why 10s for bass?

[Thunderthumbs73]

Why 10s?

Because 11s would be "one louder..." and guitarists don't want the competition?

Uh, maybe there's a joke in there somewhere.

 

[Magman]

Guitar 12's are loud? - at least at their resonant peak - I guess with limited power, massing together the most efficient drivers into stacks was the (perceived) best/cheapest way to cover a large hall, with man handleable cabinets.

For a driver through the 100 - 2000 hz range, 15's, for some reason can be the most efficient. Thus 15's are economical.

You think this has something to do with the way the bass player/bass' role has evolved within the whole band concept? Me thinks that traditionally, the bass player (and the drummer) was there to lay the grove and let this musical rhythm flow down that groove. The rest of the musicians would now and then dip their toes in this flowing rhythm as they wish. Regardless, the constant thing was the groove. Somewhere down the road the bass solo evolved, and like any of the other instruments that took center stage, it had to cut through the mix to be heard. That still doesn't explain why guitarists look for 12-inchers, which are normally associated with the lower end of the spectrum (Maybe they've always wanted to be bass players and this was the closest they could get to being one?).

Okay, back to work.

 

[bass player 48]

Am I the only one that reads a thread like this and says:

"That's exactly why I use a 210, with a tweeter, stacked on a 115"

Best of all worlds.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Just quoting factory specs here but Ampeg lists this for the 410HLF.

Frequency Response (-3dB): 48Hz-18kHz
Usable Low Frequency (-10dB): 28Hz

And that's the whole cab.

What ever "usable" means in their world. All I know is that I have the 410HLF and it IS boomy and low. Almost too much sometimes.

It means that while the cab does go down to 28Hz, it's at -10dB. Go up to your amp and dial down the lows -10dB and see what you get.

So the bottom line (no pun intended) is that the cab goes down to 48Hz, and drops off after that until it gets to 28Hz, which you wont ever hear. If you remove everything else you might, but it will be quiet.

Boomy could be around 60Hz to 100Hz. You don't need to go down to 20Hz, and in fact you probably wouldn't want to.

 

[DukeLeJeune]

Cone diameter is only one factor in how high up a given driver will play (though it's the primary factor in radiation pattern width). Of greater significance are moving mass (which includes the mass of the voice coil - the long coils needed for bass excursions are of course heavy) and its relationship to motor strength, and voice coil inductance (once again, the longer coils needed for bass excursions usually have higher inductance, and so roll off the top end electrically). My understanding is that voice coil inductance is usually the dominant factor, but I could be wrong. And even seemingly unrelated factors like power handling could play a role, as the thicker voice coil necessary to give good thermal power handling adds to moving mass. Finally, the dustcap can play a significant role in a large woofer's top end extension, as once the cone is in severe breakup the dustcap often does most of the radiating.

There are magnet types and motor construction techniques that reduce voice coil inductance and thus extend the top end, but they are expensive and I don't think they make their way into bass guitar cabs because the market is so cost-competitive.

The drivers used in a guitar cab are optimized for a different task than those used in a bass cab. From my perspective as someone interested in loudspeaker system design, bass cabs are a helluva lot more interesting.

 

[alexclaber]

History.

Alex

 

[rcarraher]

Pray tell what 4x10 goes to 20hz.

Hmmm, seems as if misspoke. Just checked specs on a lot of 10 inch cabnets and 15 inch cabinets and a couple of 12's I was able to find. Guess what, the larger cabs and speakers are lower in freq response (this didn't used to be so), even if negligibly than the 10's. Off the top of my head I am putting this down to advances in speaker design (neodymium, aluminum etc...)As an electronics engineer, I guess I should check advances in components more than every 5 to 10 years, huh?

As far as power handling, 2X10 will more often than not handle more power than say a 1X15. Didn't search high and low but didn't find any single 12's but in general I think this is because you have more speakers to take the signal, hence higher power. Also, a 4X12 would be a big cabinet!Obviously a bit bigger than the 23.5" or 24" cabinets required by a 4X10

So, aplogies to Marleys Ghost

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Guess what, the larger cabs and speakers are lower in freq response (this didn't used to be so)

It was always that way. Bass amps often had 15 and 18" speakers while guitar amps commonly had 10 and 12 inch speakers.

If you look at hi-fi speakers, the expensive ones with better bass response had larger woofers. No one would buy a speaker with a 5" woofer when you could have a 12". And the big speakers handle low end. Bose tried to do it with a bunch of 5" speakers, and many people don't care for their tone. So we use the right size driver for the right frequency range. That's why they make 15 inch speakers.

