sensitivity or frequency response for cabs?

[R Baer]

One thing I'll say is that you know jack squat about a cabinet until you've gigged it, unless you know things like polar response, frequency response, and displacement limitations.

How a cabinet performs outside of a gig, even in a jam room type setting, tends to be quite different than on a gig. Stages are different than practice rooms, and similar. When you're moving around at a show, it's different than a small practice space.

I've seen a lot of players get into this trap; they pick size/weight/style and go play a few, like one, buy it, and it sounds nothing like they remember it in the store.

This very much goes towards my point of view. You need honest, basic specifications (freq. response, power handling and SPL) to make a semi-informed decision on a cabinet. After that, I still don't believe that any amount of detailed specifications are ever going to tell you how that cab will sound with your bass and amplifier plugged into it. IMO, every cabinet has a "sound" and that sound either works for you or not. Your not going to find that out until you have spent some quality time with that cab out on your gigs.

 

[thudfromafar]

That's been raised before and never gotten anywhere. IMO it's no mere coincidence that those who have the ability to measure their speakers are also those who build their own. If you peruse the hi-fi and home theater forums where there are separate sections devoted to DIY you'll find that the majority of those who build their own cabs also are very much into how to measure them, while few of those who buy their speakers are able to measure them.

I wish I could do that stuff, but I don't have the tools, time, or knowledge. I'm just a curious boy

When I'm not wasting time on Talkbass, I just can't dedicate my life to that

Well, I could probably learn to measure/build but it will be over a longer period of time. One day...

 

[rpsands]

This very much goes towards my point of view. You need honest, basic specifications (freq. response, power handling and SPL) to make a semi-informed decision on a cabinet. After that, I still don't believe that any amount of detailed specifications are ever going to tell you how that cab will sound with your bass and amplifier plugged into it. IMO, every cabinet has a "sound" and that sound either works for you or not. Your not going to find that out until you have spent some quality time with that cab out on your gigs.

I can agree with most of this (although a good FR chart can give you ideas, IF you've scoped your amp or know its response, and have an idea of your bass's output).

What's missing is a polar response chart; I find that cabs without a midrange driver are woefully tough to hear accurately when too far to the side of them.

 

[uglyrumor]

My experience with Genz Benz was extremely good. Through the 90's I played through a 1X18 and a 4X10, and the tone was incredibly good, using a Carvin PB-500 head. When I started downsizing, they were about the first to go, due to their weight and my back, but in no way due to their quality or sound. (That was reserved for my Ampeg B-15.) I haven't tried the newer stuff, but I doubt they have backed up.

 

[dj150888]

I've got no real horse in this race, but the debate is interesting. Looking forward to seeing the GB charts.

 

[R Baer]

I can agree with most of this (although a good FR chart can give you ideas, IF you've scoped your amp or know its response, and have an idea of your bass's output).

I was really amazed at NAMM by the fact that just about every player that tried the amp out, managed to sound different through it. That got me thinking about "the sound" of the cabs and how effective the specs can be at conveying that "sound" to the customer. Even SPL seemed debatable as some players were clearly able to get get more low end and volume out of the cab due to superior playing skills. In contrast, there were other players that actually managed to make the rig sound quite anemic due to nothing more than poor right hand technique.

 

[thudfromafar]

Well obviously technique, strings, bass, etc all affect the sound.

I think part of the whole "flat response" campaign is to know that when we buy a product, we will be able to tweak our sound as we prefer, due to the good response of the amp/cab... that the changes in bass, strings, technique, etc will show through. It's supposed to be the meaning of transparent. The equipment doesn't "color" your sound for you and you have more control over oyur sound.

If everyone can sound drastically different through your product, I'd say it's a good product, and it'd probably look better on paper than a lot of other products.

 

[JimmyM]

Well obviously technique, strings, bass, etc all affect the sound.

I think part of the whole "flat response" campaign is to know that when we buy a product, we will be able to tweak our sound as we prefer, due to the good response of the amp/cab... that the changes in bass, strings, technique, etc will show through. It's supposed to be the meaning of transparent. The equipment doesn't "color" your sound for you and you have more control over oyur sound.

ya, i used to fall for that crap, too. wasn't too long ago, either. but now, after being re-educated by those who know way more than me, i've come to find out it's not only an illusion, but it's not even all that desirable.

