12" Drivers, Whats the score?

[Arrakis]

Well im looking at getting some 12" Bass drivers and there are alot on the market. I was hoping that people could give their opinions and experiences on the differnet ones availbale on the market I havent been able to find any comparisons anywhere. Im kinda looking at Celestian Neo green labels or Eminence Delta or Deltalites.. whats the general consensis?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

[quote name='Arrakis' post='1215713' date='Apr 30 2011, 07:24 AM']Well im looking at getting some 12" Bass drivers and there are alot on the market. I was hoping that people could give their opinions and experiences on the differnet ones availbale on the market I havent been able to find any comparisons anywhere. Im kinda looking at Celestian Neo green labels or Eminence Delta or Deltalites.. whats the general consensis?[/quote]
Choosing the right driver is literally a scientific endeavor, it's not a popularity contest. It begins by understanding what all of this means:
[url="http://www.eminence.com/support/understanding-loudspeaker-data/"]http://www.eminence.com/support/understand...udspeaker-data/[/url]

[chris_b]

You're in Brighton.... so is Barefaced bass. Get one of those; Alex has done all the hard work for you.

[ezbass]

[quote name='chris_b' post='1215806' date='Apr 30 2011, 02:01 PM']You're in Brighton.... so is Barefaced bass. Get one of those; Alex has done all the hard work for you.[/quote]
+ so many it's unreal. It just makes sense.

[stevie]

[quote name='Arrakis' post='1215713' date='Apr 30 2011, 12:24 PM']Well im looking at getting some 12" Bass drivers and there are alot on the market. I was hoping that people could give their opinions and experiences on the differnet ones availbale on the market I havent been able to find any comparisons anywhere. Im kinda looking at Celestian Neo green labels or Eminence Delta or Deltalites.. whats the general consensis?[/quote]
You need to be a bit more specific about your needs. Otherwise it's a bit like asking people what car they recommend.

[Arrakis]

Ok thanks for the replies. Its going to used in a supportive role rather than a lead sound playing detuned stoner/doom pushing out lots of fuzz/drive going to be running in conjunction with a 2x15, the 2x15s dont especially sound great at pushing out the fuzz. Now I have had a very mixed response about this on various forums including this one, theyre going in a Matamp Retro 4x12, now Ive phoned the factory and their view is that it should be fine to swap out the guitar speakers for bass drivers, now before people start saying thats wrong I have also spoken with someone whos done it with good results so my point to this thread is to basically find out what drivers on the market are good for specific styles/sounds etc

Does anyone have a contact number for barefaced bass? would be great to chat to them about this and get their view.

[voxpop]

Now this could be utter bull, but from my limited experience of swapping out speaker Celestions have a rough rock type sound and Eminence have a cleaner slightly brighter sound. (possibly)

[chris_b]

[quote name='Arrakis' post='1215856' date='Apr 30 2011, 02:58 PM'],,,,Does anyone have a contact number for barefaced bass? would be great to chat to them about this and get their view.,,,[/quote]
[url="http://www.barefacedbass.com/"]http://www.barefacedbass.com/[/url]

[Arrakis]

[quote name='chris_b' post='1216036' date='Apr 30 2011, 06:31 PM'][url="http://www.barefacedbass.com/"]http://www.barefacedbass.com/[/url][/quote]

Thanks but its only a contact form on the website

[Mr. Foxen]

[quote name='Arrakis' post='1215856' date='Apr 30 2011, 02:58 PM']Ok thanks for the replies. Its going to used in a supportive role rather than a lead sound playing detuned stoner/doom pushing out lots of fuzz/drive going to be running in conjunction with a 2x15, the 2x15s dont especially sound great at pushing out the fuzz. Now I have had a very mixed response about this on various forums including this one, theyre going in a Matamp Retro 4x12, now Ive phoned the factory and their view is that it should be fine to swap out the guitar speakers for bass drivers, now before people start saying thats wrong I have also spoken with someone whos done it with good results so my point to this thread is to basically find out what drivers on the market are good for specific styles/sounds etc

Does anyone have a contact number for barefaced bass? would be great to chat to them about this and get their view.[/quote]

Barefaced Super 12 or super 15 (2x15) is bright enough for the top of the fuzz, and bottomy enough for the low end. You won't need anything else unless you are multi amping. My 4x12 uses OEM speakers comparable to the Eminence Delta12LFA, they roll off a lot of top, but toppy fuzz into them sounds good, with the edges knocked off. For really aggressive sharp drive noises, not going to beat leaving guitar drivers in the cab and running a guitar amp into it. Using bass drivers in a guitar cab loses you the highs and the lows. And if you are using a muff based fuzz, you lose the mids too. Fail.

