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The search for tighter bass?

#101
Coolhandjjl said:
I think what you are trying to say is the 10" drivers spec'd for sealed cabs are excursion limited when compared to the super 12's and super 15's. That may help transients, but will severly limit the lows as a result. It's a trade-off. Can't have both.
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Totally agree, for years i had a 15 & 2 x10's and looking back i did not do well with the 2 x10's, was good loud in my stack but out of phase and useless as a stand alone, i think i am old school though compared to the new "hi fi" stuff, i like bass, untamed, low, deep, having a trebley sound was never an objective and if it was the treble on the amp adjusted it just fine. now days its compressors,and guitar-like pedal boards, for me ,strait into amp into any combo of 15's and adjust the bass or treble and i usually have my mids at noon..been working since...well,,long time ago when a light combo was 85lbs
 
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#102
iiipopes said:
Yes. I use an fDeck on my double bass, and have for several years. There is a very long thread on the DB side, and Francis posts his schematic on his website for DIY'ers.
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It's the version 3 that most of the BG crowd use - dual knee one fixed at 35Hz, 12db/oct plus variable 35Hz min, 12db/oct (IIRC). fDeck hadn't released the schematic for that last time I looked (I have built my own but am interested to see his take on it).
 
#105
meatwad said:
So, it's politically incorrect to judge a speaker by it's dimension? Then, why are there still 10s, 12s, 15s, 18s, ect? Surely their size still means something.
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The one thing woofer size pretty much establishes is the width of the radiation pattern. The larger the speaker diameter, the narrower the pattern at any given frequency. So there isn't much to be gained by making a big cone capable of going up high if those highs are confined to a very narrow on-axis angle, and once freed of the requirements to go up high, a big woofer can be optimized for the lower range. But then we can also optimize a smaller diameter woofer to give us deep bass in a smaller package, generally trading off efficiency and top end extension along the way, while retaining the smaller cone's inherently wider dispersion of what highs it does have.

If we use multiple cones, the radiation pattern narrows accordingly (unless we angle the cones to compensate). Hence the severe beaming of a 4x12 guitar cab, resulting in the on-axis icepick effect.

One of the things we don't see at a glance is how far the cone can move, and it is displacement (cone area x linear excursion) that largely determines how loud a given woofer will go down low before fartout. And these days, we have 10" woofers with enough linear excursion to move more air than yesteryear's 12" and sometimes even 15" woofers.

So it's not that cone diameter means nothing, and there is a general tendency for larger diameter cones to go lower, but it's just one of many factors.

As for how tight a given woofer sounds, again we have many factors that come into play (not the least of which is the box we put it in).
 
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#106
Thank you, Duke. That was super informative and solves some "speaker mysteries" I had.

So, the plot thickens!
I just received my Carvin B2000 head back from tech (for blowing up for a 3rd time...) and I come to find, it sounds way more like what I'm trying to achieve tonally. BUT, I can't depend on this head for gigging since its exploded, thrice. And I won't buy another Carvin product again for a long time due to their unwillingness to work with me on the repairs that should've been covered by warranty, which is a topic for another thread, not this one.
So why heads will give me a similar tone? More modern and tight sounding but still warm. Very HUGE tone. Suggestions?
 
#107
What's your budget, new or used, old iron, tube, Class D, hybrid, etc? Too many variables to make a blanket recommendation.

The new Demeter VTBPM800D has a two tube pre, and the new ICE power Class D power section. A very clean, tight and authoritative full range head. 500 into 8, 800 into 4.

The Orange Terror Bass 500 or 1000 has a two tube pre, Class D power section, a more raw tone that is a hair darker than the Demeter but can be clean if needed. 500 or 1000 respectively into both 8 and 4. The way it is voiced, the 500 is huge, the 1000 is insanity.
 
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#108
delta7fred said:
It's the version 3 that most of the BG crowd use - dual knee one fixed at 35Hz, 12db/oct plus variable 35Hz min, 12db/oct (IIRC). fDeck hadn't released the schematic for that last time I looked (I have built my own but am interested to see his take on it).
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Yes, I thought about that one, but with my setup I didn't see any significant advantage over version 2, which has the variable cutoff, volume, phase switch and battery light.
 
#109
My budget is probably about $550-600 so I think tube is out of the question. I don't mind the weight of most solid state heads but light heads are always a pleasure to move. So that's preferable. I
 
#110
ric4682 said:
My budget is probably about $550-600 so I think tube is out of the question. I don't mind the weight of most solid state heads but light heads are always a pleasure to move. So that's preferable. I
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I picked up a used ShuttleMax 9.2 here in the classifieds for that price. After 35 years of playing I have never heard low end that is so tight and focused. So much so that many don't like that head for that very reason. It also has a variable HPF on it. It's part of the Low Frequency boost control. You can adjust the rolloff of the low end.
 
#112
ric4682 said:
My budget is probably about $550-600 so I think tube is out of the question. I don't mind the weight of most solid state heads but light heads are always a pleasure to move. So that's preferable. I
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A great clean powerful head I like a lot is the Gallien Krueger MB800. If you can swing a bit more, check out the Mesa M6. The shuttle 9.2 is awesome, but has been discontinued—though it is not entirely an orphan as AgedHorse is still providing support.
 
#113
I've heard a lot of great things about the GK. Is it possible to get a warm tone out of the MB800? I'm sure you can with the fusion but I don't know about the normal version. I want tight and punchy, but not cold and sterile tone.
 
#117
Anything soft that you could stuff in there for an initial test would probably do. Mattress topper foam material or even a pillow would probably work for an initial test. If it tightens the sound even a little, then you could get into finding the right material to make plugs out of. Would depend if you wanted to dampen the port or seal it off completely. Others here would have more info on what would work best than I would. I know there are differences between open and closed cell foam, one is good for light dampening and one is good for sealing. Best of luck to you!
 
#119
I did try the compressor and that helped a little bit. I also tried more high mids, more low mids, less high mids, less low mids, less bass, more bass. The EQ didn't have much affect on the tightness.
 
#120
DukeLeJeune said:
You could theoretically tighten up the cab's low end by lowering the tuning frequency. Make a friction-fit plug to seal off one of the two slots. You might undersize the plug slightly and then use a few wraps of electrical tape to get the friction fit. Make sure to put a handle of some sort on the plug so you can pull it back out. With two such plugs, you could go all the way to a sealed box.

Test any of this in practice first and listen for fartout, as your cab's fartout threshold may well be reduced. Also listen for port chuffing when the one slot is plugged. The lowering of the tuning frequency into a region below most of your fundamentals should partially offset the reduced port area, but you may still get chuffing.
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This has worked for me. You can get an idea how it will work out with WinISD or fdeck's Invalid Link Removed. Keep an eye on the port's air speed in the sim, and don't let it go too high at the lowest frequency the cab will need to push, say, 40 Hz for a 4 string.

It will also be enlightening to see how the sim models your 115s as is.
 
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