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Warning.... Kappalite 3015 NOT designed for Bass!


skidder652003
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11 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Yes, you may, assuming you've used speaker modeling software to make sure it's compatible with the cab you intend to use it in and will handle the power you intend to use, both thermally and mechanically. The OP did not do so, resulting in his unfortunate experience.

Thanks Bill, sorry, but I was being a bit silly at the chap saying he had nightmares about this whole thread.

 

I have put a couple of these speakers (bought around 2010 ish ) in a pair of Ashdown compact 1x15 cabs, that are approx 41 x 49 x62 cm outside dimensions, and they sound pretty good to me. The cabs have a couple or round rear tuning ports, no idea what freq they are , but, all sounds good to me, I like a deep bassy mid heft, not much top at all... using a classic P bass with heavy strings and Ashdown ABM 500 usually to power it in a small room, them in bigger ones.

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3 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

We will need the internal dimensions of your boot for our calculations 😂

Hahaha glad you found my tongue in cheek post amusing, and replied in the same vein.

 

In my Alfa Giulia, amazingly, in a soft gig bag, the bass sitting in the same position as it is when you play it, just fits in the boot diagonally, but only 'standing up' not laying down !!

 

Boot is a whopping 480 litres, but can't fit the Ashdown compact cabs in, as they are too deep. Max cab depth would be around 36cm, so still looking, the Ashdown 2x10 rootmaster III cab fits, but being sealed, and small, lacks enough ooomph for all but the smallest gig. The eternal search continues...

 

https://www.parkers.co.uk/alfa-romeo/giulia/review/practicality/

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7 hours ago, Bassman Rich said:

Hahaha glad you found my tongue in cheek post amusing, and replied in the same vein.

 

In my Alfa Giulia, amazingly, in a soft gig bag, the bass sitting in the same position as it is when you play it, just fits in the boot diagonally, but only 'standing up' not laying down !!

 

Boot is a whopping 480 litres, but can't fit the Ashdown compact cabs in, as they are too deep. Max cab depth would be around 36cm, so still looking, the Ashdown 2x10 rootmaster III cab fits, but being sealed, and small, lacks enough ooomph for all but the smallest gig. The eternal search continues...

 

https://www.parkers.co.uk/alfa-romeo/giulia/review/practicality/


Italian cars have different design criteria (thank God). You might look at Volvo 😆

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21 hours ago, Bassman Rich said:

So, just to recap, can I put my old Kappelite 3015 into a new, smaller cab (that fits in the boot of the car), and it'll be ok ??

You jest, but my guitarist had a cab made specifically by Zilla just to fit the boot of his impractical Mercedes. 

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So are you proposing to build a cab?

 

im assuming since space generally is an issue and given the capability of the Kappalite that you’d go for a 1x15. Essentially a version of the gen 1 Barefaced Compact. If you aren’t going to build then one of those would probably work well for you.

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I put a 3015lf in a 70 litre box and haven't killed it yet with a 400W amp. I added a 4th order 30Hz hpf when I noticed how much palm muting made the cone move.

 

I can't remember the port tuning frequency but I can check if anyone wants to know.

Edited by bremen
added the port frequency bit
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11 hours ago, Bassman Rich said:

In my Alfa Giulia, amazingly, in a soft gig bag, the bass sitting in the same position as it is when you play it, just fits in the boot diagonally, but only 'standing up' not laying down !!

When I was car shopping I had to strike the utterly gorgeous Giulia off my list because the boot aperture was 1/2" too small to get my cab in. I nearly cried.

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2 hours ago, bremen said:

2006 Picasso did it for me, rear seats come out and it turns into an Escort van (virtually)

 

I was looking at the C3 Picasso but wanted as much headroom/visibility as possible, ended up with a Fiat Qubo which is a Fiesta sized van that has foldable/removeable rear seats. Was trying to convince Mrs Lemmywinks to get a C3 last time she was car shopping but she keeps buying these little hobbit cars I have to fold myself in half to get in.

 

My rule now is that if it doesn't also function as a van I'm not interested!

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19 hours ago, lemmywinks said:

I just kinda assumed everyone on here had a Berlingo tbh.

Or like me a Kia Soul EV.

Van like  capacity with back seats folded flat, zero road tax , zero £'s to run as I charge the battery from my solar panels in sunny West Wales. 

Oh and when the sun doesn't shine just £0.07 per kWh on economy Seven over night.

WOT, Who said bassists are SkinFlints 🙄

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22 hours ago, Rich said:

When I was car shopping I had to strike the utterly gorgeous Giulia off my list because the boot aperture was 1/2" too small to get my cab in. I nearly cried.

I prioritised the car over the cab, atm, the cab goes on the back seat !!!

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22 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

If I start a petition, d'ye think I could get this thread locked permanently?

