The Subwoofer-as-Bass-Cab Chronicles

[joe vegas]

I've had a hankerin' to add a sub cab without crossover, just a cab in a stack or as a standalone.
wanted it on the cheap side just as a test.
i bought a few Rockvilles (12", 15") over the years, & i replace their speakers with Daytons -they're spectacular bang for the buck speakers... toured/recorded/gigged with 'em for the past 15 years.
so i picked up one of the Rockville subs on amazon.. $159 for the 15".. not expecting a whole lot, fully preparing to swap out the spkr as usual..
holy smokes...
this cheap, 400rms/800peak cab is a wondrous BEAST. tested it as a standalone with an AIO Wolf 7-to-6 string-converted bass (20mm spacing) (itself an excellent score for their price).. clear & articulate in the highest registers, chords ring out perfectly, lines sound clean & crisp.. but it kicks into gear around the open D & just shapeshifts into a subterranean Kraken from low E through low B.. those gorgeous low D, C, B notes.. blooming like an apocalyptic orchid.. 1/3 volume on the mighty Bugera amp (another excellent value) caused every 1st floor window of this small rental house to snake-rattle.. upping it to 1/2-way volume, and the Significant Other reported circular bass-waves throbbing through her cup of tea upstairs. test successful. it's a keeper!!
i then paired it with a Rockville/Dayton 12".. rubbery coolness from the 12", with the sub organically congealing around the same freqs as before. a serious, inexpensive rig.
getting ready to move from here to a hopefully more permanent pad shortly, so no immediate gigging but i fully plan to take this 2-cab power-couple into onstage territory, once we're settled.

 

[JRA]

glad it worked out for you --- sometimes we get lucky!

 

[IanStephenson]

About 15 years go I had an Ashdown Little Giant - an easy class D amp when such things were still slightly novel. Super light and cheap. Only problem was it had a major design flaw - it was 2x500w into 4 ohm. To get close to the 1000w promised you needed 2 big 4ohm cabs (and the effect loop was mono, so you couldn't run stereo or bi-amp). A single 8ohm cab would only get 1/4 of the promised power.

I found a pair of Peavy Impluse Subs locally for virtually nothing. They had a full range input into 1x15"s, 4ohm, 1000w each. They did the job for the style I as playing perfectly - I think I only used the second one once. The only downside was that they're not square. The wedge shape is pretty cool if you put two side by side to form a 120 degree was wedge, but the top of the cap is slopped, so I couldn't put my amp on top!

 

[GregT]

Years ago, I walked into a club where a friend was the bass player. Before they started, he showed me his amp. An old blonde Fender Bassman head sitting on top of a giant box. It was probably over five feet wide and over three feet tall. It had openings on the front on each end. You couldn't see the speaker. He told me it was a folded horn cabinet with two 15-inch speakers facing backward. He said it came out of a theatre and I remember they were either JBLs or Altec Lansings. It took four guys to carry it from his pickup to the stage. With his original Precision with a single coil pickup, he had the best bass tone I have ever heard in my life. It filled the room with luscious bass tone that you could hear and feel everywhere in the large room, but it wasn't too loud. He had all the highs and lows I would ever want. Later on when I heard them play and saw the packed dancefloor, it made a believer of me. I'm sure I will never hear a better bass in a mix if I live to be 100. It was that amazing. It was like the whole building and floor was alive with bass.

But...... for me, it's a Rumble 500 combo and a Rumble 115 cab. I'd never want to transport such a beast.

 

[KevInDaBassment]

Years ago, I walked into a club where a friend was the bass player. Before they started, he showed me his amp. An old blonde Fender Bassman head sitting on top of a giant box. It was probably over five feet wide and over three feet tall. It had openings on the front on each end. You couldn't see the speaker. He told me it was a folded horn cabinet with two 15-inch speakers facing backward. He said it came out of a theatre and I remember they were either JBLs or Altec Lansings. It took four guys to carry it from his pickup to the stage. With his original Precision with a single coil pickup, he had the best bass tone I have ever heard in my life. It filled the room with luscious bass tone that you could hear and feel everywhere in the large room, but it wasn't too loud. He had all the highs and lows I would ever want. Later on when I heard them play and saw the packed dancefloor, it made a believer of me. I'm sure I will never hear a better bass in a mix if I live to be 100. It was that amazing. It was like the whole building and floor was alive with bass.

It's stories like this that make me honestly wonder what kind of effect the overall cab weight has on the tone. Definitely more qualified cats here who could school me on that, but my superstition can't help but kick in, thinking it must add something that lends to many folk's "Heavier cab = better tone" perception.