 

[KJung]

I was really amazed at NAMM by the fact that just about every player that tried the amp out, managed to sound different through it. That got me thinking about "the sound" of the cabs and how effective the specs can be at conveying that "sound" to the customer. Even SPL seemed debatable as some players were clearly able to get get more low end and volume out of the cab due to superior playing skills. In contrast, there were other players that actually managed to make the rig sound quite anemic due to nothing more than poor right hand technique.

+1 all the way. Given all the players that pass through my house at all the GTG's we do, the variability of system response driven only by the player/bass differences is quite amazing. And, of course (per my earlier posts in this thread), even taking the player out of the equation, the input source (bass guitar) has so much variation across models and brands, pickups, wood, strings, etc. that the idea of applying the same logic to a bass guitar system as to a home stereo system is kind of humorous.

The thing that makes me a bit sad about all of this is when I meet a guy from TB (some of them post a LOT by the way, and grind through one rig after the other) who is searching for his sound... and... he literally doesn't have the skill to even generate a decent tone. There are MANY TBers who would be much better served by a visit to the woodshed versus a visit to Guitar Center Kind of a secondary topic, but one that actually explains a lot when you pair various issues in posts to the skill level of the poster.

 

[KJung]

Well obviously technique, strings, bass, etc all affect the sound.

I think part of the whole "flat response" campaign is to know that when we buy a product, we will be able to tweak our sound as we prefer, due to the good response of the amp/cab... that the changes in bass, strings, technique, etc will show through. It's supposed to be the meaning of transparent. The equipment doesn't "color" your sound for you and you have more control over oyur sound.

If everyone can sound drastically different through your product, I'd say it's a good product, and it'd probably look better on paper than a lot of other products.

+1 Every piece of gear made has been called 'flat' and/or 'transparent' by someone. In the bass guitar world, where the sound of the input signal is literally unknown prior to some sort of amplification (kind of a bit like the Heisenberg thing with Quantum Mechanics.... it doesn't exist until someone measures/hears it!), 'flat' and 'transparent' typically mean 'given the overwhelming complexity of the input signal, and the amplifier/cabinet voicing, this particular interaction between me, my bass, the amp, the cab, and the room sounds good to me'

 

[agedhorse]

I can agree with most of this (although a good FR chart can give you ideas, IF you've scoped your amp or know its response, and have an idea of your bass's output).

What's missing is a polar response chart; I find that cabs without a midrange driver are woefully tough to hear accurately when too far to the side of them.

...and there's some IF's in the first paragraph as you point out.

There's a couple of things about polar response plots, and this was really highlighted in the BGM's plots of the NeoX 212 if the reader understood what they were looking at. In those response plots, they chose 3 different measurement points (top axis driver, port axis and horn axis) and in 1/2-space, all 3 will have a different reflection distance from the ground plane as well as differing distances from each other (for common frequencies). This is the most likely cause for the shifting dip amplitude and shape in the plots at mid and higher frequencies as the nulls change with physical position. This is exactly the reason why averaging and anechoic response is more realistic for comparing cabinets for FR spec... to eliminate this variable which is cabinet independant from the equation.

Generally, 1/2-space is good for SPL (the SPL is an averaged measurement) but FR is a series of discrete measurements that can be greatly affected by a difference in mic position of say only a couple of inches at mid and higher frequencies. The alternative is to make many measurements and average them but that does become pretty cumbersome in practice.

 

[agedhorse]

+1 Every piece of gear made has been called 'flat' and/or 'transparent' by someone. In the bass guitar world, where the sound of the input signal is literally unknown prior to some sort of amplification (kind of a bit like the Heisenberg thing with Quantum Mechanics.... it doesn't exist until someone measures/hears it!), 'flat' and 'transparent' typically mean 'given the overwhelming complexity of the input signal, and the amplifier/cabinet voicing, this particular interaction between me, my bass, the amp, the cab, and the room sounds good to me'

I have to agree with you here Ken. Add to this the wide variety of hearing loss or accuity and you have so many variables that "what sounds good to me" is by far and away the most important thing to each player as an individual.

