Bill Fitzmaurice

Since the originals are no longer available and there are no specs for them all you can do is use modeling software and data sheets to find what works as well as possible in the cab configuration.

An Ampeg B15 is 30 watts. There's no simple answer here.

Always ignore above even 200Hz, as no box program is accurate above that, unless you're modeling a midrange driver with Fs of at least 150Hz. I have my chart stop at 250Hz.

They should list drivers appropriate for use with them, along with modeled response charts and displacement limited power ratings with said drivers. Since they have the box design specs (one would hope, anyway) doing so with any driver would take all of five minutes.

You'd get more adding a second identical 2x10. There's only one way to know what the actual sensitivity of a cab is, that's by looking at an SPL chart. AFAIK no manufacturers provide them. There are many excuses why, but there's an old saying about excuses and rectums, and the only thing that they're both good for.

Wired parallel two 98dB/w 8 ohm speakers will have 104dB/2.83v voltage sensitivity, but the halved impedance makes 2.83v 2 watts. Their 1 watt sensitivity is 101dB. One way manufacturers fudge the numbers is to quote a 4 ohm speaker at 2.83v sensitivity while making no mention that's 2 watts. If you could wire four speakers parallel the 1 watt sensitivity would go up to 104dB, but unless your amp is 2 ohm capable you have to wire the two pairs series/parallel. In that case the cab will be 8 ohms, and the 2.83v and 1w sensitivity is 101dB. Taking the math backwards, if the Eden and DNS 410s had 106dB/w sensitivity then the sensitivity of each driver would be 103dB. No ten inch driver that is useful below 100Hz has 103dB sensitivity.

If you like what you're getting from your present cab a second will help. You would run at 4 ohms. Adding the second cab will increase sensitivity and put some drivers up higher where you can better hear them. For best results the second cab should be identical.

I'm sure they will, but ill advisedly. The OP wants a cab that's both small and efficient. That's possible, but only if you toss the third component of Hoffman's Iron Law, which is low frequency extension. Barefaced has a decided advantage over most cabs in that the long xmax drivers they use allow them to go low and loud, but that loudness is realized by their being able to take a lot of power, not via higher sensitivity. With only 100 watts if the OP wants to go both low and loud then the cab must be large. Of the 210/112/115 options the highest sensitivity will come from a 210. The brand doesn't matter so much as the size, the smaller the box the less low end it will have. The thermal rating of a cab has no relationship with how much power it can actually make use of, or how much power it requires to give a desired result. As to cabs rated at higher than 97dB/watt, beware of specsmanship. For instance, any claim for a single driver cab at more than 98dB/watt is probably false. Claims for more than 101dB from multiple drivers are probably false. Eden, and now DNS, has long claimed 106dB/watt from a 410. How do they get such a high rating? By lying. Caveat emptor.

What the OP wants is the Holy Grail of Bassplayers, a small speaker that goes low and loud. The only obstacle to reaching that goal is Hoffman's Iron Law. If you're a bassplayer and don't know what that is look it up, because you should. There are some ways to get around it to some extent, like extra long xmax drivers, but you can only go so small with a cabinet no matter what the driver. Bottom line, if you want a small easily portable rig that still covers a large room without PA support...take up guitar.

That probably won't have any effect either. What limits a speaker's output is the cone excursion limit, xmax. Most drivers will reach xmax with less than half their rated power, so unless your speaker is rated for at least twice what your amp is chances are a lower impedance version would go no louder. The same as with a resistor.

It would be going into 4 ohms. Half the power would drive the speaker, half would drive the resistor, and when you factor in that an amp doesn't develop twice its maximum power into a halved impedance load the result is that it won't be as loud. There is an impedance reducing device that will give you more output: a second speaker.

No engineer worth paying attention to ever said that. What they would have said is that while mixing cabs always works, identical cabs usually work better. They'd also point out that note that any cab that doesn't give you the tone you want by itself isn't worth having at all.

They know perfectly well the perils of not offering their customers what they want, whether it's good engineering or not: lost sales.

Isn't there a sticky that covers all of this?

If it has the same pre-amp gain structure that would make no difference other than at full output, and then the difference would be slight.

That.

Compression can't hurt an amp.

Maybe, maybe not. There are many more variables in play than just cone area. Unless you have definitive data, which no manufacturer I'm aware of provides, the only way to find out is by trying other options side by side with your present cab.

Gain structure. It can be set so the amp is screaming at 3, but doesn't get any louder than that at 9.

Google 'gain structure'. It must have higher gain than the Ashdown did. Throttle it back by using the amp pad switch or your bass volume control.

When it was used with a ten and two sixes?

The 15L and 15B were literally the guitar (lead) and bass versions. The primary difference was Qes, 0.25 for the L, 0.30 for the B. Lower Qes gives stronger highs, at the cost of lows. Loaded in a TL606 cab the knee frequency of the L was 100Hz, the B was 80Hz. The high end knee of the L was 5kHz, the B 3.5kHz. Why Mesa would have used the L for bass, especially in a three-way cab, is puzzling.

That's what you pay to Clapton, McCartney, Entwhistle and the like. Drivers have impedance. Peavey lists the 1502-4 Black Widow in the TNT 160. Specs are Fs 43Hz, Qes 0.38, Qms 7.9, Vas 192L, Re 3.2 ohms, Xmax 2.8mm. Many drivers come close enough to that to work, though I'd look for one with at least 4mm Xmax.

Alternate opinion, they remind me of what we used to say about the F4 Phantom : Put in a big enough engine and you can make anything fly. If the OP wanted to go to the trouble he could have the EVM-15B that's been hanging from a nail in my workshop for the last 12 years. That's how long it's been since it was worth my lugging it around.

You can get a recone, but it won't be cheap, and you'll still end up with a forty year old driver that, by today's standards, isn't all that good for electric bass.