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Speaker puzzler.

73jbass

73jbass

Supporting Member
Apr 17, 2004
6,045
1,105
65
Ellenwood,Ga.
#1
2 cabinets,the first, DR bass DRB 410 loaded with Eminence BP 102's,very dark sounding,no mids,and not very efficient. The second,an LDS 610 loaded with Eminence Beta's,sealed and built like an SVT with chambers for each pair of 10's. Very loud,very hi mid almost to the point of being harsh,lacking in bottom end.It was supposed to be voiced like an SVT,and its not even close.My idea is to swap out 4 of the Beta's in the 610 for the 102's in the 410. If the 102's are 4 ohms it wont work,but,if they are 8,I'm going to do some driver swapping tonight. What I am shooting for is to beef up the 610,and put some life in the 410.I figured swapping drivers is the quickest way to find out. Thoughts?
 
#2
The speakers are two different animals. If I just pulled up the right specs, you were correct-the sensitivity of them are radically different. Don't both switching speakers. It'll be a waste of time. The other 4 10's in the 610 will be pushing much louder than the two from the DRB cab. Any changes from those will get covered up by the higher sensitivity speakers.

Also, swapping speakers into just any cab is not a good idea either. They all have ideal tunings and cabinet volumes, which if not matched correctly can result in even worse performance.
 
#4
christw said:
...
Also, swapping speakers into just any cab is not a good idea either. They all have ideal tunings and cabinet volumes, which if not matched correctly can result in even worse performance.
Click to expand...

While technically correct, it assumes the cab was originally designed according to the exact speaker used with regard to the T/S specs.

Which, depending, may or may not be true.

It cant hurt more than 2 hours of your time to give it a try.

While the BP's arent known for solid mids or highs , the Beta's shouldnt lack bottom. They arent monsters, but there should be some booty and not all gank. This hints at maybe poor tuning to start with.
 
#7
Replace all of the drivers in the 6x10 and port the chambers. I'd recommend basslite S2010s. Mixing Bp102s and Betas like that might work IF you had a crossover in there, and IF you ported the chambers the BP102s were in.

If you do attempt to do all the drivers together, I'd wire the Bp102s in parallel/series for 8/4 ohms and Betas in series for 16 ohms, to account for the differences in power handling. This won't completely do it, and I'd want to see a 6db high pass @ 100hz at the very least on the betas...again, not recommended, but a safety precaution.
 
#9
73jbass said:
The Beta's are in a sealed cabinet,and I think that is part of the issue.
Click to expand...
It's all of the issue. Betas are not well suited to sealed cabs. Porting it will give the bass that they're capable of delivering. Right now you're probably giving away 5dB at 50 Hz- that's the equivalent of a 100 watt versus 350 watt amp.
 
#11
Eminence's site says that BP102's are 8 ohms.

in my 2000 Ampeg SVT 810 cab, i wasn't thrilled with the lack of mids and highs with the eight stock 10" speakers (pretty similar to a BP102 but 32 ohms) since their freq response dropped off at 2Khz, so i installed four jensen Mod50's in the upper four slots, and i love the cab now. it still has the low end thump of the original four speakers, plus it opened up the mids/highs with the mod50's. i say try it, you might be pleasantly surpised. IMO, it definitely would hurt to try it.
 
#12
An average of ~4db under 100hz, fwiw, with higher excursion limited power as well (~150 v. 250...vs 400 for basslites)

Basslite S2010s would outperform all of the above, with ~400w displacement limitation and no upper bass bump, outperforming the ported beta box by 2-3db from 40 to 60hz. not to mention weighing about 20lbs less for the cabinet (3.3 per driver).

That's assuming an 8 cubic foot cabinet with a 50hz tuning.

note: there is a 4 ohm model bp-102-4 out there, so be careful of that :)
 
#14
johnk_10 said:
Eminence's site says that BP102's are 8 ohms.

in my 2000 Ampeg SVT 810 cab, i wasn't thrilled with the lack of mids and highs with the eight stock 10" speakers (pretty similar to a BP102 but 32 ohms) since their freq response dropped off at 2Khz, so i installed four jensen Mod50's in the upper four slots, and i love the cab now. it still has the low end thump of the original four speakers, plus it opened up the mids/highs with the mod50's. i say try it, you might be pleasantly surpised. IMO, it definitely would hurt to try it.
Click to expand...

I did the same in my '98, which is one of the notorious OSB cabinets. It's the earliest OSB cab that I know of but the MOD10-50's really did the trick for me and brought life to it with the bottom four just being the junk in the trunk. I use it as my main cab.
 
#16
christw said:
I did the same in my '98, which is one of the notorious OSB cabinets. It's the earliest OSB cab that I know of but the MOD10-50's really did the trick for me and brought life to it with the bottom four just being the junk in the trunk. I use it as my main cab.
Click to expand...

I did that with the SVT I had a few months ago. The mids were better,but it was a bit nasally. Even EQ tweaks didn't help much. Where do I get info on the proper port size for my 610?
 
#17
hmmmm. mine is definitely not 'nasally' sounding at all. as a matter of fact, it sounds almost exactly like my '72 straightback only with a little more low end.
IME, the mod50's are one of the closest sounding new speakers to the old ones used in the straightback cabs without putting some boutique weber 10's in it.
original SVT speakers weren't bass speakers at all. they were just 32 ohm 30 watt multi-purpose 10's for guitar or bass amps.
 
#18
If each enclosure is sealed you're going to need to port each enclosure individually. You'll need to measure each internal enclosure and then figure out porting from there.

For a pair of Betas to reach max excursion you'll probably want at least 10 square inches of port area, probably more like 16 or so. A single 5" round port is how I'd roll, for each box.

It'll probably need to be pretty deep to get down to 45hz. Probably on the order of 8" assuming a 2.25ft^3 internal volume for each box.
 
#19
I'm going to get the chamber volume when I get home this evening. BTW,I think part of my problem with the SVT was the amp. Just think a Thunderfunk 550 and an SVT dont make an ideal match. The SWR I'm trying out is working out ok. What do I use to determine port size after I get all my other measurements?
 

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