It's really quite remarkable how far technology and design have both come in the last 10 years: a decade ago I was bringing two 410's and an SVT 4 Pro to gigs and STILL lacking volume and clarity.
Turns out... cabs rated for 1600 watts at 8ohms might not be very loud at all. Who knew?
The standards for both efficiency and power to weight ratio have all gone up in a pretty shocking way; even
considering gigging with a rock band and only a single 12" cab with no FOH support would have been totally laughable back then.
Yet...that's exactly what I did this last weekend, and the cab had gobs of headroom left.
Aside from that wonderful revelation, perhaps the most surprising thing about this whole shootout was how (despite some serious differences in both appearance and specs) the real world sensitivity differences between the cabs were
much smaller than you would expect; obviously the F115 was the loudest and had the most bottom end, but it certainly wasn't even remotely close to twice as loud as the BB2 or TC despite what the eye test would suggest.
With that said, on to the cabs individually...
My favorite of the group: the TC112.
It was either a cut above, or equal to the rest in every category: power to weight, dispersion, form factor and accuracy.
It was undeniably the flattest sounding of the bunch, and the rear-firing tweeter gave the sound an extra dimensionality that was really pleasing: almost 3D.
Dispersion is excellent, and the tilt back design, dip switches and pluggable rear ports meant the most ability to fine tune your sound based on the stage out of any of the cabs by a pretty wide margin; not
quite as loud (or as much sub low end) as the BB2, but still plenty as a standalone cab for all but the most demanding jobs, and I found the bottom end to be more controlled than the BB2 in a way that would be practical for most genres.
The real "downside" to this design is you can't sit a normal width amp on top of it in a way that doesn't look...well, odd.
Given that I'd likely be regularly using the tilt-back design for monitoring accuracy though I don't see this as an issue for myself personally.
@DukeLeJeune is also sending me a Changeling cab this week, and as much as a loved the TC I think it may be what I end up with.
I'll move to the BB2 now since there is a clip of it above.
This was also one of my favorites of the group: the amount of sound that tiny box is capable of putting out is truly shocking, and had this been the only cab I'd tested I would gig it happily.
I found the tweeter to still handle dirt signals well, much better than other designs and never harsh regardless of the setting, though the dispersion wasn't quite as good as the TC nor the crossover as smooth: the cab will also get VERY dark if you roll the tweeter all the way off, which can actually make this cab the most versatile for some players.
I'd love to see them add a tilt back feature to the design, as that was it's only obvious shortcoming on tight stages.
The F115 next, simply because I mentioned it already.
Clearly the biggest of the bunch in many ways on paper (size and weight) as well as in person (bottom end and max volume).
However, it wasn't nearly as uncolored as I expected: though very flat through about 1k there was a noticeable dip in the upper mids as well as a spike in the presence region, and the top end was very "hyped" to the extent that the cab was considerably brighter with the tweeter completely off than any of the other cabs were with their tweeter completely maxed.
In speaking to the owner of a T3W 12/6/1, who's cab I hope to still eventually borrow, he mentioned that even the same designs in the Fearful/Fearless lines can vary dramatically in their sonic properties due to the variances in the build and builders themselves (construction materials, dampening materials/quantity, speaker choice, etc.).
I also had the chance to AB the F115 with Skip's F112 at NAMM, and though the listening environment wasn't ideal could tell I much preferred the response of the F112.
Anyone in LA have an F112 I can borrow for a week?
Finally, the Genzler cabs.
The array design is very clever: the dispersion is excellent and overall I think I prefer a good paper cone design for both clarity and smoothness in the top end.
I preferred the 112 to the 210 for a few reasons: the bottom end was tighter, the dispersion seemed overall a bit better and it was a bit easier of a single hand carry.
The 210 was a bit of a nonstarter for me due to form factor alone, and I'd love to see Jeff redesign the 210 to be used vertically: the wide/short design really seemed to require either a stand or a second cab to actually aim the midrange anywhere near your ears unless you're on a large enough stage (and in which case you'd likely need two anyway for volume reasons), and obviously tilting the cab on it's side would completely ruin the horizontal dispersion.
I'd love to try out one of the new angled 3-12 array cabs to see if it could more closely hang with the TC on small stages.
The End.
Hope those insights either prove helpful, inspire a fresh round of GAS, or both...I'll update again once I get ears on the Changeling, and if I end up getting to play with the 12/6/1 or any other cab that I'm curious about trying (F112, MAS, RevSound, etc.)
Big thanks to everyone involved for the generous loaners and making this comparison testing possible.