Larger speakers move more air, and the lower waveforms are also larger.

When the movie Earthquake (ancient history) came out they had big W cabs with 30" speakers installed into the movie theaters to shake the place up! I'm sure many theaters had regular 15" bins and smaller. But they don't reproduce the extreme low end that was needed.

10's have been in use for a while because it was the latest market driven fad. Now 12's are getting popular again, and you are seeing more and more of them.

 

[alexgeddy]

Thats why I have 2 SWR 4 x 10s and hook em up to my stereo...I can really turn up the bass and they sound great....and I'm serious!!! Listen to rush dvd like this !! makes the house shake!!!


bill

 

[alexclaber]

Once you have an array of 10" speakers they effectively work just like an equal sized array of 18" speakers or even 5" speakers, as long as the cone mass to motor ratio stays constant. The upside of smaller speakers is that it's easier to get that motor:mass ratio high but all those individual motors add cost and weight.

One thing I have noticed through my lengthy searchings for good drivers is that in the basss guitar realm there is much more variability in specs and thus response and tone between cheap and expensive fifteens than there is between tens. So if you've started out with a cheap fifteen it's probably done a good job of putting you off all its distant cousins whose only shared gene is that determining nominal diameter.

Tone matters, nominal diameter really doesn't - it's what you do with it!

Alex

 

[alexgeddy]

does anybody agree u can hear tens up close, and 15s or 18s farther away when u are on stage?

 

[dponbass]

I like them all. 10s, 12, 15s, I like them all for different things. How's that for a non-answer or explaination. Good cabs and speakers make good sounds with good heads. Of course good basses help, but it's how the player plays the bass that counts.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Tone matters, nominal diameter really doesn't - it's what you do with it!

+1

The best bass tone I ever got was playing though a Yamaha PA can with a single 12 and a horn. I wasn't expecting it to sound as good as it did.

One day I auditioned a bunch of amps and my favorite tone wise was the SWR LA-12 combo, but not the LA-10 or 15. Shame they aren't that loud.

 

[alexclaber]

does anybody agree u can hear tens up close, and 15s or 18s farther away when u are on stage?

Off-axis midrange response is inversely proportional to the size of the array so a group of tens has no advantage over a same sized group of fifteens. However a cab with more midrange will always sound easier to hear close up but that isn't a result of the nominal diameter.

The old myth about horns 'throwing' sound is due to the same misconception.

Alex

 

[alexclaber]

One day I auditioned a bunch of amps and my favorite tone wise was the SWR LA-12 combo, but not the LA-10 or 15. Shame they aren't that loud.

Exactly! A lot of tiny practice combos with 8" speakers sound rather good - shame they don't go loud. (Although you could use an array of eights I'd rather just use a higher quality larger speaker, maybe crossed over to a smaller midrange driver).

Alex

 

[greenboy]

Hmmm, seems as if misspoke. Just checked specs on a lot of 10 inch cabnets and 15 inch cabinets and a couple of 12's I was able to find. Guess what, the larger cabs and speakers are lower in freq response (this didn't used to be so)

Speaking in generalities, but MI/SR drivers typically have extended low capabilities as they get larger, and this really hasn't changed for decades. Of course there are exceptions, but they trade off sensitivity or the size of enclosure they can happily live in and still make LF content. Leading to more confusion is bass cab manufacturers who seem to be manufacturing ficticious specs that lead the untutored consumer to believe that various woofers of various sizes are capable of that which they are not. Unless alien tech has found its way into the hands of these companies and none in the SR sector, that is... ; }

As far as power handling, 2X10 will more often than not handle more power than say a 1X15.

More often than not the figures bass cab manufacturers use would indicate this, but more often than not they do not take into account the excursion capabilities, which for many drivers in use for bass cabs limit their actual duty cycle output to 1/4 to 1/2 of those so-called "RMS" power handling figures. Since a lot of the 15" drivers have greater excursion - xmax - and more surface area than 2 10" drivers as well, a good 15" driver can do way more than what's available in 210 cabs. In fact, one of the newer Eminence neo-motor 15" woofers can with enough wattage challenge an 810 cab for LF output.

Didn't search high and low but didn't find any single 12's

There's plenty of them out there. And I am nearly finished with a design for a single-12 cab that will use a new Eminence neo design... should be a real monster.

