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What's 20 Hz worth?

Most bass speaker cabs do not go down to 20hz.

try searching 10" bass speakers ... you will have a hard time finding one that goes below 50hz

if you really want the 20hz then add a powered sub to your rig ... and even some of those don't go down to 20hz
 
Rest assured. If you cannot actually hear it, it will not affect your career. Also, if you CAN actually hear it, almost nobody who buys recordings can hear it. This is a parlor game. Accept it as such. If you sound pretty good to yourself, enjoy. It's not a given. Does your bass playing sound musical? Case closed.
 
Most bass speaker cabs do not go down to 20hz.

try searching 10" bass speakers ... you will have a hard time finding one that goes below 50hz

if you really want the 20hz then add a powered sub to your rig ... and even some of those don't go down to 20hz
I don’t know if any powered subs thAt are -3dB at 20Hz with any kind of reasonable sensitivity at 20Hz.
 
It has been my experience that those numbers don't mean squat. You have to play and listen to determine what will do the job. I use a Monster blue tooth speak I bought at Sam's as my home practice amp and love it. When I'm not playing my 5 string bass through it, I'm listening to music on it on my front porch while drinking beer.
 
Below 100 Hz, most of what you hear is harmonics and your brain fills in the fundamental. I have measured several great sounding cabs with my spectrum analyzer and I was surprised at what wasn't there!

There are very few cabs that deliver the lowest fundamentals. Cerwin-Vega Strokers come to mind.

The lowest tones are huge power sucks as well.
 
I agree with others, given all the variables, in theory it shouldn't really matter that much. And as others have said, it really matters just as much how gradually it rolls off, vs at which point it is 3dB or 6dB down (a common practice for judging freq response). If it's a ported cab, with a quoted frequency response only down to 80Hz, I would expect it to sound pretty "light in the bass", and maybe better suited to another instrument. If it was a sealed cab I would expect the rolloff to be more gradual, and 80Hz might be fine.

If the 60Hz was ported and the 80Hz sealed they might actually sound pretty similar in terms of perceived bass response. Though the 60Hz cab might have a noticeable bump somewhere above that frequency.

BUT (and this is a big BUT).... I don't think too many bass cab manufacturers are putting out 80Hz specs on their cabs these days. To me the 80Hz rating is an indication that it is not really intended for bass, again especially if it is ported.

The 4k vs 15k shouldn't bother you too much on bass, but your other uses would definitely suffer from the lack of HF response.

Other things being equal, I'd probably go for the 60-4k model for bass use (especially since you play 5 string!) and the the 80-15k model if you are serious about the other uses as well.

Also look into the ported vs sealed aspect. Ported cabs can get really floppy below their resonant frequency which is not necessarily the same as the freq quoted in the response. A high pass filter or a flexible EQ can help avoid this because you can cut the lowest frequencies so that cab doesn't try to reproduce them, you can actually squeeze more bass out of small cab this way.

Lots to consider - playing through them both with your bass would be the next step.
 
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The op is wondering about the value of a 60hz vs 80 hz response. Consider this: I have a tiny maybe 4” Bose Bluetooth speaker I listen to as I work in the garage. I typically listen to old school 60s and 70s funk soul and Motown stuff. The bass comes through phat and proud. I seriously doubt that that lil speaker is pumping out any significant energy at 80 hz. But the bass sounds fine.

from experiences like this, as well as my own tweaking of eq on stage, I learned the truth of where the real “phat” tone of a bass actually lives in the eq spectrum : between 250 and 500hz. From thumping reggae to boomin hip hop 808 kicks: it’s all there, nowhere near the fundamental.

the modern ability of amplification and sound reinforcement to reproduce ever lower frequencies has led to the virtual elimination of a recognizable bass guitar in most modern mixes on the average consumer sound system.

at least that’s my purely anecdotal experience.
 
Whenever there’s a discussion about frequency response, very few people talk about response tolerances - not how high or low a speaker goes, but + or - how many decibels. Many companies use -10 dB as their unstated tolerance. Those numbers roll off your tongue easily, but -10 dB isn’t anywhere close to + / - 3 dB. -10 dB is one-tenth power acoustically. I guarantee that the difference between a speaker with 60 Hz + / - 3 dB and one with 60 Hz -10 dB is very audible. I think manufacturers owe their customers the entire truth about the performance their products will deliver.
 
I n̶e̶e̶d̶ want a tiny practice cab mainly for a small acoustic practice situation and I found a nice deal from a local cab builder that I want to support. I know that the tiny pjb combos probably would be the answer but I really want to get a cab from this particular builder.

The problem is that there are two choices at the same price. One is a cab that has advertised response to be 60-4 000 Hz which definately sounds passable for bedroom practice even with a 5 string that I mainly play. The other cab is a frfr type double cone cab that has 80-15 000 Hz response that I can see myself regularly using for other stuff also. The main use would still be 95% of the time just to play my 5-string, but I could definately see myself using it for monitoring either vocals or acoustic guitar in smaller gigs or even as a studio monitor.

I know there are other things affecting the end result, but for this hypotethical situation where I can't test the cabs before buying, would those missing 20 Hz bother you for bass playing?
The higher the frequency roll off, the louder and cleaner it will be.
 
Whenever there’s a discussion about frequency response, very few people talk about response tolerances - not how high or low a speaker goes, but + or - how many decibels. Many companies use -10 dB as their unstated tolerance. Those numbers roll off your tongue easily, but -10 dB isn’t anywhere close to + / - 3 dB. -10 dB is one-tenth power acoustically. I guarantee that the difference between a speaker with 60 Hz + / - 3 dB and one with 60 Hz -10 dB is very audible. I think manufacturers owe their customers the entire truth about the performance their products will deliver.
Agreed
The higher the frequency roll off, the louder and cleaner it will be.
I don’t think this is necessarily true, especially without a matching HPF, otherwise it would be easy to overdrive below the LF response of the cabinet and the distortion skyrockets.