Oversized cabs

[MichaelDean]

I had a thought after something Zilla posted on their socials - a massive 212 that is the size of an 810. Looks impressive, but I have found my bass fatboy loud enough for everything I've thrown at it so far.

 

I know that you want to have a big enclosure for bass speakers. I was just curious if there was a point at which an enclosure is too big?

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DD9Sf6VIGzo/?img_index=1

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Not necessarily too big, but there is a point of diminishing returns. Where a 2x12 is concerned they went well past it.

Edited Friday at 12:52 by Bill Fitzmaurice

[ossyrocks]

I’ve had a couple of the old silverface Fender Bandmaster 2x12 cabs. Ridiculous things really, like a wardrobe onstage,  looked impressive, but sounded a bit meh.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I remember when those came out. They were considerably larger than the original Bandmaster and Bassman 2x12 cabs, nearly large enough to have housed four twelves. They were crap, but so were the smaller ones, because the stock drivers they used were cheap generic electric instrument drivers. Loaded with Altecs or JBLs they were pretty good.

[Dan Dare]

On 03/01/2025 at 13:00, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

I remember when those came out. They were considerably larger than the original Bandmaster and Bassman 2x12 cabs, nearly large enough to have housed four twelves. They were crap, but so were the smaller ones, because the stock drivers they used were cheap generic electric instrument drivers. Loaded with Altecs or JBLs they were pretty good.

 

In similar vein, I had the 2x15 Bassman cab back in the day. Awful stock drivers - flimsy pressed steel chassis, tiny magnets and seamed cones made of what looked like recycled greetings cards painted grey. I replaced them with Peavey Black Widows (which were the best I could get in the UK at the time) and it sounded great. Didn't know anything about matching cab volume to drivers, etc, but I must  have got lucky as it worked really well.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Back in Leo's day his stock drivers were whichever he could get the best price on, so they changed from year to year, if not more often. He used the same in both guitar and bass cabs. That didn't change when CBS took over. You had to pay extra for JBL to get decent results. Peavey's upscale Black Widows, which were similar to JBL,were pretty good.