Man, reading through these makes me appreciate my current Mesa Subway gear even more!
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Worst Bass Cab You Have Played Through?
- Thread starter PolkaHero
- Start date
Anything by Crate or Behringer. When I returned to strings, I went through a succession of four used amps that either were completely inoperative, had problems or sounded terrible in two days. I bought an Ampeg combo new shortly thereafter and was able to play long enough to start figuring out what I liked and if my bass worked or not. The Ampeg lasted about 4 years before the desert consumed it.
EDIT: I did try to play through an Ampeg 8×10 out in the desert that had been poorly sawn in half and capped. Two drivers were original and two were non-matching randos. It sounded bad enough to not use live. Maybe not the worst, but strong in the race to the bottom.
EDIT: I did try to play through an Ampeg 8×10 out in the desert that had been poorly sawn in half and capped. Two drivers were original and two were non-matching randos. It sounded bad enough to not use live. Maybe not the worst, but strong in the race to the bottom.
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The Randall that I had was an RB120. I replaced the speaker with a JBL which drastically improved it, but it was so underpowered that I had to have it dimed-out on gigs, which didn't sound all that great.
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Standel - late 60's. Nothing good came of this. Of course I was using an EB0 at the time and that didn't help. At the first opportunity I moved to a Pbass and an Ampeg portaflex and things improved.
Ashdown 112 with the blue cone. I suspect it was damaged, otherwise the muffled fart sound was inexcusable
After the amp part in my Hartke 2x10 combo died, I sawed off the rack mount top section & tried using the cab by itself. Even broke, inexperienced 20-something me couldn't abide the sonic result.
I left it at a pawn shop and felt a little guilty for taking $20 for it... until I saw it there a year later with a $300 price tag.
I left it at a pawn shop and felt a little guilty for taking $20 for it... until I saw it there a year later with a $300 price tag.
Two cabinets come to mind.
1) A late 1960s Fender Bassman cabinet. It had poor low end response with the stock speakers. Similar to the one pictured below. Upgrading to JBL K140s helped, but ultimately the cabinet design limited the sound quality.
2) An Acoustic B200 15" cabinet as pictured. I have one of the B200 combos, which has excellent low end response. My wife bought me one of the amps with separate head and cabinet, similar to that pictured below. I could not achieve the same low end response with it that the combo has. I donated the separates to a church. Acoustic eventually came out with a Mark II version of the cabinet, but I have never tried one.
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1) A late 1960s Fender Bassman cabinet. It had poor low end response with the stock speakers. Similar to the one pictured below. Upgrading to JBL K140s helped, but ultimately the cabinet design limited the sound quality.
2) An Acoustic B200 15" cabinet as pictured. I have one of the B200 combos, which has excellent low end response. My wife bought me one of the amps with separate head and cabinet, similar to that pictured below. I could not achieve the same low end response with it that the combo has. I donated the separates to a church. Acoustic eventually came out with a Mark II version of the cabinet, but I have never tried one.
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A vintage Fender Bassman 2-12 cab, which was basically a guitar cab. It couldn’t even handle the whooping 50 watts the Bassman head put out.
Very similar to a cab my dad and I built with absolutely zero understanding of cabinet design. Pretty much speakers in a box. With my dad designing the carpentry, structural overkill would be an understatement. It was built like a house, weighed about as much, and would have stood up to an atomic bomb.
Worst was probably a Carvin Red Eye 4x10. I had a matching Carvin 1x15 that made up for the lack of low end on that 4x10.
I was very intrigued by the design of the Boom Bass Cabinets Matrix, with downfiring 15" speaker coupled with two angled 10s and tweeter in the front. I ordered one from Sweetwater and was very disappointed by the build QC. Crooked screws, different screws, crooked retractable handle, bumpy vinyl covering, tacky assembly of the side vents/ports, silkscreened badging, etc. Very shoddy compared to my two Mesa Subway 15 cabs, especially since the owner of BBC made a big deal about being a carpenter. The Matrix sounded great from what little I played it before shipping it back, but for a $1400 cabinet the QC should have been much better. Great concept, bad execution.
Same here. I tried one and felt the woofer suspension or surround was too stiff impairing the woofer to move freely.
I’m not that picky and even enjoy those old peavey cabs with the blue stripes and such (honk city), BUT.
The worst cabinet experience was actually a combo, if that’s ok to submit. SWR super redhead 210. Nothing but twang and clank from that thing, no matter what I did. And it felt like 600 pounds or something to move. I would rather play through an old peavey keyboard amp.
The Acme Low-B2 in the wrong setting could seem like one of the worst cabs I've ever used.
But in the right setting - if the mix wasn't too loud & dense - and if my bass or amp head had more midrange - it could be the BEST cab I've ever used!
My Low-B1 has been a phenomenal workhorse on smaller jobs; there's just nothing like that Acme low end. I'd love to expand back to 2 10s or more - just maybe not with a [notoriously mid-shy] Fender tone stack for the preamp. (That might have been the real culprit. I've been much happier with Ampeg / Baxandall.)
But in the right setting - if the mix wasn't too loud & dense - and if my bass or amp head had more midrange - it could be the BEST cab I've ever used!
My Low-B1 has been a phenomenal workhorse on smaller jobs; there's just nothing like that Acme low end. I'd love to expand back to 2 10s or more - just maybe not with a [notoriously mid-shy] Fender tone stack for the preamp. (That might have been the real culprit. I've been much happier with Ampeg / Baxandall.)
Any cab from the low-budget series of Hartke. Their high end aluminium stuff is decent, but the rest is terrible.
Some kind of used Crate cab many years ago. And also an Ampeg 410 hlf. The hlf was harder to move than my old fridge cabs, due to the low profile. Ok if you’re only 4 feet tall I guess, but for anyone else, it’s a PITA to pull one of these for any distance. Plus it was heavy MDF board. I could get no articulation from the speakers and Ampeg venting the cab added nothing positive IMO. Gave it to my son’s band’s bass player who didn’t keep it long. This was all years ago.
The first cabinet/combo I bought was a well used Ampeg BA-112 (older generation). It had the rat fur covering which was covered in clingy cat hair and smelled like cigarette smoke. It was cheap and I needed a practice amp so I bought it. Got it home and played it for a few days and it no matter what I tried it sounded as bad as it looked and smelled. I tried to make it work but finally concluded that this thing was a piece of cr*p, but fortunately, I bought it from Sam Ash so I was able to easily return it for a full refund. I replaced it with a brand new Ampeg BA-210 which sounded awesome, looked great and had that new cab smell. In my quest to upgrade gear I eventually traded it in on an Epifani Amp and cab. But selling it was my second mistake since I only got $200 for it. Should've kept it.
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