Bill Fitzmaurice

Front port goes lower, because it's larger. The rear port has them on the back because there's no room for them on the front.

[quote name='krispn' timestamp='1424101852' post='2692603'] Any thoughts? [/quote]Don't. The main issue isn't the driver or amp, it's the size of the enclosure. Google 'Hoffman's Iron Law'. If you did this the additional output would be modest at best.

[quote name='Animalbeats' timestamp='1423874523' post='2690086'] I've come across a page of WEM vintage columns with 10" drivers. I'm hoping to pair them with Selmer treble and bass. Do you think they'll be suitable for bass speakers? [/quote]Back in that era they would have used generic musical instrument drivers, good for guitar but not for bass. Using enough of them they would be tolerable, just as the original '69 SVT was tolerable. But they had to use two 8x10s to handle the 300w head. BTW, I saw [i]Ten Years After[/i] the summer before last, but without Alvin Lee it wasn't the same band I saw back in 1969 at a farm in upstate New York by any means.

There's far more to a bass cab than just using drivers intended for bass guitar. For one thing done correctly a bass cab will have roughly twice the internal volume of a guitar cab using the same size drivers. IMO don't throw away good money after bad, use it as is, when you're able to afford it get a proper bass cab.

The result is as unpredictable as mixing drinks. It might be OK, like gin and tonic. It might be disastrous, like Bailey's and lime juice.

[quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1423345789' post='2683826']even the drummer! [/quote]Now you're stretching the bounds of incredulilty.

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1423212539' post='2682177'] Hi Bill, If I can borrow this thread for a moment, if you are using good quality leads does the length make any difference - just thinking the lower cab will need a long lead, whereas if you daisy chain you can use two shorter leads? [/quote]Assuming you're not using seriously undergauge cables you're not going to have an issue with the six feet or less for a bass rig. It's with the long leads to PA speakers that you have to be wary.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1423231211' post='2682540'] oh dont start that one again! Well not before weve been around "fodera:worth it?" "Barefaced handles I have known" "this months flavour of the month love in" "rosewood or maple" "are fender any good" "valve or solidstate" "tweeters yay or nay" "and "bass reflex vs horns" [/quote]Get back to us with your opinion after you've built a few dozen guitars and/or basses using different body, neck and fretboard woods. [quote]the tone you hear from the bass is what the pickup 'hears' at its specific location - with a wide-range pickup like an Alembic or Q-Tuner it's very similar to what you'd get from close micing at that point. The tone at that point depends hugely on how the body/neck of the instrument is taking energy from and returning energy to the strings.[/quote]One issue I had with rosewood guitar bodies was an increased tendency for high frequency feedback. Rather than the usual spring/screw mount I ended up isolating the pickups from the body with foam rubber to break the feedback loop. It's not necessary with bass, since you don't run super high gain. This taught me why so many players who use super high gain and lots of distortion effects, like Steve Vai, prefer a lower density body, like basswood. I tried a basswood bass body once and the tone and sustain were so bad that it ended up as firewood after one gig. That's when I also found out that basswood doesn't even burn well.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1423228365' post='2682479'] I know it's been a commonly debated subject. I know that in an acoustic instrument there is a noticeable difference, but for electric, the debates have mostly said it's minimal.[/quote]Said debates don't take place between luthiers. They shouldn't take place between players either, as Les Paul among others sorted this out in the 1940s. Density is the main factor, not weight. Thirty years ago I found that solid rosewood gave tone and sustain that you couldn't get with anything off the shelf, including ash, but at the cost of literally unbearable weight. I then went to a semi-hollowbody construction similar to what Rickenbacker uses in their semi-hollows, with the thickness of the top and back about 1/4 inch. The weight came down to about the same as a solid poplar body, but the tone and sustain of solid rosewood wasn't lost in the process.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1423170754' post='2681853'] I believe that I'm right, that the bodymaterial of an electric bass doesn't have much baring on tone, but I can't guarantee it. [/quote]It can make a major difference, with guitar as well. The more dense the wood the brighter the tone, and the longer the sustain.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1423147694' post='2681419'] If one's sole goal is efficiency, you're right. For some folks, there are other criteria, though. Horses (and buggies..?) for courses..? [/quote]Horses are fine if you're an avid gardener and need the fertilizer. There's at least two more analogies that could be drawn between horses and eighteens, I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks.

[quote name='taunton-hobbit' timestamp='1423078291' post='2680488'] There was a reason why Jamaican Sound Systems 'back in the day' used 18" drivers - [/quote]Yes, there is. [i]They had to[/i], because of the short excursion drivers that were available 'back in the day'. The horse and buggy used to be the most efficient form of personal transportation as well. I don't yearn for one myself.

Electrically the result is identical. The only advantage to connecting the cabs indepently to the amp is that the current going to the second cab doesn't have to also go through the cord to the first. If your cords are of sufficient gauge that won't matter, but if they're undersized it might.