 

[agedhorse]

If you peruse the hi-fi and home theater forums where there are separate sections devoted to DIY you'll find that the majority of those who build their own cabs also are very much into how to measure them, while few of those who buy their speakers are able to measure them.

The number of DIY'ers who thrive on their bad measurement data as gospel is pretty astonishing too. Just because the latest software package makes you ABLE to perform a measurement doesn't mean that you understand the measurement process and the details required behind making GOOD measurements. The only thing worse than no data is bad data.

I'll give you an example that seems to pop up with some regularity when measuring line array speakers. Often a box contains a spec that's say 100 degrees wide x 10 degrees vertical. Is that the real spec of the box? Not a chance. The real meaning of the spec is that in a line of a specific height, the array will perform as though each box is 100deg x 10deg, but by itself the polar pattern will vary greatly and never approach 10 degrees. The reason is that a line array is ment to be used as a vertical array and not stand alone. Does this mean the box specification is inaccurate or does it mean that the user of this typemof product is assumed to have the practical skill and knowledge of their trade and how their tools work?

A somewhat common take-off with folded horns is to provide FR and sensitivity spec's for say a 4 speaker array normalized back to a single speaker. While for a particular market a 4 speaker or larger sub array would be S.O.P., when the spec is put into the hands of folks who do not understand the particularly significant implications of coupling with many folded horn cabinets they are usually mislead by a spec that may completely misleading under their application.

All these cheap new measurement tools lead well intentioned folks down the road to thinking they understand more than they really do, and give false confidence in their data without any checks and balances regarding the validity of the data. I'mnot saying all DIY'ers fall into this, but I would repsectfully suggest that the number is very, very high.

 

[thudfromafar]

ya, i used to fall for that crap, too. wasn't too long ago, either. but now, after being re-educated by those who know way more than me, i've come to find out it's not only an illusion, but it's not even all that desirable.

So you're saying that a chart showing good response in an amp/cab will not be more desirable than a chart showing lots of peaks and dips in the measurement?

I'm curious who the people who educated you are... it seems to me that all the pro-audio and high end techs (like Bill Fitz) prefer to strive for as flat a response as possible. I'm pretty sure that's a major reason Greenboy designed the fEarful cabs, to be efficient across the board. This means it responds better to EQ tweaks, therefore a user can more easily adjust their own tone profile.

I doubt I'm alone in playing through bass rigs where I couldn't get anything but mud, for example...

Of course I'm not an expert, it's just something I've understood from reading things that some of the experts have said, and thinking about it on my own, and thru my own personal experiences. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[KJung]

So you're saying that a chart showing good response in an amp/cab will not be more desirable than a chart showing lots of peaks and dips in the measurement?

Per my previous posts, depends on your technique, tone goal, the frequency response (dips, peaks and valleys) of your bass, the frequency response of the head (dips, peaks, and valleys), and the EQ of the head (are the center points, Q, etc. able to either 'fix' the peaks and valleys you don't like in a voiced cab, or to add them where you like it in a more 'flat' cab?).

No way to tell unless the whole system is taken into account. Again, this is not like playing a CD through a stereo system.

In the bass amplification world, mix and match is EVERYTHING IMO and IME.

 

[thudfromafar]

+1 Every piece of gear made has been called 'flat' and/or 'transparent' by someone. In the bass guitar world, where the sound of the input signal is literally unknown prior to some sort of amplification (kind of a bit like the Heisenberg thing with Quantum Mechanics.... it doesn't exist until someone measures/hears it!), 'flat' and 'transparent' typically mean 'given the overwhelming complexity of the input signal, and the amplifier/cabinet voicing, this particular interaction between me, my bass, the amp, the cab, and the room sounds good to me'

I'll have to somewhat disagree on this point... Just because a lot of people misuse the words "flat" and "transparent," doesn't mean they aren't real existing terms with meanings.

