Favourite speaker size 10, 12 or 15 or something else?

[Marty Forrer]

After having all common speaker sizes, including PJB 5", I find 12" suits me best.

[xgsjx]

Having a 4x10 sat under my hall stairs for the past few years, I'd say 10s are now my least fave speaker size.  😂

[fretmeister]

The cab with 10s I like the best was Barefaced

The cab with 15s I like the best was Hartke

The cab with 12s I like the best was Marshall.

 

Funnily enough I was trying to make them all sound like me.

 

 

[BassmanPaul]

Just for the fun and reminiscing of it:

 

I first played though an 18" Goodmans in a cabinet on loan from a friend who built it.

 

Next came my first amplifier of my own a VOX AC50 with the Foundation 18" cabinet. I felt like a Rock Star! LOL

 

I traded that in for an Epiphone constellation that had a Fane 15" installed.

 

That went against a Black face Fender Bassman in blonde with it's 2x12 cabinet. It sounded horrible an I returned it after a weekend. They had sold the Epiphone but I left the Fender anyway.

 

Needing an amp, I bought a slant front Marshall 100W 4x12. To drive it I had  a Leak TL50+ and I built a single tube pre-amp for it that plugged into the pre-amp socket on the Leak. That had the best sound of ANY 50W amp I ever used. Taking a different job I left the band. The front man, Merseyside personality Earl Preston, asked me if I would exchange the Leak for a Bassman head. Figuring the Bassman would be worth more on selling I agreed. As I was no longer playing I sold all the stuff.

 

Coming to Canada I picked up a used Traynor 2x12. I powered it from a Sansui receiver and plugged my bass into it's tape head socket. It worked well and gave us music while we set up.

 

Then I bought an H&H twin 15 and put together a 150W tube amp for it

 

Then came the Bi-amp years. Four TL style cabinet each with a JBL K120. Crossed over into a pair of cabinets I built to house a JBL K145 each. I designed and built a 200W @ 2Ω per channel stereo power amp and a SS pre-amp to drive it. Using this system as Stereo I found out that the whole was less than the parts. These were then sold. The power amp I still own.

 

Currently I use two or sometimes four Acme B2 2x10 three way cabinets. Usually I stack two of them on their ends for a vertical 4x10. These can only be described as wonderful. I use a 2KW capable Class D stereo power amp to push them and I built a two channel tube pre-amp to drive that.

 

I also built a cabinet for a JBL 2225 and a big Celestian tweeter. It sounded great. I gave it away to some children who were interested in learning the bass. I gave them a stereo power amp and a pre-amp to push it. I built them a Jazz bass clone as well.

 

In my mind all the sizes have pros and cons. It just depends on what the player is looking for, his / her ability to pay for the system and their ability to transport the stuff.

 

That's where I stand ATM.

 

 

 

[Al Krow]

For a single speaker solution, although I'd love it, I've yet to find a single 10" cab that can deliver enough volume, by itself, to keep up with a full rock band as backline.

 

Plenty of 12" cabs that easily can. So a single 12" seems to be the cut-off for me.

[Chienmortbb]

On 11/01/2022 at 00:02, Marty Forrer said:

After having all common speaker sizes, including PJB 5", I find 12" suits me best.

I have recently built or rather reimagined an Ashdown 8" Combo and it sounds great, I also have recently heard @Phil Starr's 6" and both are absoluteky fine for practice and the acosutic gigs Phil does. In facr they are more that fine. However when I plug into my 12, it just sounds easy, it oozes the sound I want in my band. That does not mean there is anything wrong with, say a Phil Jones system but smaller speakers are really fighting physics. However for some people the compromise is wort it for the portability and if you are using public transport, I can understand it.

 

 

[Phil Starr]

8 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

I have recently built or rather reimagined an Ashdown 8" Combo and it sounds great, I also have recently heard @Phil Starr's 6" and both are absoluteky fine for practice and the acosutic gigs Phil does. In facr they are more that fine. However when I plug into my 12, it just sounds easy, it oozes the sound I want in my band. That does not mean there is anything wrong with, say a Phil Jones system but smaller speakers are really fighting physics. However for some people the compromise is wort it for the portability and if you are using public transport, I can understand it.

 

 

Have you finished the Eight

 

I think the 'fighting physics' thing is important without being totally crucial. Cone size affects a lot of outcomes though there are technical ways of stretching the limits.  We live in a time where amplifier watts are abundant and cheap, so speaker efficiency isn't so important. FX and amp/speaker modellers are getting better and a guitarist (no booing please) doesn't need a full Marshall stack to 'get their sound' any more. That itself has a knock on effect on the rest of the band and bassists no longer need to 'compete' with guitarists. PA systems have come along so we don't need to fill the room from the backline. We've reached a stage where for most of the time your bass amp only needs to work as a monitor for the band and match the drumkit. A reasonably decent 12" speaker with 300W of amp can be expected to do this. It should go to something like 122db at 1 metre from 80Hz upwards with a -10db point of 40Hz and do so in a reasonably sized portable cab. We no longer really need 4x10's and if you can do it with a 12 why carry a 15. A single 10 will be fine a lot of situations but most if not all will struggle in others. So long as you have PA support for the bigger gigs a good 12 will do almost all you'd want and is the Swiss army knife of cabs.