AudioDigital Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 I recently purchased a used Tannoy Cougar stage monitor from the 1980's. My intention is to use this as a booth monitor (mix monitor) when DJ'ing live as I am usually located behind the loudspeakers and reflection is a big problem so having this on the floor beside me would be great My thought was simply to use a cougar but now i have it the cougar seems to have been tuned/designed to be very mid/high oriented with very little bass despite that 15" driver. I have been able to get decent bass from it as it stands by simply boosting the lower frequencies (by 50%) on my mixer but this is not a workable fix and the bass levels are still low. The cougar uses the Tannow 3859 driver and I cant find out much about it ? I used to own a pair of Puma's which had the 3805 drivers and these were flawless across the range with great bass response but they did have a larger cabinet which was also ported. The Cougar is a sealed cabinet but has handles so I removed one just to see if this improves bass response, it does a little 3-4% but as its a non-ported cabinet design i feel this would will stress the driver (and likely blow it) under load. I'd like to know what my options are really as i need a small cabinet of this size All the models in the wildcat range had differing crossovers so potentially a crossover change could fix it ? It doesnt need to go super loud as its not public facing just has to give me a good sound to mix with and a decent bass level is important for this! If anyone has any experience with these or in this field generally i'd be grateful for your input Many Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 OK the caveat is that I know nothing about the Tannoy and this is all from basic principles. If it's a small sealed cab then it's probable that the low end is deliberately rolled off, it may have been designed for vocal monitoring mainly and the lower frequencies aren't needed and aren't present in the vocal range anyway. It would be normal to use a sharp 80Hz filter anyway so nothing below that. I guess if you are mixing then you need to hear the sound as the audience? In a band situation i'd be really happy with bass roll off as the bass from your mains is omni-directional and you get a lot of bass even behind. Have you tried these live yet or is it that they don't work at home? The mix of direct sound from these and bass from the FOH speakers might be workable??? Porting the cab might work but at the very least you need to tune it to a sensible frequency, just removing a handle won't cut it and could severely reduce power handling and hence reliability. If you can find the Thiele/Small parameters for the drivers someone could optimise the port dimensions for you. If not you'll have to go old school. it's relatively easy to find the resonant frequency of the speaker and you could tune the cab to that or just trust that the resonant frequency is around 50Hz which works OK most of the time and tune the cab to 50 Hz. We'd need to know the internal volume of the cab to calculate that for you. It would probably work but no guarantees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwoTimesBass Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 I don't have experience of the Cougars but have used plenty of the newer T-12's. Without being disrespectful, i'm not sure the Cougar is the right speaker for what you want to do with it, and you could spend a lot of time and effort trying to make it do what you want, and damage the speaker in the process. Sealed cab designs are rare in PA speakers, because they don't offer the LF response within a small enough cabinet. For comparison the T-12's have 4 ports with the same type of dual-concentric driver and can also be used in a monitor configuration. Adjusting crossovers or adding ports is a massive risk if the driver is a 30+ y/o original unit. And i'd be surprised if the driver is original as the Tannoy dual-concentric design was very easy to pop. Is there any damage to the suspension around the cone (the rubber ring round the edge) as this would cause leakage and a loss of low end? Also, what kind of amp are you driving it with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) I hadn't realised this was the dual concentric, I built a couple of cabs for the Monitor Golds based on the Westminster back in the day. Your's seem to be a pro PA version with a straight sided cone but the same motor system. Those cabs are tiny for a speaker of that configuration and the catalogues show the frequency response or 100-20,000Hz which is why you're getting no bass, They are clearly vocal and instrumental monitors where keeping bass out of the mics would be important. It also looks like they are collectors items so messing around with the cabs makes little sense as you'd be reducing their value. There are ads for these with $1,000 tags in the states. https://www.hilberink.nl/codehans/tannoy125.htm https://www.hilberink.nl/speaker.htm Edited September 14, 2020 by Phil Starr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudioDigital Posted May 12, 2023 Author Share Posted May 12, 2023 (edited) UPDATE: So i've used this cougar as a monitor for a while now and because I have the T40 subs the lack of bass is a non-issue - it's only when the Cougar is run on its own that the lack of bass is notable. Its an impressive little speaker really! Edited May 12, 2023 by AudioDigital Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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