TC Electronic BG250-115 speaker upgrade?

This is the part when everyone says it's impossible and that cabinet is super magical and no other speaker will work.

So magical even high quality speakers dont stand a chance. Cause the 3 cubic feet you have is mystically different than all the other 3 cubic foot cabs

 

You're honestly best off doing it yourself, as with most things. You can also email eminence or usspeaker.

Honestly though, I don't think you could go horribly wrong by picking an off the shelf bass speaker and dropping it in. Those things are generally designed to work within a number of bass guitar cabinet designs, so in all likelihood you won't go too far off the mark.

I'm not a pro though, and I've been wrong before. I'm just basing this off of my personal experience and reading.

 

Probably, your best bet is to sell the TC combo and apply the money toward a combo that you like. The problem with the upgrade approach is that you won't be able to hear your upgrade until its purchased and built.

There are plenty of drivers that will work well in that cab. The challenge is to pick one that meets your tone goals - a driver that has the tone you are looking for. In order to recommend a driver that will meet your tone goals when used in that cab, we will need the internal volume of the cab (or internal dimensions), the dimensions of any porting, and a description of the tone you are looking for. If you can describe what you like about the tone of the TC, and what you don't, perhaps a driver can be recommended that will come within an EQ tweak of what you are looking for.

 

^^^The Voice of Reason^^^

 

Can you put your finger on/describe the sound qualities that you're finding aren't your thing?

 

I don’t have the 250 combo but bought the head as a back up. Tried it with a couple 15’s and a 2-10. Can’t seem to get a sound I like. Same speakers sound great with my other amps.

 

How about this before you swap the driver ?

Tech 21 SansAmp Character Series VT Bass DI

 

TCE does use Eminence speakers in their R Series cabs but typically those are OEM models designed specifically for that app. You might ask TCE support for an opinion as to what Eminence speaker might be a suitable replacement for a BG250 or if you have the cab specs Eminence product support may be able to suggest one.

One other thought I have is are you familiar with how it's tone stack works? It functions a bit differently than most others because they combine to boost and cut different frequencies not the same one. Just one more thought.

 

try the post-EQ DI on that combo -- do you like the sound from it? if not, you probably just don't like how TC heads sound, so replacing speaker or cabinet won't help.

and yes, BG250-115 has a very nice speaker, I don't think you can do better for that exact combo. did not have my hands and ears on a TC K-212 cab with a separate head though.

 

The speaker isn't the problem, you dont like the TC preamp. Your best bet, use a different amp. Me, I love my TC rig. Like, I freaking love it! You...don't. It's a pretty easy call to make. Just dont use the amp. Or, use a preamp pedal.

I run a BH500 with 2 K212s. I think its utterly perfect. Everyone who's heard it has nothing but good to say about it too. And, I can get any tone I could ever imagine out of it. But, everybody like different things.

 

Yep. I like the form factor of my BH250 head, and it’s sufficiently loud for what I need, but the tone is sterile. Adding a VT pedal (I’ve used the VT Character pedal and the VT Deluxe) gives it the little something it’s missing.

 

Speaker modeling software only shows lows and midbass, not the mids and highs that are mainly responsible for tone. Besides, no one can model a driver without the driver specs, or see a chart of the mids and highs without a driver data sheet. I doubt TC will provide either.

 

I'll add to the "speaker is not the problem" crowd. I have that exact same combo and I use it but don't love it. Since it's more of a "make noise on stage" solution than my primary source of tone, which comes from my POD HD straight to FOH, I tend to ignore it. I need to dig around and look, but I believe the main thing is that TC did some processing on the amp that rolls off the low end below 80hz in order to get more output from the relatively modest 250w (at 4ohm) power section. Also the smaller cabinet design plays into the perceived lack of low end. It gets the job done for me as a monitor, but I'm mostly listening to my modeled SVT from the POD in my in-ears .

 

I had one and found that the only workable tone I could get was to run a Markbass Super Booster pedal into the front end and season to taste. Later on I got rid of it and picked up a Markbass Little Mark Tube plus an NY 122 and never looked back. FWIW after getting one of these amps I realized that when you hear someone say, "it sounds good for the $" that means it sucks. YMMV...

 

It's more than likely a waste of money. You're not going to get the dramatic tone change you think you're going to get.

 

TC now makes their own drivers. They are probably highly specified for the box. They might be batching them and pulling them off the shelf but I doubt it.

There is probably little to no benefit in trying to replace it with an off the shelf speaker from another brand. You could luck out, but I doubt it too.

If you go this route I hope you measure and record a before and after. It always seems like a lost opportunity to loose any record of the change.

 

Well it’s almost a year since this post, but I’ll try to recover it.
I own a bg250 12” combo. The sound is kind of muddy and I find it to be not so loud as expected. I wondered if the speaker was the problem. I took off the amp from the combo and connected it to a 2x12 cheap cabinet. The result was a more punchy sound with more presence. It sounded much better to me, even louder. Much better when I conected it to the 12” cabinet of a markbass cmd121p (combo, disconnecting the markbass amp).
So I think that a speaker upgrade will make a difference for sure. I’ve also changed speakers and cabinets to make tests in my guitar amps and it is the more noticeable changes in sound that you can get when modding amps.
The speakers are supposed to fit the volume of the cabinet, but I think that a more sensitive all purpose speaker would do it’s job. Of course don’t expect to get the sound of any other bigger and better amp. But the weight and price of these amps makes it worth trying.
I’ve made some cabinets for guitar and bass and even though the volume makes a difference, I thought it would be more noticeable than it actually is. Just think that a p.a. is about the size of these combos and some of them have a gut low end.
I didn’t change it directly because I just have a pair 15” speakers around and I need a 12” and was a hsrd job to take the one from the markbass just to try. And anyway the markbass is a custom speaker designed for a little cabinet and we want to try any speaker.
Perhaps mooding the cabinet itsef can make a difference too. But I never tried.
To me is a question of experimenting with these things. And try to get something better from it. Of course buying a better amp will solve all the problems, but I like to mod .
And when making a comparison, we should have in mind other lightweight amps and not an Ampeg svt head with the 8x10 speakers. A little 15/12” cabinet won’t sound close to a good (and big) 15 or 10x4 cabinet.
But I guess that tweaking the sound with eq won’t work because the speaker lacks in tone and power (not too sensitive).