 

[JTE]

So, a quick reveiw of manufacturers' published specs show that-

Aguilar- 1x15 rated at 32 Hz, the 4x10s at 40 Hz, and 2x12s at 41 Hz

Ampeg- 4x10 at 48 Hz, 1x15 at 50

Eden 4x10 (XST) at 36 Hz, then the 2x12 (XLT) at 40, and the 1x18 at 42, then the 1x15 at 46, and the 4x10 XLT at 50. The lowest rated is a 4x10 and the 2x12 is way ahead of the 1x15

Epifani shows identical ranges for both their 4x10 and 1x15 within their ranges- that is the PS both are rated at 36 and the UL at 40 regardless of driver sizes

SWR 4x10 (Goliath) is rated to go down to 40, while the Son of Bertha 1x15 only goes down to 45.

First, I know specs, especially published frequency response without consistent parameters tell us little meaningful information.

Second, there's really no consistency in whether a cabinet with a 15" speaker goes lower than a similar sized cabinet wtih four 10" speakers. There's just too much variation in speaker and cabinet designs to draw consistent conlclusions based soley on speaker size about how a cabinet might sound in the real world.

Plus, none of that tells us squat about how it handles the mids, how it projects into a room, etc. It ultimately comes down to what YOU like.

Me, I like 10's and 12's. Never cared for 15's much despite owning a bunch of them over the last 30 years, and I despise 18's. My favorites were the Music Man 212RH (could be nostalgia- it was my first bit of REAL bass gear), the Eden D410XLT (perfect sound for a loud band with big PA support), Eden D212XLT (great for when that same loud band didn't use PA at smallre gigs), and my home-made Theile/Small cabinet (made from plans EV used to give away) as long as it had the EVM 15 in it. Not so good wtih the Cerwin/Vega 15.

Didn't like the Sunn 1x15, nor the Yamaha S-115 (Mark II series, although it had the BEST 15" bass driver I ever experienced, but the cabinet wasn't very nice), and hated the 1x15 folded horn W box I had. The Dual Showman with twin JBLs was kinda cool, but not enough sound for such a PIA to move up and down stairs. I used at a few gigs until I had to carry it down an out-side metal stairwell in the rain one night- by myself. Went back to small one-person cabinets after that!

So, why are 10" speakers popular for bass while guitarists like 12"? Same reason we play Precisions and Jazzes while they play Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, and 335s. It's the sound we want to hear.

jte

 

[SteveD]

Amazing information, thanks to all. My Aguilar GS112 is being used for the lows biamped with an Avatar BR210 Neo for mids/highs. The Ag claims response to 41 Hz. I'm liking the sound and the easy-to-carry issue. I'm currently putting the crossover point around 200Hz (Carvin BX1200). I'm getting away with the GS112 due to playing small-medium clubs. No PA support so far, but it's available if needed. Bass drum is now in PA (sounds incredible), should I sneak into the Mackie subs myself?

 

[Jack]

Because I like to generalize sound based on speaker size.

Come on TB, you know better than this.

 

[rcarraher]

Speaking in generalities, but MI/SR drivers typically have extended low capabilities as they get larger, and this really hasn't changed for decades. Of course there are exceptions, but they trade off sensitivity or the size of enclosure they can happily live in and still make LF content. Leading to more confusion is bass cab manufacturers who seem to be manufacturing ficticious specs that lead the untutored consumer to believe that various woofers of various sizes are capable of that which they are not. Unless alien tech has found its way into the hands of these companies and none in the SR sector, that is... ; }



More often than not the figures bass cab manufacturers use would indicate this, but more often than not they do not take into account the excursion capabilities, which for many drivers in use for bass cabs limit their actual duty cycle output to 1/4 to 1/2 of those so-called "RMS" power handling figures. Since a lot of the 15" drivers have greater excursion - xmax - and more surface area than 2 10" drivers as well, a good 15" driver can do way more than what's available in 210 cabs. In fact, one of the newer Eminence neo-motor 15" woofers can with enough wattage challenge an 810 cab for LF output.



There's plenty of them out there. And I am nearly finished with a design for a single-12 cab that will use a new Eminence neo design... should be a real monster.

Love to hear it when you finish it. I've used an SVT of one type or another and have been using either an Ampeg 4X10 ro for larger gigs an 8X10 for ages....I'm rethinking things and have just about decided to retire my CL and am looking for something "newer" lighter weight etc...also the 8X10's are a bear to haul around and I haven't played a gig in forever that needs them. So, I guess its time to reopen my mind?