed paper in between the chambers, get some good bracing in the cab, and then do something like 4 decent sized ports across the bottom 2 cutouts (ie 2 ports where each of the bottom 12s used to be). You would want speakers that are more or less full range (ie with extension up to something like 4-6k, ideally). Unless you want to figure out how to add a midrange and/or tweeter. You could check out the 16 ohm 12s that GK uses in their 2x12 and 4x12 NEO cabs. Those should run you about $130 or so a piece, and are rated at 300w, and I believe the GK system is crossed over at 5k, so they should be pretty good. Although I just looked up the dimensions, and that cab probably has about 2 square feet on yours, so you may be closer with a 3x12 if you use those drivers. But, then for about 400 bucks, plus some plywood and some carpentry time, you could have probably a pretty bad ass cab with a solid execution, that would still have the funky old school vibe. And doing a 3x12 leaves that whole other side open if you wanted to add like a 6 inch midrange and tweeter. That would also require adding some sort of crossover and either mounting it internally, or probably sawing a hole for a new jackplate. For me, I might also think about damning dispersion, and putting 1 of the 12s on the opposite side (ie the middle one, so RLR or LRL), just to get some of the weight balance back to the cab.
There are a few ways you could go, you just have to run all the numbers and plan it out and figure out what you think is going to be best.