The Barefaced site has a Doom rig recommendation, it is at the bottom of the Dubster description.

[phil.i.stein]

[quote name='Arrakis' post='1216077' date='Apr 30 2011, 07:30 PM']Thanks but its only a contact form on the website[/quote]
Alex will be happy to help, particularly if you can describe what type of sound you're after (a link to a track you like etc. ..)

i can vouch for my midget-t, it's stupidly powerful for something so small and portable. the super 12 looks really good too. seriously, fire him an e-mither, what have you got to lose ?

Edited April 30, 2011 by phil.i.stein

[Phil Starr]

[quote name='Arrakis' post='1215856' date='Apr 30 2011, 02:58 PM']Ok thanks for the replies. Its going to used in a supportive role rather than a lead sound playing detuned stoner/doom pushing out lots of fuzz/drive going to be running in conjunction with a 2x15, the 2x15s dont especially sound great at pushing out the fuzz. Now I have had a very mixed response about this on various forums including this one, theyre going in a Matamp Retro 4x12, now Ive phoned the factory and their view is that it should be fine to swap out the guitar speakers for bass drivers, now before people start saying thats wrong I have also spoken with someone whos done it with good results so my point to this thread is to basically find out what drivers on the market are good for specific styles/sounds etc[/quote]


[quote name='voxpop' post='1215866' date='Apr 30 2011, 03:08 PM']Now this could be utter bull, but from my limited experience of swapping out speaker Celestions have a rough rock type sound and Eminence have a cleaner slightly brighter sound. (possibly)[/quote]

This kind of illustrates the problems designers have. We don't have a lot of words to describe sounds and those we do are ambiguous. For me fuzz is a certain type of harmonic distortion as created by a fuzz box but it could be any sound you think of as fuzzy.

It is relatively easy to work out why a musician describes a sound the way they do after the fact. For example the Eminences sounding 'brighter and cleaner' is largely due to the big peak in frequency response at around 2-3kHz that many of their speakers display and this in turn is caused by the way the cone behaves under breakup. It is much harder to work the other way and create a sound from a verbal description using your knowledge of the science. Much of what bass players think of as 'musical' in a cab is often actually down to a distortion of the sound their guitar makes.

Just swapping your guitar speakers for bass speakers will 'work' as the guys at Matamp are telling you in the sense that they will make a sound and you can put lots of bass through them. It may be that they sound how you want or they may not. How the bottom octaves sound depends upon matching the cab and the speakers, if your mate had the same cab as you and you put in the same speakers as him then you should get the same result and you don't need us to help.

If you put any other speakers in or your cab is a different size or shape then the results are unpredictable without much more information. The bass could be very thin or very overblown and resonant depending how your speakers match.

It sounds as if you really want a lot more upper mids/top to me and the eminence Delta's and Basslites both have peaks in this area so might give the sound you want. I don't know if they will work well in your cab or if they will go with your other speakers.

I hope you realise people aren't being awkward. It is just about impossible for anyone to say 'this is the speaker you want' because there are too many variables and none of us wants to be responsible for you spending a lot of money and not getting the sound you want. If you want to go ahead and take a gamble then you might be lucky, you can always put the guitar speakers back and sell the new ones on ebay if it doesn't work out. You might be better tracking down Alex and listening to some of his cabs and homing in on the sound you want since you live in that area.

Good luck

[Arrakis]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I had an idea that the answer wouldnt be a simple one but thought I'd throw it out there anyway, forever reading descriptions of guitar drivers and figured there may be something similar with bass drivers. Yeah I can understand no one wanting to give misleading info.

I've gathered a fair bit of info now from various opinions and have a much better idea as to what Im going to do. As for the sound description.. well you know what us musicians are like haha we have alsorts of terms which dont really make sense like boxy and organic but everyone kinda knows what you mean..

So I guess watch this space and i'll let you people know how i get on and what #i end up going for/with