Bill Fitzmaurice

The tweeters used tend to be less of a problem than the high pass filters used with them. I'd say that's an industry wide issue, not just an Ashdown issue.

Possibly. The one factor which is affected by cone size is the off-axis midrange dispersion. The smaller the cone the wider the dispersion angle. Standing in front of the cab you probably wouldn't notice, standing off to the side your audience might. But if you have the cab placed with the drivers horizontal you gum up the works, because that will more than halve the dispersion angle compared to when the drivers are vertically aligned.

The amount of air shifted can't be determined by the area of the cones. It's determined by the driver displacement, cone area x maximum linear excursion. Refer back to post #18 in this thread. Then ask your favorite speaker manufacturer why they don't post this critical bit of information, but don't hold your breath waiting for an answer.

Don't play through it for a few seconds after powering it up.

Show me one that posts driver displacement and I'll tell you.

+1. If you're going smaller and don't want to lose output you need not only a lot more power but also a driver with sufficient displacement to make use of that power. The drivers that Barefaced uses have the highest displacement available with electric bass drivers. Other manufacturers might, but there's no way of knowing, as they don't reveal their driver displacement.

How much of your closet space is taken up by her shoes? Technology does allow you to go with a smaller driver for the same result, possibly 1x10 but more likely 1x12. However, that doesn't mean going from 250w to 300w. It's more like to 500w or more.

Your 1x15 is more or less the equivalent of a 4x8. What do you think? As for the wife, so long as she's not the one hauling it what should it matter to her what you have for an amp?

That depends on the xmax of the drivers, which usually limits useful power handling to no more than half the thermal rating before speaker flatulence occurs.

The classic term is 'farting out'.

There's no advantage to using marine plywood other than to the marketing department. But if you're going to argue about whether marine plywood is a better material than Baltic Birch you might want to consider one of the other main industries that uses it: Aircraft construction. The Ashdown marketing department should be bragging about useful features, such as building their cabs from 12mm plywood braced so that it works as well as unbraced 24mm plywood, and fully lining their cabs with damping to deliver better tone. But that would mean they'd also have to have those features. I'm reminded of when G-K came out with a new line of neo cabs a few years back, unbraced and unlined. Someone on Talkbass exposed them. G-Ks response, from Bob Gallien himself, was that they had tested the cabs with and without proper bracing and damping and that their testers preferred them unbraced and unlined. Said testers must have been students at Gallaudet University. Numerous owners of the G-Ks added bracing and damping, with about a 95% to 5% consensus that they worked much better after the alteration. Bob Gallien didn't comment again on the subject, but in very short order the cabs got a 'II' designation, this time braced and lined.

No. Egg crate foam gets its name, and look, from real egg crates, which once were used to line the walls of studios, not to absorb sound waves but to diffuse them. When acoustical foam was invented the look was copied, but ill-advisedly. Foam can't diffuse sound waves, as that requires that they reflect off the foam, which they do not. In terms of absorption flat foam works better, as that is determined by the actual amount of foam. The air contained in the spaces between the egg crate foam dimples doesn't do anything. That may be of significance if you're building a boat, but it matters not a whit with a speaker. Baltic (also known as Finnish or Russian) Birch is the preferred material for speakers .

It needs damping because if it's not damped waves from the back of the cone reflect off the panels back to the cone, meeting it at various angles of phase, causing peaks and valleys in the speaker response. That's the case with all speakers. This isn't a debatable topic, it's Acoustical Engineering 101, first semester. Un-braced 15mm plywood is insufficient to make the cabinet panels inert. The only difference between Marine plywood and standard grade is the use of waterproof glue. What does matter is the number of plies, which is responsible for stiffness. A single brace connecting the middle of two opposing panels gives the same result as doubling the panel thickness. That's Civil Engineering 101, first semester. Giving the cab designer the benefit of the doubt I'll venture he may have studied acoustical and civil engineering and specified how to correctly build the cab, but the bean counter who over-ruled him in favor of saving a few quid certainly did not.

In WinISD 0.7 the effect of both lining and stuffing is seen when you alter Qa from the default value 100, a bare cab, to 50 for a lined cab, 10 for a stuffed cab and 5 for stuffed and compressed. However, as is the case with all WinISD modeling, the results are only fully accurate within the range of pure pistonic function, to roughly 2 octaves above the cab F3. Stuffing, especially when compressed, lowers the cab Q, so the effect on the low frequency response will be seen in the charts. Lining mainly affects the midrange, so it's primary effect is not reflected in the charts. It is seen in measured charts as a significant smoothing of midrange response.

It does. Nearly all speakers do. There's the right way to build a cab, and there's the cheap way. BF does it the right way.

It doesn't need loads of foam, but it should be fully lined, and since it wasn't then yes, they cocked up the design. The bracing is sparse as well.

Yorkville/Traynor is a Canadian company that's been around since the 1960s. Back then they were one of the brands to consider if you couldn't afford Fender or Ampeg. The BC line is long discontinued. The Eminence drivers they used were no more 'custom' than anyone's, which is to say not much different, if at all, than off the shelf. FWIW anyone can get a 'custom' Eminence, you just need to buy at least 50 of them.

Probably not, as most speakers are limited in their output by the size of the cabinet and the excursion limit of the driver, not the driver thermal power limit. To get a worthwhile increase you need to double the driver excursion and increase power by a factor of four to make use of that excursion.

The position of the ports doesn't matter, but the lack of ducts does. Unless the cab is gigantic ducts are required to lower the tuning of the cab to where it must be for proper operation.

Those aren't driver specs. This links to an example of what a spec sheet looks like: http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Kappalite_3015.pdf

Knowing the driver specs and cab particulars the science would reveal exactly what both of those set ups would sound like.

That tells me the drivers used probably weren't well suited for a ported cab. Some drivers can be used either way, but most are optimized for either one or the other. You probably could have arrived at the same result with EQ, but it's likely the level of EQ sophistication required wouldn't be found in a typical bass amp. The one thing about sealed that ported can't duplicate is the low frequency compression that results when drivers in a sealed cab reach xmax, which may or may not be desirable based on personal preference.

Can you read SPL charts? This compares response of a Simplexx 15 sealed and ported with the Eminence BP1525 driver. Note that if you want to get the same response from the ported as sealed you can, just back off on the bass EQ, which also reduces power draw from the amp. The chart only extends to 200Hz because above that they're identical. The ported advantage in low frequency sensitivity is there, but it's not huge. Now consider this, a maximum SPL chart, which takes into account the response, the driver thermal power handling and driver excursion limit: The sealed cab doesn't even come close down low. The difference is attributable not only to the output added by the port but also the reduction in cone excursion that porting results in, and it's excursion that primarily limits how loud a cab will go below 70Hz or so, not the thermal power capacity. You can get a ported cab to sound like a sealed cab, but you can't get a sealed cab to deliver the low end output of a ported cab. There will be those who say otherwise, but in controlled double blind listening tests when EQ'd for the same response listeners are unable to tell the tone of one from the other.

There's nothing magical about getting that tone. Light gauge round wounds, JBass pickups and a pick, along with lots of practice. A neck through bass with hardwood body helps, but it's not an absolute necessity.

The same percentage who know what it means.