Audio Engineering has definitely come a long way since then, definitely grateful to be living in the Class D amp and Neo speaker era

 

[Pings Bass]

If it works for you, congrats. They're certainly more portable than the folded-horn PA sub I used with my ludicrously over-sized stage rig in the 80s

 

[JoeyFab]

It's stories like this that make me honestly wonder what kind of effect the overall cab weight has on the tone. Definitely more qualified cats here who could school me on that, but my superstition can't help but kick in, thinking it must add something that lends to many folk's "Heavier cab = better tone" perception.

Audio Engineering has definitely come a long way since then, definitely grateful to be living in the Class D amp and Neo speaker era

Played an Ampeg SVT3-PRO (450 Watts @ 4 Ohms) through an Ampeg PR-410HLF cab for nearly 25 years. Four 10 in. drivers, each with a 56 oz. (3.5 lbs.!) ferrite magnet, adjustable tweeter, 13-ply void-free birch plywood cabinet, 4 ohms, 600 Watts/1200 Watts peak, 128 lbs. No fun to transport (always had to use either 2 people or a hand truck/dolly), but boy did THAT rig fill a room! We often only ran the vocals through the PA in smaller rooms. The 3 bass reflex ports at the bottom of the cab would flop my pantlegs around when I stood close to it. I eventually got old and needed to switch to a rig that was easier to transport, so I sold it, but got over 80% of what I paid for it back after all that time.

 

[joe vegas]

Years ago, I walked into a club where a friend was the bass player. Before they started, he showed me his amp. An old blonde Fender Bassman head sitting on top of a giant box. It was probably over five feet wide and over three feet tall. It had openings on the front on each end. You couldn't see the speaker. He told me it was a folded horn cabinet with two 15-inch speakers facing backward. He said it came out of a theatre and I remember they were either JBLs or Altec Lansings. It took four guys to carry it from his pickup to the stage. With his original Precision with a single coil pickup, he had the best bass tone I have ever heard in my life. It filled the room with luscious bass tone that you could hear and feel everywhere in the large room, but it wasn't too loud. He had all the highs and lows I would ever want. Later on when I heard them play and saw the packed dancefloor, it made a believer of me. I'm sure I will never hear a better bass in a mix if I live to be 100. It was that amazing. It was like the whole building and floor was alive with bass.

But...... for me, it's a Rumble 500 combo and a Rumble 115 cab. I'd never want to transport such a beast.

awesome. and it's wild how stuff has gotten so much smaller & yet more powerful & dynamic in our time.

 

[joe vegas]

Played an Ampeg SVT3-PRO (450 Watts @ 4 Ohms) through an Ampeg PR-410HLF cab for nearly 25 years. Four 10 in. drivers, each with a 56 oz. (3.5 lbs.!) ferrite magnet, adjustable tweeter, 13-ply void-free birch plywood cabinet, 4 ohms, 600 Watts/1200 Watts peak, 128 lbs. No fun to transport (always had to use either 2 people or a hand truck/dolly), but boy did THAT rig fill a room! We often only ran the vocals through the PA in smaller rooms. The 3 bass reflex ports at the bottom of the cab would flop my pantlegs around when I stood close to it. I eventually got old and needed to switch to a rig that was easier to transport, so I sold it, but got over 80% of what I paid for it back after all that time.

View attachment 7485860

that is a SERIOUS piece. thanks for posting it!

 

[joe vegas]

Played an Ampeg SVT3-PRO (450 Watts @ 4 Ohms) through an Ampeg PR-410HLF cab for nearly 25 years. Four 10 in. drivers, each with a 56 oz. (3.5 lbs.!) ferrite magnet, adjustable tweeter, 13-ply void-free birch plywood cabinet, 4 ohms, 600 Watts/1200 Watts peak, 128 lbs. No fun to transport (always had to use either 2 people or a hand truck/dolly), but boy did THAT rig fill a room! We often only ran the vocals through the PA in smaller rooms. The 3 bass reflex ports at the bottom of the cab would flop my pantlegs around when I stood close to it. I eventually got old and needed to switch to a rig that was easier to transport, so I sold it, but got over 80% of what I paid for it back after all that time.

View attachment 7485860

that is a SERIOUS piece. thanks for posting it!

 

[joe vegas]

If it works for you, congrats. They're certainly more portable than the folded-horn PA sub I used with my ludicrously over-sized stage rig in the 80s

right! yep, this stuff's all getting smaller, lighter & more powerful each decade.