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What's the big problem with 4x10s?!


Musicman20
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[quote name='Mog' timestamp='1343918879' post='1757328']
sound is emitted from a source on more than one axis, ie.the vertical as well as the horizontal[/quote]

Vertically stacked speakers have poor vertical dispersion so all of the acoustic energy that would have been wasted on the floor and ceiling is now available in the horizontal plane. Result!

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[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' timestamp='1343919441' post='1757340']
The reason that horizontal axis is considered more important is that the audience's heads (i.e. ears) are fairly close together in height. They're spread very widely horizontally though.
[/quote]

I only have one ear left, does this mean I am not affected? (no it doesn't, I notice it a lot) :)

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[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' timestamp='1343919441' post='1757340']
The reason that horizontal axis is considered more important is that the audience's heads (i.e. ears) are fairly close together in height. They're spread very widely horizontally though.[/quote]

Heh. You could imagine that the audience consists of one giant composite ear the length and width of the room, around three inches deep and hovering in mid-air around five or six feet off the floor... ...which is weird, and very probably quite wrong. :D

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[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1343919692' post='1757353']
I only have one ear left, does this mean I am not affected? (no it doesn't, I notice it a lot) :)
[/quote]

Unless your lack of an ear affects your height, I'd assume you and your remaining ear are roughly at the same height as other ears present in the room. Even allowing for people sitting down, the vertical range of ears is much narrower than the horizontal range.

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[quote name='bertbass' timestamp='1343916780' post='1757290']
[b][i]The room acoustics are totally different when the room is empty versus full with an audience.[/i][/b]

Shouldn't a good sound engineer adjust for this though. If I'm doing sound I'm constantly listening and making the sound as good as possible not sitting with my feet up chatting to anyone that will listen ignoring what's going on around them or going for a pint.

[b][i][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Only by running the instuments through the monitors may what's heard on stage be as close as possible to what's heard out front.[/font][/color][/i][/b]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I said before that trying to get just 3 vocals right in the monitors seems to be impossible let alone a full band. No, I'm quite happy to hear the sound on stage the way I like it and not somebody elses idea of a good mix. I've been in the position where the guys supplying the sound kept turning my amp down so that in the end all I could hear was a muffled bassy rumble in the distance and that was only when the others stopped playing. I spent the whole gig not hearing what I was playing.[/font][/color]

[i][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Again written on my Macbook Pro,[/font][/color][/i]
[/quote]

"Good Sound Engineer" is the thing.

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[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' timestamp='1343920101' post='1757363']
Unless your lack of an ear affects your height, I'd assume you and your remaining ear are roughly at the same height as other ears present in the room. Even allowing for people sitting down, the vertical range of ears is much narrower than the horizontal range.
[/quote]

Yep, have read the article thingy now, and I understand it, and will be turning my guitar amp on it's side tonight to see what happens (it will fall over).
:)

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[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1343871309' post='1756744']
It would be better. Horizontal dispersion is inversely proportional to the width of the source. By making it narrower dispersion is widened. Of course this makes the head placement a bit of a task. BTW, the entire reason why drivers were placed horizontally in the first place was to accomodate a wide amp, first in combos, then in separates. No consideration was ever given to the dispersion issue because the amp designers weren't aware of it.
[/quote]
Excellent, thank you for that. I don't have my rack on top of my cabs anyway, however I do have two cabs stacked one on top of the other. But the bottom cab is a 1x15 so I can keep it flat and use whatever method I would have used to angle the top cab.

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[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1343928006' post='1757491']
I have a gig tonight where the audience consists solely of The Krankies. Should I align my 2x10 vertically of horizontally?[/quote]

Horizontally - get each Krankie's head in front of a driver by making Jeanette stand on a chair.

Edited by discreet
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[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1343928006' post='1757491']
I have a gig tonight where the audience consists solely of The Krankies. Should I align my 2x10 vertically of horizontally?
[/quote]

They got plans for the evening then? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8965006/The-Krankies-We-used-to-be-swingers.html

Plans involving you and band?

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[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1343928006' post='1757491']
I have a gig tonight where the audience consists solely of The Krankies. Should I align my 2x10 vertically of horizontally?
[/quote]
:lol:

Biggest laugh of the thread (and indeed my whole day)! Thanks for that. :)

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I wish I was in a position to try the diamond configuration idea. Unfortunately there's a wall about 7 feet infront of my speakers, so I don't think it's going to matter much to me, I don't get to take them out of the house. Someone should try it and let us know, it could be a cheap way to make a slight improvement.

