Boom Bass Cabinets

[NancyJohnson]

I'll profess that I'd never heard of this maker until today, although he seems to have been around for a while in the US.

I was pretty intrigued in what the builder has done with his kit; the enclosure below is actuall a 2x12/1x15/horn w/attenuator; [edit: 2x10/1x15/horn, not 2x12] the front facia is angled slightly up and the 1x15 fires down...the cabinet is ported on three sides, allowing for air to escape front and sides.  This has a power handling of 2.2kw.

Edited March 26, 2021 by NancyJohnson

[Al Krow]

Thanks(?? 😁) for sharing that. They do look intriguing. The 2x10 + 15 version of the one above is discussed at [4.22]. 

 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

It's not ported in the usual fashion. The rear chamber is sealed. There's a down firing driver you can't see operating into a vented chamber, making it a 4th order band pass. There's no mention if the forward firing drivers share the same chamber as the down firing driver. If they do that further complicates the design process to get the best possible result. The commentary in the video leads me to believe that it's more of a seat of the pants design than a high tech design, but that can work too.

[JPJ]

Interesting. One of my favourite ever cabs was the 2x10 + 1x12 Schroeder with the 12” on the angled baffle slanting back into the cab. Proper single cab room filling solution. 

[Phil Starr]

9 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

I'll profess that I'd never heard of this maker until today, although he seems to have been around for a while in the US.

I was pretty intrigued in what the builder has done with his kit; the enclosure below is actuall a 2x12/1x15/horn w/attenuator; the front facia is angle slightly up and the 1x15 fires down...the cabinet is ported on three sides, allowing for air to escape front and sides.  This has a power handling of 2.2kw.

 

It doesn't handle 2.2kW. You just can't dissipate that much heat from the coils in speakers that size. Very few 12's can dissipate more than 300W and even if you allow an extra 1" for the 15" with a bigger voice coil less than 500w is likely to be the limit. So that makes a maximum 1100W AES. Probably the power handling is much lower due to excursion limits.

Air may be escaping all three sides but the sound? well that's omnidirectional at port frequencies so if it doesn't matter if it is front or rear ported how is that important.

Right he's got a 15" driver which is down facing firing through ports and it's "full range" so he doesn't know about radiation patterns off axis or how ports work and it certainly has no crossover. Ouch!

The cab is developed from a "40kg" 2x12 and a "40kg" 1x15 and they've saved some weight by sharing a cab? So this thing weighs in at morbidly obese!

I suppose it is possible they don't know very much and believe their own hype but if they have the above wrong then you can't trust anything they say.

Nice colour though

[Lozz196]

9 hours ago, JPJ said:

Interesting. One of my favourite ever cabs was the 2x10 + 1x12 Schroeder with the 12” on the angled baffle slanting back into the cab. Proper single cab room filling solution. 

Yes, I had one of those and the dispersion was great.

[stevie]

Tilting a cab (or raising it up) doesn't improve a cab's dispersion; it just allows the mid and high frequencies to be beamed in the direction of your ears. It's a fudge because, if you step to the side, those high frequencies disappear. When a cab has good dispersion, the sound remains the same no matter where you're listening from. For the audience too. A good PA cab can do it, but bass cabs usually fail. Which is why they're often tilted or raised.

[NancyJohnson]

8 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

It doesn't handle 2.2kW. etc.

I suppose those darn Yanks just go with the big numbers (I've also amended my initial post, it's a 2x10, not a 2x12), link here: https://www.boombasscabinets.com/products/bbc-matrix/

The wattages shown say, 'Power Handling: 2,200w, Program 1,100w' whatever that means.  I do remember Alex from Barefaced saying that cabinets will take a bit more than their quoted output, so in real world usage examples, 1,100w or 2,200w.  Potato/Potato.

They also have a custom shop so you can customise finishes/grills.

[Al Krow]

Weren't Orange doing something similar with a "doubled up" 12" cab a while back? Albeit same direction facing. 

[NancyJohnson]

11 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Weren't Orange doing something similar with a "doubled up" 12" cab a while back? Albeit same direction facing. 

Yup...they had a front facing 12" with an angled 12" behind it that fired out of a port at the bottom. 

[stevie]

53 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I suppose those darn Yanks just go with the big numbers (I've also amended my initial post, it's a 2x10, not a 2x12), link here: https://www.boombasscabinets.com/products/bbc-matrix/

The wattages shown say, 'Power Handling: 2,200w, Program 1,100w' whatever that means.  I do remember Alex from Barefaced saying that cabinets will take a bit more than their quoted output, so in real world usage examples, 1,100w or 2,200w.  Potato/Potato.

They also have a custom shop so you can customise finishes/grills.

With 2 Faital Pro 10s and a Faital Pro 15 in the box, it's perfectly possible that the thermal power handling is 900W (rms). That's already quite impressive - so why bump it up to 1,100W or 2,200W? And the 300W peak power handling tweeter is just nonsense.

Thermal power handling is irrelevant here anyway, as system output will be limited by driver excursion or port air velocity - more likely the latter - well before the thermal rating is reached.