[quote name='monsterthompson' timestamp='1422990800' post='2679268'] i'd suspect a bigger driver often comes in a bigger enclosure, which alters the output you hear. the G3 Barefaced SC and SM use the same driver, yet the SC is in a bigger box and it goes lower and louder (based on Alex's claims and my observations as an owner of each cab). perhaps that is part of what people hear and attribute to the driver size. [/quote]The enclosure is just as, if not more, responsible for the low frequency extension and output than the driver. But where the driver itself is concerned there are over a dozen specs that determine both how low and how loud it will go. Cone size is not one of them.

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1422972614' post='2678999'] True. But despite the "science", many bassists still insist that they can hear a difference when changing cone sizes! [/quote]To a great extent that's placebo effect. If you think that you'll hear a difference you will. No one is immune to it. The main difference that is really audible is the result of the one difference that will always be determined by driver size, and that's off-axis response. Even that will be different when you use two or more identical drivers compared to just one, or for that matter two compared to four, not to mention two placed vertically versus two placed horizontally. The value of knowing the science is that you can predict the outcome with any of the myriad of possible permutations with a very high degree of accuracy.

[quote name='JPJ' timestamp='1422042166' post='2668209']a respectable brand like TC Electronics hadn't taken the time to fit 50p's worth of acoustic damping in the cabinet. [/quote]50p here, 50p there, eventually you get enough for the CEO to take a week in Cannes. Can't blame him, Denmark in January is colder than Scotland. G-K pulled the same stunt a few years back with their Neo cabs, got outed on talkbass, and no less than Bob Gallien had the gall to say that they'd tested their new line with and without damping and bracing and that they sounded better without it. After a few people added damping and bracing, with the same result as yours, he wasn't heard from again. [i]But guess what happened a year or so later when they introduced the next version of those cabs. [/i]

Anytime you consider replacement drivers you must look at the T/S specs in terms of cab compatability and frequency response in terms of tone. The problem is that you can't get that information for most OEM drivers.

[quote name='grenadilla' timestamp='1421808205' post='2665309'] Don't forget the Hiwatt 415 used by John Entwistle at Leeds. When I first saw The Who (1970) he had 4 412s and 2 415s. Fantastic! [/quote]Also ancient history. That's the same time frame when I was using eight twelves in 200 seat rooms, only driven by a 50w Bassman head, because the drivers were such sh*te that it took that many to run a clean low E. Today I only need a 1x12 to do that. Listen to Jack Bruce on '[i]Wheels of Fire'[/i]. I doubt it sounded as dirty as it did because he preferred that sound, it was because it was the best he could do with the gear available then. He didn't have that same crap sound on the TV broadcast I saw of his last reunion gig with Eric and Ginger.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1421788799' post='2665120'] [size=4]Few folks really need [/size]427 [size=4]cubic inch [/size]V8 en[size=4]gines, either, or 4wd pick-ups. [/size] [/quote]True, but you don't have to haul a 427 out of your crib and put in in your car before taking a drive and then haul it back in again when you return. OTOH if you're going to drive a pickup in snow country it's best to have AWD, as RWD is next to useless when the weight balance is 65 front/35 rear.

[quote name='Muziekschuur' timestamp='1368133864' post='2073769'] I have a kustom (chanute) 415b cabinet. From the '80's. So it's a tolexed cab, not with naugahyde. I was only able to locate one other Kustom 415b and this is in the Usa. I was wondering if anyone here has ever seen/played one. [/quote]I didn't use a 4x15, but I did for a couple of years play through a pair of tuck and roll 4x12 columns. With the drivers available then that's what you had to do, just as it took two 8x10s to handle the original SVT head in 1969. Thanks to modern driver technology no one really needs more than four tens, or two fifteens, though that doesn't stop people from doing so.

[quote name='SingleMalt' timestamp='1421272034' post='2659333'] Both have [b]stupid [/b]amounts of hum when the volume or gain are turned up. This is true with no bass plugged in at all [/quote]That's a defect. With no bass plugged in the input is shorted and any noise is self-generated.

[quote name='taunton-hobbit' timestamp='1421423388' post='2661058'] you will never hear the full break-in change with one of our cabs. [/quote]You'll never hear it with anyone's cabs, the change is too subtle and your ears are too insensitive to hear it. For that reason you'll see legions of those who deny that it happens at all, though none of them have ever measured the changes, which really do occur.

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1421237551' post='2658711'] A Jack Russell pissed through the grill onto the speaker. [/quote]You're lucky it wasn't a Great Dane.

There are two ways to choose a correct replacement driver. One is to find the T/S specs and frequency response of the original and match it. Since speaker companies won't divulge that information you'd have to measure those items yourself, which requires specialized gear and knowledge. The other is to reverse engineer the cab, using speaker modeling software to find that driver specs that will work best in it. That also calls for a high degree of knowledge. Option three, which is what you should probably do, is to sell your amp and buy one that meets your needs.

[quote name='1970' timestamp='1421153035' post='2657666'] One thing I've found useful lately is recording directly out of my GT200 DI output - would I be able to do the same thing out of the preamp/slave output in an OR120? [/quote]Yes, but only into a line level input. It would overload mic level.