(sorry for the long post, slow morning at work)
keep going with this, so is that hump at 100-120 not normal in a lot of bass cabs? because i would say my cabs definitely have lots of "sub" quality to them, and that may just be more because of how i have the tone dialed in. i dont have them set for lots of punch or tightness, very loose and smooth low end is what i like to use with my band.
Part of the thing is, most people are not used to hearing content down there, done well. With a fEARful cab you dont get all that "woof" or "Flub" with pushing low end content.
It works for some, and might now for others. For me, I find it easier to take away what I dont want, than to try and add what I do and the cab cant produce. That is my preference though.
I don't have all the info on specific cabs, that's really outside my knowledge base. All my info on this subject is just applicable information about perceived volume and frequency (Fletcher-Munson curves, etc.) from mixing experience. I'm the type of person that when I get into something, like mixing, I want to learn all the fundamentals before getting into the technical stuff. So one of the first things I did when I started taking mixing seriously was buy an out of print book about recording from the 50's. Very little technical information, lots and lots of information about how people hear things and how the ear tricks the brain and the other way around. So when I started seeing frequency response curves on cabs and reading people discussing these issues, a lot of the basics are familiar. Most of what people think of as "low", "mid" and "high" when listening are very different from when people are analyzing frequencies on charts. It's all also completely relative, because most of those plots are about efficiency. Not so much what's not there, but how efficiently it's being reproduced. If you're pumping A LOT of power into any cab, you are definitely getting low end. You just might be getting more of it for less power with different drivers/designs. You're also probably getting a lot more of something else in the frequency spectrum you may or may not want (but hey, amps have knobs and they turn).
Julian might want a super clean, efficient, flat response out of a cab, so he can dial in every piece of gear to get a precise tone. Mike may want a really specific frequency curve that a certain cab is reproducing, even if it could be dialed in on the amp with a different cab. You could go farther and say one person wants to have a modular setup, the other wants that "magic combination" that sounds great together, they're the same goals being approached from two directions. Toss into the mix that to one person KNOWING something is more efficient or gets more power for a certain input makes a difference, for another it may not as long as they get the tone they want at the volume they want. One person might want as little weight as possible, the other might not care (or specifically wants more cabs for VISUAL impact). That's why I go out of my way to not conflate "more efficient" with "better".
Some people love pieces of gear because of their inefficiency. Which just doesn't make sense to people, because how could something ever be enough when you could have MORE output for less input or a "better" response. Sometimes technically efficient doesn't equate to subjectively pleasing when it comes to audio. The LM308 chip is very inefficient (poor slew rate compared to the later chips used), but people love the sound that chip makes in a RAT and feel you lose the magic when it's gone, others don't hear a difference or care (for the record, I do. One of the few I HAVE noticed a difference in with direct A/B testing with socketed chips in pedals). Certain old mic preamps and compressors are really inefficient and kind of "dirty" compared to more high-fi recording gear that came later, but they're prized by engineers and go for big bucks for their "character". Tape vs digital, tube vs solid state...on and on and on. Some would rather everything be very clean and efficient, then dial in their imperfections to taste in a controlled environment. Some would rather have a piece of gear that has a sound "baked in" and just find the right combinations of those types of gear to get the sound they want. Either side probably views it as the best way to get the result they want and the other as being a baffling waste of time.
TLDR: Mental perception is an important and valid part of gear preference. There's a technical reality and a perceptual reality, one doesn't necessarily negate or invalidate the other. I think the disconnect between different perceptions about what and how technical aspects are important are what cause big debates about gear.
I think quite a lot of the more highly favored vintage bass cabs have a hump in the low mids. It doesn't mean there's nothing under that, just that newer drivers/designs are putting out more of what's under that and less of a pronounced hump. Then a lot people might be dialing it back in on their amp. I know I bump up the low mids and dial back the highs when I run through my Dually compared to my 810, but I like that I can get more volume from a smaller/lighter cab when I'm doing that. I use that rig when I want massive volume that takes up little space and I'm getting most of my tone with pedals. I also love using just my YBA-1 into my 810 and that's the opposite of modern efficiency, but it's usually more than enough to get the sound I want at the volume I want. It's just a certain combination that works for something I like.
