Which Markbass cab?

[Tenty]

Hi All

 

I have a Markbass 102 Traveller cab (4 ohm) and a Little Mark 3 head.

I am hoping to buy another extension cab, but am a little ignorant at technical stuff.......I know it would have to be 4 ohm, but would it increase the volume or just greatly improve sound?

 

Also, any recommendations? 

 

Cheers all

[Lozz196]

The LM3 runs at full power at 4ohms, so if you add in another 4ohm cab you`ll need a splitter-box (not sure of the technical terms, but OBBM on here can make one for you). Doubling up on cabs is great, it makes everything sound so much bigger - well twice as big I suppose. In terms of volume it seems louder as the sound is fuller, but as you`re currently getting the full power of the LM3 to your current cab anyway you wouldn`t get any more power, just a greater depth of sound.

[mybass]

Just beaten to the post here by Lozz........I'm afraid to say if you already have a 4 ohm cabinet already, you can't pair it with any other cab as the Markbass amp will only run a total load of 4 ohms.

If you had two cabs of 8ohms each, then your amp will 'read' a 4 ohm load and give its full 500 watts power out into two cabs, bigger and better sound.

I would have to say sell the present 4 ohm cab and get two of the 8 ohm cabs.

[Treb]

19 minutes ago, mybass said:

I would have to say sell the present 4 ohm cab and get two of the 8 ohm cabs.

Yup. Two (preferably identical) 8 ohm cabs or a single 4 ohm cab. Those are your options.

Hook up two 4 ohm cabs and now the resulting load will drop to 2 ohm. Your amp wasn't designed to run at 2 ohm. It will either refuse to work or it will work for some time and then perform a thermal shut down or do a melt down. 

 

Edited January 2, 2018 by Treb

[mcnach]

6 hours ago, Tenty said:

Hi All

 

I have a Markbass 102 Traveller cab (4 ohm) and a Little Mark 3 head.

I am hoping to buy another extension cab, but am a little ignorant at technical stuff.......I know it would have to be 4 ohm, but would it increase the volume or just greatly improve sound?

 

Also, any recommendations? 

 

Cheers all

 

As others have said, the LM3 is design to run at a minimum of 4ohm, which is where you are already with your existing cab. If you add another 4ohm cab, they'll be wired in parallel (99.9% of the cab connectors are wired in parallel, the MarkBass is no exception), which results in an impedance of 2ohm. Not good.

I have run my LM3 with two 4ohm cabs BY MISTAKE, and it survived... but it was only for 10-15 minutes and at home, not very loud. Not something you want to try at a gig, although the amplifier has a protection mode and it will just switch itself off... but best not test it.

What you can do is wire two 4ohm cabs in series, which will give you 8ohm. At 8ohm the LM3 will not give you 500W but around 300W max. This means that depending on the sensitivity of the speakers, the result may work for you, or may be only marginally louder and disappoint you. To wire them in series, you can contact @obbm here and he can make you a little connector box (he did one for me).

The best solution would be to have two 8ohm cabs (ideally identical), or a single larger 4ohm one while keeping your existing one so you can have both a compact and a louder rig. But both situations will cost you more money than buying a single cab. 

 

[mybass]

Or.....try the MarkBass Ninja 2x12”  8 ohm cab that handles up to 800 watts, (you can always add a second cab to this 8ohm Ninja) and as I have this cab and the LM3 I can vouch for it. Or else you could run their other 2x12” cab which is the New York one that only comes as a 4 ohm cab but still 800watts and so your amp could only ‘safely’ run this single cab. It’s the expense to consider now!

[mybass]

I’ve just noticed Physcoandy has a New York cab for sale.

Edited January 3, 2018 by mybass

[CameronJ]

Here we go, The OBBM cab serialiser box - 

 

[martthebass]

I'm with some of the guys above, I'd sell the 4Ohm 2x10 and get a couple of 8's.  I use 2 8Ohm MarkBass NY121's with my LM3 - it gives nice depth and extension (I set the piezos at zero output).  A nice compact set up with 1 cab for rehearsals also.

[MoJoKe]

If you are looking to have a bigger sound, then I would say your best option is definitely to sell the 4ohm cab first. Then you have quite a few options.

If you want to stick with a single cab, the NY122 is a 2 x 12 cab which runs at 4ohm, and can handle up to 800w. Making full use of the amp power.

If you want to use 2 cabs, then they don't need to be the same!  They DO however both need to be 8ohms each. Traveler and New York cabs come in several different sizes. You could use:

2 x TRV102p

2 x TRV151p (or 2 x NY151, slightly more compact, tighter sound) 

2 x TRV121h (or 2 x NY121, the NY is smaller, has a tweeter, with a tighter sound, the TRV has a horn, so has a more throaty sound, but in both cases you can attenuate the horn/tweeter to change the sound of the cabs)

1 x TRV102p and 1 x TRV151p (a very common configuration)

1 x TRV121h and 1 x TRV151p (this is what I most frequently use! Its warmer and punchier than the above! I feel it also gives me more useable options if I choose to use a single cab). 

Hope that helps!

 

[Tenty]

Thanks very much all......a great help!

 

Just a little extra question, my amp only has one output. The cab has an input and then an extension speaker output.

 

If I was to connect a further cab that way (for sake of argument, ignore my 4 ohm cab).......how is it refered to? I'e heard the term series used a lot.

[mcnach]

1 minute ago, Tenty said:

Thanks very much all......a great help!

 

Just a little extra question, my amp only has one output. The cab has an input and then an extension speaker output.

 

If I was to connect a further cab that way (for sake of argument, ignore my 4 ohm cab).......how is it refered to? I'e heard the term series used a lot.

 

In a passive cab (so, anything we're talking about here), if there are multiple sockets, they are wired in parallel. There ARE exceptions... but they are very rare. Always worth checking but I really don't know of any modern cab that's not wired in parallel. If an amplifier has multiple speaker outputs, the same story. So you can treat all the sockets the same. Connect your amp to one cab, then use the spare socket in that cab (or a spare socket in the amp if you had one) and connect that to a second cab. Everything is in parallel.

[MoJoKe]

Your Little Mark 3 has two speaker connectors, one is a combination Speakon AND  1/4 jack (you can use a 1/4 cable OR Speakon), the other a 1/4 jack (below the Speakon) . You can connect one cab to each connection (the newer cabs also have combination Speakons, so you can use Speakon or Jack at each end) or, as I do, use two Speakon cables (Speakon are more solid/stable as they lock in), with the first cab connected to the amp, then the second linked from the first cab. Either way, they will be linked correctly in parallel to work at 4ohm (as long as each cab is 8ohm!).

Edited January 5, 2018 by MoJoKe