Bill Fitzmaurice

No problem, since it's fan cooled the only potential issue, heatsink/vent orientation, doesn't exist.

Ampeg may seem a big deal, but in the scale of things bass amps and speakers are small potatoes compared to the PA gear that's the meat and potatoes of LOUD. My guess is that Yamaha finally gave up on trying to crack the American market for amps (do they sell in Europe of the UK?) and probably picked up Ampeg for a song, so now they can get into that market through the side door. It will be interesting to see if they sink any money into R&D.

The BP102 has very poor midrange response. I only use them in subs or with midrange drivers. If you can't match the existing drivers you need to replace all of them, but only after using speaker modeling software to confirm if they'll do what you want to do in your cab.

There's no point. You may think that there's an advantage to the proverbial 'getting all the watts out of my amp', but there isn't. If you did have a 4 ohm cab versus 8 ohms the greatest potential difference in maximum output would be 2dB, which is inconsequential. That's best case, with an amp that's rated no more than 1/4 the cab power rating. With a less skewed amp to speaker power rating, where the maximum output is likely limited by the driver excursion, there would be no difference. The speaker outs are already connected within the amp. That cable would accomplish nothing.

I'll be the first to point out that if a 410 isn't loud enough you should be looking at a better PA, not adding another cab. If you're having trouble hearing yourself elevate and/or tilt your cab back. You don't have hearing receptors on your calves.

The link is to instrument cables, where shielding is required. The sales pitch is pure Monster, and just as silly. Not that there aren't factors to consider with instrument cables, mainly capacitance when used with passives. But low capacitance cable is both common and inexpensive. I found on their site shielded speaker cables, predictably aimed at the home theater/audiofool market. FWIW no one has ever come up with a speaker wire that works any better than lamp cord. Quite the contrary, expensive/complicated constructions tend to work worse. As it this case with all cable crooks what's completely lacking on their site is definitive data to back up their claims, because there is none.

Too simplistically. You can achieve the exact same results with neo or ceramic. For that matter you can with AlNico. The AlNico magnet JBL D130 of 1949 had a more powerful magnet than most drivers made today. The advantage to neo is light weight, the disadvantage is cost. That being the case if you use neo you're not going to use it in an inexpensive driver, and if you're making an expensive driver it will probably be low Q. As for tone, you can overdo the magnet strength. Beyond a certain point lower Q results in reduced low frequency response.

The problem when you use the term damping instead of Q is it causes others to confuse it with where the term damping is rightfully used. Even using the term in association with Q can only lead to confusion, so the preferred explanation of what Q does is control. For instance: https://www.eminence.com/support/understanding-loudspeaker-data/

There are two primary uses for the term damping with respect to speakers and amps. With speakers it's the characteristics of the absorptive lining or filling of the cab, if any. With amps it's as part of the term 'damping factor'. Neither applies in this case, where the appropriate term would be Q, probably Qts, possibly Qes. Neo versus ceramic doesn't even enter the conversation, as Q is independent of the magnet material. There may be an anecdotal relationship between Q and magnet material. Neo is a much more expensive material than ceramic, while low Q drivers tend to be more expensive than high Q drivers, so neo drivers tend to be low Q. But that's by no means a hard and fast rule.

Engineers don't use subjective terms like 'tight', which mean different things to different users. Marketeers do.

The difference is that instrument cables don't use large enough gauge wire to handle the current that an amp delivers to a speaker.

Passives, I assume. Most of the noise issues with passives have to do with their high output impedance, compounded with the relatively low input impedance of valve amps. Back when I ran passives straight into valves my solution was to never back off on the volume control. The issue went away when I installed my first on-board pre.

A jack is the part that a plug is inserted into. The 1/4" phone jack and plug were invented for use on telephone switchboards.

There are a dozen or so specs that determine driver performance. The magnet material isn't one of them. For that matter neither is the thermal rating of the voice coil. Not by a transducer engineer or IMO a competent speaker designer. That's the kind of inaccurate generalization one might expect from a marketing department.

The drain wire is connected to the same terminal as the ground wire. BTW, 1/4" connectors are phone, not phono (RCA).

With a drain wire, like so:

I've seen it done, with stupidly high priced 'audiophile' cables aimed at the way too much money/way too little intelligence market. I doubt there are many marketed at musicians, but there are likely some.

Any manufacturer who sells a shielded speaker cable is confused. Shielding gives high capacitance, which can cause amplifier instability. High capacitance is less of an issue with instrument cables and interconnects, with the exception of passives, where high capacitance dulls the highs. You still need a shielded cable, but you should search out one with lower capacitance.

All speaker cables are unshielded, or at any rate they should be.

If it's a crossover there would be low pass and high pass outputs. If there are only two wires it's not a crossover, it's a high pass filter.

That shelving will have almost no effect on the response of the cab, it mainly serves as bracing. It's not original either. Ampeg started doing that in 1969, and they weren't the first.

You can get a similar effect putting this on the inside of the grille: https://www.amazon.co.uk/15x24x3-16-A-C-Filter/dp/B000BO68BU/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1525286995&sr=8-4-fkmr0&keywords=air+conditioner+foam+filter+material Spray the inside of the grille with spray adhesive, then apply the foam.

You answered your own question. http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm Sealed can seem better in room corners because they start off with less low frequency output. Ported can sound exactly the same with appropriate EQ compensation for the effect of the room. There's more than one type of compression. There's physical pressure on the cone from the air mass in the cab. Ported has higher air pressure sourced compression, caused by the Helmholtz effect of the port. That reduces the movement of the cone near the tuning frequency. It also reduces the sound output from the cone near the tuning frequency, but that's recouped by the sound output from the port. That's seen on SPL charts that show independently the cone and port outputs. Another type of compression is the result of the driver reaching xmax in the lows, but not in the higher frequencies. Once xmax is reached in the lows additional power does not give additional low output, but it does give more mids and highs. This compresses the dynamic range of the lows, but not the mids and highs. That's why tone can change quite a bit depending how loud you're playing. Sealed cabs are more subject to this, since they reach xmax at lower levels than ported.

Contrary to popular belief sealed cabs do not have higher 'compression' than ported. The reverse is the case. Reducing port area doesn't increase compression, it only lowers the tuning frequency of the cab. There is no characteristic sealed sound, there is no characteristic ported sound. In blind listening tests with cabs EQ'd for the same response one cannot tell if a cab is sealed or ported. Side by side with the same amp and settings they won't sound the same, but that's only because they have not been EQ'd for the same response.

Short memory? Read the thread again, that was answered in detail.