You can't compare power handling figures unless you know how they've been calculated. Most manufacturers very sensibly base their specs on the power ratings supplied by the driver manufacturers, in which case you'd hope to see RMS or AES standard next to them. If this information is missing, you could well be looking at a figure that is up to twice the actual one.

 

 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

3 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

The wattages shown say, 'Power Handling: 2,200w, Program 1,100w' whatever that means.

It means they're trying to bamboozle you with phony specs. Power handing should always be RMS watts (even though there's technically no such thing as RMS watts, but that's a different discussion). That's probably what the 1,100 watt figure refers to. Not that it matters all that much, because that figure is thermal, while what counts is mechanical power handling. You'll sooner find Waldo than that number.

[Chienmortbb]

On 26/03/2021 at 13:17, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

It means they're trying to bamboozle you with phony specs. Power handing should always be RMS watts (even though there's technically no such thing as RMS watts, but that's a different discussion). That's probably what the 1,100 watt figure refers to. Not that it matters all that much, because that figure is thermal, while what counts is mechanical power handling. You'll sooner find Waldo than that number.

Correct Bill. RMS volts x RMS amps = Average watts but who wants to put Average on a spec sheet. RMS Power is a bit like Democracy, its the worst way to spec a speaker/ run a country but it is the best we have got. OF course once you start driving an inductive load (speaker) you should be quoting VA but then you have t specify the speaker and that is another can of worms.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Chienmortbb

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

It's more complicated than that, because watts vary with current, current varies with impedance, and impedance varies with frequency. With equal dB level output you can be pushing 200w at 50Hz but only 40w at 70Hz. Voltage delivery is a constant into any load impedance, so by all rights both amps and speakers should be rated for maximum voltage, but someone decided on watts back in the 1920s and we've been stuck with it ever since.

[Downunderwonder]

Peavey used to spec amps with VA, which at least made you think about it.

[Steve Browning]

Can't help but think 'Boom' doesn't conjure up an image of nicely controlled output! Boom is the last thing you want!!

[Noisyjon]

I can't get past the acronym BBC. I don't suppose Auntie will be to amused!

[NancyJohnson]

Can't we just get past the names and claims?

It's an interesting combination of speaker/horn content and irrespective of heat etc. it'll easily handle pretty much anything you squirt into it.  

[Noisyjon]

2 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Can't we just get past the names and claims?

It's an interesting combination of speaker/horn content and irrespective of heat etc. it'll easily handle pretty much anything you squirt into it.  

OK, yes, and was only attempting some humour to help ease a dull, groundhog, 'lockdown starting to ease' type day.

Apologies and back OT.

Interesting concept and I would love to hear one in person and 'up to level' with a drummer & guitarist to see what they're all about.

Are you thinking of getting one NJ?

 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, Noisyjon said:

Are you thinking of getting one NJ?

I can't get passed the NJ acronym. Not sure you're going to be too happy with that Noisyjon? 

😁

[NancyJohnson]

2 hours ago, Noisyjon said:

Are you thinking of getting one NJ?

If I were gigging and my back was in better shape, this would suit me down to the ground.  All bases covered.

Weightwise, it's 56lbs...considering my Darkglass 1x12 is 28lb, that doesn't seem too much.  Put some wheels on it, job done.

[Al Krow]

Tell you what if Alex C, or someone equally competent who we trusted to be totally on top of what they're doing, came out with something like this, I suspect it would get a lot of attention. 

And knowing Alex or the GR crew it could well end up being sub 40 lbs. 

[NancyJohnson]

16 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Tell you what if Alex C, or someone equally competent who we trusted to be totally on top of what they're doing, came out with something like this, I suspect it would get a lot of attention. 

And knowing Alex or the GR crew it could well end up being sub 40 lbs. 

@Wolverinebass and I had a lengthy chat with Alex at a Bash a few years ago; I'm sure he'd be bonkers enough to build a prototype.  I've no idea how the internals would work... I'm assuming that the 2x10s would need to be in their own box inside the enclosure?  It's a tiny cabinet.

[Al Krow]

Calling @alexclaber...we've got another mad product idea for you, if you're interested?! 

[NancyJohnson]

43 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Calling @alexclaber...we've got another mad product idea for you, if you're interested?! 

It's odd how things have gone for me cabinet wise...I started on a 1x18, went through a vareity of combos with extensions, I used to have this Laney set up of a 2x15 and 2x10, then onto this huge Trace Eliot driven tri-amp set up thing (two SWR cabinets and a bright-box), Ashdown MAGs, the Hartke endorsement (1x15/4x10), then I won Alex's Barefaced Big One Protoype (which is about a metre away from where I'm typing this).

My home set-up is currently a Darkglass 1x12, which is nice and gnarly - I'm hoping they'll do a matching 1x15 this year, buy that would just be a vanity purchase.

As time has gone one, I've become very much a one box solution type of player (OK, while the AO900 isn't doing it for me, the wattage on tap is hard to deny when I'm pushing the dUg through it).  If the Boom Matrix had been around ten years ago, then I certainly would have given it some consideration; it does tick all the boxes.