why do we play through bass cabinets?

[poomwah]

ok, in a decent set up, we run to the mixer and our sound is heard through the PA. so if we are playing through pa speakers to the house, why don't we use a PA speaker for our rig on stage? PA speakers seem to be priced a LOT lower than bass cabs. so why arent we saving the money and putting our head on top of a PA cab?

 

[MOTTOB]

Great Question,

I don't know, but can't wait for some replies from folks who do!

 

[projectMalamute]

1. not all of us like the sound of a DI.

2. good PA cabinets are not cheaper than good bass cabs. if anything they are more expensive.

3. probably in the wrong forum here.

 

[Mike Shevlin]

I used PA cabs in the early 80's in high school because they have me a more hi-fi sound (which I'm not sure was fasionable at the time). I also blew a few cabs. The concepts are the same, but the internals & speakers have to be beefed up to handle the high wattage push of low frequencies which.....well.....is kind of expensive.

 

[ProgRapture]

My guess is for the tone. Bass cabs are specifically tuned to sound best with a bass. While PA cabs are built to pump out whatever you throw at them. While technically you probably could use PA cabs, they are quite heavy and don't sound as good as a nice bass cab.

Just my guess.

 

[McGroovin']

There was a thread a while back about using PA speakers for bass cabs. Can't remember too much about it, except that Carvin cabs seemed to be a favorite for this application.

 

[knarleybass]

I play through bass cabinets because I like my cabinets...

 

[Thangfish]

You might be interested in this discussion
Part 2 of the mega thread

 

[SoLongJake]

In a "decent" PA setup there is going to be subs around. By the time you pick up a decent sub and pa top to use as your bass cab, chances are you've spent more than you would have on even the most expensive boutique bass cabs.

 

[MoD_Scotty]

I've used a PA cabinet occasionally in addition to bass cabinets. For instance, I was using 2 8-ohm cabinets (Avatar B210 and B115), along with an 8ohm PA cab (PV PR-15), with a PV Firebass head, which can run down to 2ohms. The addition of the PA cab definitely resulted in a significant volume increase. It was kind of overkill though. My current setup (B410 NEO 4ohm and B212 NEO 4ohm) is just as loud and I don't have a third cab to lug around.

But in a pinch, you could totally get away with using PA gear. I think that bass cabs are just a much neater (easy to stack), and better sounding (due to being tuned specifically for the freqs of a bass) way to go.

 

[lpdeluxe]

I have an Ampeg B100R on stage, with a line out into the PA, which has a pair of subs.

The amp provides stage monitoring (without running it through the vocal monitors and muddying them up) and the PA/subs slams pretty good out on the dance floor.

 

[GreyBeard]

PA cabs are designed to produce a lot more db's in the 1K-3K region than you need for bass. So it is just more cost effecient to put the money into low end drivers and not so much into the tweeters. All things being equal you could build a better sounding speaker if you specifically designed it for bass guitar than a speaker designed for PA, dollar for dollar. Don't confuse (sound producer) with (sound reproducer) bass cabs are sound producers and are part of the total instrument. PA cabs are sound reproducers.