 

 

Let's see where it goes next Jack, speaker characteristics to car boot capacity, beekeeping might be next 😃

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/10/2013 at 14:57, Phil Starr said:

[quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1380620797' post='2227845']
The driver in question is excellent for bass guitar. The damage is a clear case of both excursion and thermal overpowering. Most cheap bass cabs are tuned too high which means they'll unload on low note fundamentals.
[/quote]
[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1380630582' post='2228069']
+1. As is the case with any and all drivers it must be loaded into a cab that is compatible with its specs. If one is to push it to maximum output the amp must at the very least be appropriately high passed, if not limited to the driver's safe operating voltage swing.
In terms of performance the 3015 is on par with an Aston Martin.
[/quote]
[quote name='R Baer' timestamp='1381186373' post='2235685']
+1 The 3015 is a great driver for a bass cabinet. Per the Eminence website "Recommended for vented professional audio enclosures for full range...." Full range would include a bass cab as well. Pretty much any driver can be pushed too hard into over-excursion, or fed enough power to burn out the voice coil. In my experience, there is a tendency for the term "super 12" or "super 15" to be taken as meaning these cabinets are capable of handling anything you can throw at them. Regardless of how well they perform, every cab does in fact has it's limits.
[/quote]

So it is absolutely clear that this speaker is a great choice for bass, Alex Claber, Bill FitzMautice and Roger Baer all agreeing, and full range does mean including bass. it is also clear that the damage was caused by over excursion from the photo's provided by Blue Aran.

The big question then is: was this a suitable cab? To settle this I modelled the cab with WinISD using data from the Warwick website. The cab is just over 140l and tuned to 35Hz.

The frequency plot is poor, the cab rolls off starting at 500Hz and is 6db down at bottom E. This is due to over damping from too large an air mass. A smaller cab would give much better bass. the crucial plot is the excursion plot however. If excursion is in excess of 11mm within the pass band then the failure is due to the cab design. If it is not, the failure is due to something else.

I've attached the plot. This is with 450W power. The Warwick trace is in blue/green the other is Eminence's cab, similar in size to the Compact. You can see the unsuitability of the larger cab, the Compact sized cab keeps excursion within 6mm down to 35Hz the Warwick cab allows the excursion to rise to 10mm in the 'critical 60Hz region' meaning the bass will be distorted due to the misalignment of the port, which is tuned too low for this speaker. Both speakers exceed the damage excursion below 30Hz, though the Warwick is slightly better in this area than the smaller cab.

This wasn't by any means a good choice of cab, it is designed for a speaker with a lower Fs and less well damped than the 3015, a smaller cab tuned to 45Hz would have been better. But, this speaker, in this cab using the full power of the SWR should not have been hitting the back of the magnet as it seems to have done. I guess it was out of manufacturing tolerance.

Hi Phil

 

Very informative post, I wonder if you could help me please. Do you have a link to the speaker/cab modelling site pleas, i'm trying to remove a tweeter from an Ashdown RMIII 2 x 10, not only to make it lighter (I never use the tweeter), but could do with advice as to how to 'tune' the now front ported cab. I'm hoping its just fit a tube of a certain length to the cab, which is braced, and has some acoustic wadding in, and is 445 x 465 x 275 mm internal dimensions, 75 mm dia 'front port' hole. I have no idea what the speakers are, just an Ashdown sticker, ASH/10/16/150/BLACK  2311 (which I assume to mean Ashdown speaker, 10 ", 16 ohm, 150 Watt, black cone , manufactured Nov 2023 )

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21 minutes ago, Bassman Rich said:

Hi Phil

 

Very informative post, I wonder if you could help me please. Do you have a link to the speaker/cab modelling site pleas, i'm trying to remove a tweeter from an Ashdown RMIII 2 x 10, not only to make it lighter (I never use the tweeter), but could do with advice as to how to 'tune' the now front ported cab. I'm hoping its just fit a tube of a certain length to the cab, which is braced, and has some acoustic wadding in, and is 445 x 465 x 275 mm internal dimensions, 75 mm dia 'front port' hole. I have no idea what the speakers are, just an Ashdown sticker, ASH/10/16/150/BLACK  2311 (which I assume to mean Ashdown speaker, 10 ", 16 ohm, 150 Watt, black cone , manufactured Nov 2023 )

Hi Rich, without the Thiele Small parameters you won't be able to calculate a port length with any reliability and if the cab wasn't ported originally the speakers may not be suitable for a ported cab. Your best bet would be to simply cover the hole with a piece of plywood, so long as it is properly airtight the cab is restored to it's original design as far as the speakers are concerned. If you did want to port the cab I'd probably risk tuning it to 50Hz as the resonant frequency of the speakers will probably be around that area, no guarantee though.

 

Ashdown are probably the best though when it comes to after sales and they might cough up the Thiele Small figures if you email them. Equally they might not want to share that information as it would be potentially commercially sensitive.

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55 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

Win ISD is found here http://www.linearteam.org/

 

It's a really good resource provided for free so well worth donating to :)

I've been using  the alpha version, beta was extremely buggy last time I tried it. Is it any better now?

 

https://loudspeakerdatabase.com/

 

is, as you'd hope, a wonderful resource. It exports thiele/small parameters to win ISD (or several other apps)

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16 minutes ago, bremen said:

I've been using  the alpha version, beta was extremely buggy last time I tried it. Is it any better now?

 

https://loudspeakerdatabase.com/

 

is, as you'd hope, a wonderful resource. It exports thiele/small parameters to win ISD (or several other apps)

Thanks, much appreciated. 

 

I'll have a go , see how I get on, expect me back asking you and @bremen questions real sooon !!!

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