stevie

If you already have a cab with a flat frequency response (quite a rarity), whether or not to use cab sims is perhaps more of a philosophical question. The question being: do you consider your bass guitar to be a guitar, or do you consider it to be a bass instrument? As we all know, electric guitars sound awful through flat-response speakers. They need that midrange honk and HF distortion to make them come alive. But that's the last thing you want if you have a double bass, for example, or an electric piano, because you want to amplify their sound without adding those peaks and dips that make it sound unnatural. If you want to add colour, fine. But I'd rather have complete control over the colour I create and play through a loudspeaker that can reproduce it properly. I can't see how a cab sim can add anything worthwhile. I'm talking about simulating the sound of a cabinet here, not an amp, tone controls or effects.

Impressive.

Yes, there have been developments, some of them you may find quite interesting. I'll explain in more detail when I've got a bit more spare time tomorrow.

I'm not sure cab sims are a great idea for bass. Guitar, definitely, but not for bass guitar. All you would be simulating would be the extra distortion and frequency response abberations / limitations that bass cabinets produce. Jrixn1, what you have with your RCF cab is the kind of sound you get straight into the desk in the recording studio or through a quality PA. Of course, you can tweak it and modify it, but your basic "tone" is already ideal. Cabs for bass guitar are generally not much more than a speaker stuck in a cabinet. Some have a tweeter added to give a bit of tizz but, with very few exceptions, they are not equalised to be flat. To clearly hear the difference between what an RCF-style monitor does and what a typical bass cab does, play some music through them with voice.

Agreed.

They are not. I don't suppose they expected anyone to email Eminence for the driver specs. Still, at least the OP should have a better handle on what's happening. I'd say a good quality 4x10 would make a big difference - in 4 ohms if he is sure he only wants one cab.

According to this: <https://www.talkbass.com/threads/fixed-tc-electronic-bc-cabinets.1058202/>, the drivers are 75 watts power handling with 3mm xmax. So it's not surprising that the cab won't go very loud. Looks like TC Electronics are up to their tricks again.

Of course it will! If the limiting factor is the power handling of your cab, which seems to be the case, then a cab that will handle more power will obviously go louder. The question is, will it be loud enough? It might well be. An 800-watt amp into an 800-watt 4x10 is pretty loud.

The OP's query was for "something with more headroom, to get the most 4 ohm juice out of my TC BH800 head". An 8-ohm cab seems like an odd solution.

You forgot the bit about phoning Alex.....

Just follow the Fane plan. It's all in there, including a useful cutting list.

I'm not a fan of rear porting for bass guitar cabs. If you'd like to use a cab of those dimensions, you could use two 5" or 6" ports, which will fit comfortably on a 27 x 17" baffle. There is also the option of a shelf port, but that's not as easy to calculate reliably using modelling software.

Yes, they tune the cab to 50Hz, which is just right for bass guitar.

The size of the cabinet won't make any different to the high frequency response of the speaker. I modelled that 125-litre cabinet for the Sovereign 600 and it works fine. I wouldn't be too keen on 12mm plywood for a cabinet of that size and power. Without a lot of extra bracing, it will probably vibrate too much. You might get away with 15mm.

Fane have their own cabinet design, which works with the driver you have. It's also well tuned for bass guitar. It's 125 litres internal volume. You could go a bit smaller but I wouldn't suggest going below 100 litres. If you deviate from the published design, you'd have to alter the port tubes slightly. Cabinets15inch125Lres.pdf

I'd assume that the XLR is wired in parallel with the jack. So you could take one lead from the jack to one speaker and another lead from the XLR to the other speaker. You might also consider replacing the XLR with a Speakon socket. The Speakkon fits the same size hole. It's easy if the XLR is hard wired inside the amp but more difficult if it's mounted on a PCB. That's probably more information than you wanted.....

Steve just bought a Schaller bridge from me. A1 quick, trouble-free transaction.