Ashdown Abm cabs Which replacement speakers?

[blunderthumbs]

Hello fellow chacebatters I am currently using two Ashdown ABM compact cabs and I'm disappointed with the sound I'm getting from the standard Blueline drivers. They are the 1x15" 300w and 2x10"+H 300w. I'm thinking of replacing the drivers with Eminence, Fane or Celestion. Any suggestions ???. I sold my Abm 2x10" 500w combo and ABM 1x15" with Celestions in to buy these two cabs and to be honest they don't come near soundwise. I'm using them coupled to an ABM Evo II 500w head. They just don't have that thud I used to get with the combo and separate 1x15" cab. (It was an old pre Evo combo)

[Phil Starr]

I thought someone else would have answered this by now.

Just swapping drivers is a bit hit and miss for two reasons. Technically cabs and speakers form a tuned unit and fitting a mismatched speaker into the cab won't get the best out of the speaker. It's like dropping a car engine into the wrong car, connect it up properly and it will go forward and back but things like handling will go to pot. Secondly you can't really tell what a speaker will sound like in a cab until you try it, by which time your money has gone and it is too late. An experienced engineer will be able to make a stab at prediction but even that will be an approximation.

We also don't have very good ways of describing sound, so often end up talking at cross purposes, for example the 'thud' you talk about to me means the sound of a poorly damped speaker fitted to an undersized cab with the characteristic 100-150Hz 3dB+ frequency hump which most low-mid priced commercial cabs exhibit but could mean good clean bass extension to someone else.

The sensible thing would be to sell the speakers you don't like in an unmodified form, as this gets you the best price and then use the money to buy a speaker you do like and which you can try before buying.

That's all the negative stuff out of the way. If you are a gambling type, just like fiddling or even want a learning experience then you'll go ahead and take the chance despite the good advice, but the advice[b] is[/b] good and will be the cheapest way of getting sound nirvana. You may in any case want to retain the look of your rig or just want to self build without all the woodwork.

If the Celestions you used before sounded good to you why not just use those?

Celestions bass speakers generally have high resonant frequencies, so no deep bass. They have only moderate excursion and need a big cab to avoid the hump I mentioned, usually they display the hump. They usually have a bit of an upper-mid peak in frequency response so sound quite lively.

The Fane Sovereign and Celestion Pro Audio speakers are mostly better damped and go lower and lose the upper mid peak. They are much cleaner in the bass frequencies, produce more deep bass before farting out and sound very neutral, unlike most commercial cabs.

Eminence have a hell of a range so it's harder to generalise but they tend to make underdamped, humpy speakers and they usually have fairly dramatic upper mid cone break up so can be very lively/shouty.

the other thing is budget, there are some great speakers and you could try fitting the Eminence Kappalite [url="http://www.eminence.com/pdf/Kappalite_3015.pdf"]http://www.eminence....palite_3015.pdf[/url] in the 15 cab. It's £200 ish but one of the best speakers around at the moment, you could then probably do any gig you wanted with the one speaker. Skidder of these pages made just this change and it sounds great.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Phil Starr

[Lozz196]

The theory is, as Phil puts it above, that it`s very hit & miss swapping speakers around as they are designed for certain cab sizes.

In practice I`ve done it a few times, and lucked out each time. Probably as I used Eminence speakers, which give the sound I like so I was halfway there - just whether or not they worked in the specific cabs I used (Eden, Peavey & Marshall), and they did.

So if you really are intent on swapping speakers, and already know you like Celestions, I`d go that way. If you don`t like them, you will probably be able to shift them on here. You`ll make a loss, but you never know, you may just get the exact sound you`re after.

[blunderthumbs]

Thanks for the advice guys.
When I bought my first Ashdown rig (ABM 4x10" 500w combo coupled to an ABM 1X15" 300w cab)
back in 2000 they fitted Celestion speakers. But now they use these Blue Line drivers which
to be honest don't sound as good. I'm sorry I sold my combo and cab as the sound out of these
compacts are lacking a bit. Might try an Eminence 15" driver and see what happens.

[Phil Starr]

You might find this interesting [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/replacing-blueline-speakers-ashdown-abm-combo-563934/"]http://www.talkbass....m-combo-563934/[/url] I use Deltalites at the moment and they do sound nice. The Kappalites are as good as it gets and do work in a cab like yours. I wouldn't use the alpha/beta/delta 15's though it might be worth looking at the DeltaPro's if you want a cheaper speaker, I'd go for a Celestion in preference. If you want a very neutral sounding speaker with very controlled bass these look interesting [url="http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=BMA15MI100&browsemode=category"]http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=BMA15MI100&browsemode=category[/url] If you can scrape together the £200 though go for the Kappalite, you won't be disappointed.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Phil Starr