In the electric bass guitar world, it might be more difficult to determine the actual sound of the strings being plucked, than say the acoustic double bass world, or the piano world (or whatever other acoustic instrument can be heard well without amplification) -- but there are a few points here. Even with a bass guitar, most somewhat experienced people can tell the difference from a full range signal, and an amp and/or cabinet that is masking the instrument. Then, of course, when we move to acoustic instruments, it is really easy to tell how "different" the amplification process is making the acoustic instrument sound. Personally I play DB as well as electric, and some of us are well aware that DB players strive to have their sound duplicated as much as possible when they are forced to use amplifiers. So this discussion is not just about electric bass.

A good amp/cab will respond well to nuance. I think accurate reproduction of signal is still relatively important for bass guitar. At least, for those who want it.

 

[KJung]

A good amp/cab will respond well to nuance. I think accurate reproduction of signal is still relatively important for bass guitar. At least, for those who want it.

Exactly right about the nuance... however, not so sure about the 'accurate' What does your bass guitar sound like prior to plugging into the amp? What does a pickup do to a DB prior to going into the amp Even when plugging an electric bass into a high end mixer and top of the line studio monitor there will still be some character and tone and coloring (i.e., it will act as a total system).

Every cabinet I own sounds quite different, which means by definition they are all voiced to an extent. Every cabinet I own sounds very good to me, takes EQ great, and my basses 'sound like they should' and each cab results in different basses sounding different from each other (nuance). Which one is the most 'accurate'. Don't know, don't care!

Of course, some amps sound better with some cabs and vice versa. That's the mix and match, and the key.

Think of it this way, since every bass cab has a bit of voice to it, and every bass preamp/head also does, actually two very 'non flat' pieces of gear can meld together into a VERY even response. I've found this many, many times in my 30 years of bass backline gear headedness

Interactions, mix and match, varying input signals.... makes it almost impossible to know ANYTHING about the response of the entire system by a simple frequency plot of a cab in an 'artificial' situation (i.e., 1 watt, etc.).

 

[JimmyM]

i can scoop my tone simply by dialing in the bridge pickup along with the front pickup. i can boost mids and cut highs by turning off the bridge pickup. the strings i use can color the sound greatly. hell, just the attack i use can change the tone greatly.

so no, it's not important to me anymore to have an amp/cab that does flat. whatever sound i need i can always find by adjusting the tone knobs.

 

[rpsands]

i can scoop my tone simply by dialing in the bridge pickup along with the front pickup. i can boost mids and cut highs by turning off the bridge pickup. the strings i use can color the sound greatly. hell, just the attack i use can change the tone greatly.

so no, it's not important to me anymore to have an amp/cab that does flat. whatever sound i need i can always find by adjusting the tone knobs.

Not if you want frequencies that are simply not able to be reproduced by your cabinet e.g. very lows, for example.

 

[thudfromafar]

Ok I see your point Ken. I don't have much more knowledge to wiggle with on that subject.

But let me put it another way. Following what rpsands said e.g. very lows -- many cabs (like my own avatar cabinets) have a big response dip in the mids, between the woofer and the horn. This is even more true off-axis. I am not saying the avatar cabinets sound "bad" -- I think they sound pretty good, and I can deal with it. However, I ordered a fearful cabinet (and will eventually put a new crossover/horn in my avatar cabinet) because I want a cabinet that doesn't fail to reproduce a huge area of the frequency spectrum, just by poor design...

I can clearly hear the hole in the mids in my avatar cabinets, especially off-axis. While they are pretty good sounding cabs, I have always had bandmates asking me to turn up, because they couldn't hear me nearly as well off-axis.

Maybe I can correct that with EQ, but I'd rather have a cabinet that doesn't require me to fix a design flaw with EQ straight out the gate. Surely, this could all reflect into graphs, and help consumers make better choices, and force companies to be a little more responsible in their designs.

Also I will be able to use Vocals/Double Bass, and it will sound more natural, more like the original (even if it's not possible to sound EXACTLY like the original) due to the better frequency response.

Also, if I want to dip the mids again, I could do that with EQ. It's just that I will have made the decision... not a company that put out a product with bu$ine$$ in mind...