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Whats up with Ampeg's 15" cabs?

#2
Ampeg is on the verge of going bankrupt and has been "off the rails" for quite some time. All product and business decisions they've made over the last couple years have been made by dolts who have no idea what Ampeg means.

That said, the Ampeg B15N is a 35W amp that will kick your *** through a good 15 cab. That's what a low-wattage 15 is for. :)
 
#3
bongomania said:
That said, the Ampeg B15N is a 35W amp that will kick your *** through a good 15 cab. That's what a low-wattage 15 is for. :)
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25 or 30W, to be exact.

But I totally agree that 200w in this day and age is very low for a cab with SVT in the name. My B-15 cabs with Eminence Delta 15A's can handle 300w each with ease. I also agree that Ampeg's current parent company are dolts, but since the 15E was developed under SLM's watch, can't blame LOUD for the underpowering. They just took SLM's design and used it.
 
#12
Ampeg for speakers is a waste of damn time. You can get much better elsewhere for much less. Ampeg is tube heads, and the HLF series cabs only, imho :)

For the rest of their line you'd be better off buying almost any other brand.
 
#14
pedalguy1 said:
Wouldn't it still be really easy to over power the cab with a tube amp?
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Yes but adding another is worth twice the amp power output in cabinet coupling effect.
And even the 700 watt rated 15" driver would be out of the gap
and sounding stressed at 300 tube watts if it has any efficiency and linearity.
Thermal power ratings have nothing to do with what it sounds like.
I try not to use speakers as audio compressors for reliability and tone reasons.:ninja:
 
#15
rpsands said:
Ampeg for speakers is a waste of damn time. You can get much better elsewhere for much less. Ampeg is tube heads, and the HLF series cabs only, imho :)

For the rest of their line you'd be better off buying almost any other brand.
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It's a shame that it's come down to that, but it's true. Ampeg speaker cab quality is off and it's been off for a few years now. They've gone too far in the power handling side and forgot about tone.
 
#16
It seems the decent 15" isn't in anything anymore...... There used to be one Eminence type that was made specifically for us that was rated higher, with a cast frame and a very nice wide frequency range....... I don't think it is used in anything Ampeg presently, Eminence may have brought it or a version of it out as their own model now.

We used it in some PA cabs as well.

I'm not so sure about some of the 200W speakers... That, in Eminence, would be a pretty small voice coil unit. My thought is that most of those speakers will take more, and certainly can be used with more power.

Naturally 8 ohm speakers draw less. So, for instance, an 8 ohm 200W speaker is actually fine for use on one channel of an SVT-4PRO, etc, it isn't even going to be bothered, power-wise.

In mono, you'd be pushing it farther than might be good, at 4x nominal rating.... might likely still be OK, but no low-end boosting, thanks.....

Maybe not so stupid after-all................
 
#19
Not that this statement would apply to the SVT 15, but my '93 SVT 410HE is rated at 200 watts, as well. When I called SLM--years ago--to inquire about the power handling, the tech was puzzled as to why the cab was rated at only 200 watts. He said the exact same drivers went into the (later) 500 watt version. I still never pushed it too hard. I did get it to the point of speaker breakup once and played it that way for four sets. There are no issues with it to this day. The cab sounds great. It speaks beautifully in the low mid range.
 
#20
Craig_S said:
Not that this statement would apply to the SVT 15, but my '93 SVT 410HE is rated at 200 watts, as well. When I called SLM--years ago--to inquire about the power handling, the tech was puzzled as to why the cab was rated at only 200 watts. He said the exact same drivers went into the (later) 500 watt version. I still never pushed it too hard. I did get it to the point of speaker breakup once and played it that way for four sets. There are no issues with it to this day. The cab sounds great. It speaks beautifully in the low mid range.
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Ampeg cabs were the shizzy back in the 90's. I still like a couple of them like the B100R, but there's no comparison between the tone of those 90's cabs and the cabs they're making now.
 

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