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[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1343919052' post='1757334']
At the risk of exposing my ignorance, I don't think the vertical axis is as important, as your ears are on the horizontal axis...
or something... :D
[/quote]

I wouldn't call that ignorant (not that you should give a monkeys, or that I would know...)

Check this out : http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/understanding-sound-dispersion.htm
Kinda gives a brief run through some of it...

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I recently heard an Asdown 4 x 10 (don't know the model) being played in a small pub.

I can honestly say that the sound was simply dreadful. Muffled on top, no detail in the sound at all and very boomy low down. It would probably sound fine at lower volumes but it just wasn't even near to being able for even a smallish pub gig.

As compensation, the bass player using it was a really superb and entertaining player.

Frank.

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[quote name='machinehead' timestamp='1344002036' post='1758541']
I recently heard an Asdown 4 x 10 (don't know the model) being played in a small pub.

I can honestly say that the sound was simply dreadful. Muffled on top, no detail in the sound at all and very boomy low down. It would probably sound fine at lower volumes but it just wasn't even near to being able for even a smallish pub gig.

As compensation, the bass player using it was a really superb and entertaining player.

Frank.
[/quote]

It was muffled, but the Stingray being the beast it is, it didn't care and just cut through anyway. That's with a set of flats as well. I was actuaklly quite shocked. To be honest though....usually the pre-amp is so good on a Musicman that a rubbish amp/cab sounds good anyway.

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[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1344002576' post='1758557']
It was muffled, but the Stingray being the beast it is, it didn't care and just cut through anyway. That's with a set of flats as well. I was actuaklly quite shocked. To be honest though....usually the pre-amp is so good on a Musicman that a rubbish amp/cab sounds good anyway.
[/quote]

I know what you mean and I can easily believe what you say. But really, the biggest problem was the horrible boom in the lower notes. I could actually have lived with the cab in every other respect, although I do hate distortion in a bass cab, but the boom would make cabs like that a total no-no for me.

Frank.

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Some call it muffled, others may call it warm and wooly and sometimes there is a place in every bass players heart, neigh ears, for warm and wooly :)


I only say this as I heard an Ashdown (one of those EB combo's with a 15inch speaker) at a gig the other day and thought it sounded rather lovely.

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[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1343777795' post='1755248']


Yeah, hence the 8x10 being much cheaper to design, because it was done by 1969.
[/quote]

I'd be interested to know if this was true. $1 in 1969 is equivalent to about $6 today (and then there the exchange rate if we want to compare it to a UK built BF cab). I also suspect that manufacturers were less efficient so each $ got you less 'design'. My hunch is that the Ampeg 8x10 was much more expensive to develop than a modern day equivalent.

Edited by vintage_ben
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[quote name='vintage_ben' timestamp='1344023180' post='1758944']
My hunch is that the Ampeg 8x10 was much more expensive to develop than a modern day equivalent.
[/quote]The 'engineering' required to develop the SVT cab took perhaps a week. It's a sealed box, how difficult is that? Theile modeling was not being used at that point, having been developed only a few years before and was only known of in Australia until 1971. Drivers using Theile parameters didn't come along until a few years after that.
The SVT drivers already existed, guitar drivers BTW, which were also used in some Fender guitar combos. They were chosen based solely on their 32 ohm impedance, allowing a simple parallel wiring harness that the assemblers would be less likely to screw up than a complicated series/parallel scheme. If some 32 ohm twelves had been readily available they likely would have been used instead and quite possibly tens would never have become the standard for electric bass.
The SVT driver has changed over the years, but it remains an inexpensive stamped frame unit that costs Ampeg about $30 each. The neo drivers used by Barefaced, for instance, come in at least four times that.

Edited by Bill Fitzmaurice
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[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1343871309' post='1756744']
It would be better. Horizontal dispersion is inversely proportional to the width of the source. By making it narrower dispersion is widened. Of course this makes the head placement a bit of a task. BTW, the entire reason why drivers were placed horizontally in the first place was to accomodate a wide amp, first in combos, then in separates. No consideration was ever given to the dispersion issue because the amp designers weren't aware of it.
[/quote]

If you tip a 4x10 45 degrees the speakers will be even further apart horizontally

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