Specs give us a FRAME OF REFERENCE! This is a discussion board and this is the amp section where we talk about amps and cabs. Specs are VERY important.
Should we all just use words alone? What about the word Loud? Or when someone asks, "Will this cab handle my low B?" Even with respect to tone, using the words "Deep", "Warm", "Bright", "Scooped" can be difficult to understand completely without specs.
I require specs to design and build my own bass cabs. Without them it is a total crapshoot. I have yet to design and build a cab that didn't sound very close to what the "specs" told me it would. Why is that? Because specs are informative to those that understand them.
Ultimately yes your ears should be the judge, but with so many different amps and cabs available today, specs help narrow down the search. I can pretty much tell from specs alone (if I'm given enough accurate info) what a combination of any amp and cab are going to sound like (within reason) without even hearing it. How is that possible if specs don't mean anything? How on earth could I consider buying a bass cab without specs? How many watts can it handle before thermal or mechanical failure? What is the size of the cab combined with how many speakers? That alone will tell me to some degree how deep it goes or if the mids are accentuated. How many watts does an amp put out at how many ohms? Without that little spec, I'd be a fool to go and buy it just because someone gave a review and said it was a really cool amp.
Someone can tell me they have a cab that gets loud, goes deep, handles the low B, etc. and if they give me the size and number of speakers (and the T/S specs of the speakers if known), the internal volume of the cab and the amp they drive it with, I can pretty much tell if they are boasting about a crappy cab or not. At the very least it puts their "subjective" opinion about it into perspective for me.
Words are subjective, "real" specs are not. Without specs, our descriptive words are rendered meaningless. What does "loud" mean without specs? What is loud to you may not be what loud means to me. And loud within what frequency range? What does "deep lows" mean if you don't give me specs with it? Someone thinks their cab puts out deep lows very loudly. What does that mean? Are they hearing the true fundamental or which harmonic above that is giving them the impression they are hearing deep lows from that cab? But give me the specs and I know exactly what you mean by "loud" or "deep lows".
Your ears and your mind's perception of what your ears hear AND your opinion of what you are hearing is highly subjective. But give me specs to go along with your "words" and perhaps I'll have a better understanding of what YOU are hearing...or at least what you think you are hearing. So when one offers an opinion or asks a question on a piece of gear, if all one uses are words as descriptors, those words mean nothing to me without specs.
Should we all just use words alone? What about the word Loud? Or when someone asks, "Will this cab handle my low B?" Even with respect to tone, using the words "Deep", "Warm", "Bright", "Scooped" can be difficult to understand completely without specs.
I require specs to design and build my own bass cabs. Without them it is a total crapshoot. I have yet to design and build a cab that didn't sound very close to what the "specs" told me it would. Why is that? Because specs are informative to those that understand them.
Ultimately yes your ears should be the judge, but with so many different amps and cabs available today, specs help narrow down the search. I can pretty much tell from specs alone (if I'm given enough accurate info) what a combination of any amp and cab are going to sound like (within reason) without even hearing it. How is that possible if specs don't mean anything? How on earth could I consider buying a bass cab without specs? How many watts can it handle before thermal or mechanical failure? What is the size of the cab combined with how many speakers? That alone will tell me to some degree how deep it goes or if the mids are accentuated. How many watts does an amp put out at how many ohms? Without that little spec, I'd be a fool to go and buy it just because someone gave a review and said it was a really cool amp.
Someone can tell me they have a cab that gets loud, goes deep, handles the low B, etc. and if they give me the size and number of speakers (and the T/S specs of the speakers if known), the internal volume of the cab and the amp they drive it with, I can pretty much tell if they are boasting about a crappy cab or not. At the very least it puts their "subjective" opinion about it into perspective for me.
Words are subjective, "real" specs are not. Without specs, our descriptive words are rendered meaningless. What does "loud" mean without specs? What is loud to you may not be what loud means to me. And loud within what frequency range? What does "deep lows" mean if you don't give me specs with it? Someone thinks their cab puts out deep lows very loudly. What does that mean? Are they hearing the true fundamental or which harmonic above that is giving them the impression they are hearing deep lows from that cab? But give me the specs and I know exactly what you mean by "loud" or "deep lows".
Your ears and your mind's perception of what your ears hear AND your opinion of what you are hearing is highly subjective. But give me specs to go along with your "words" and perhaps I'll have a better understanding of what YOU are hearing...or at least what you think you are hearing. So when one offers an opinion or asks a question on a piece of gear, if all one uses are words as descriptors, those words mean nothing to me without specs.
