Cabs and volume

[SteveXFR]

Right, I'll brace myself for the accusations that I'm an idiot. 

Will a 1x10, 2x10 and 4x10 cab output the same volume levels for the same volume setting on the same amp?

[Mudpup]

I haven't a clue what I'm talking about scientifically but I would hazard a guess they wouldn't.

 

SPL would be affected by the amount of air moved at a set volume on the amp. And a 2x10 is moving twice as much air as a 1x10. I don't think it would be twice as loud but I'm sure someone who knows what they're talking about will pop up soon and explain 🙂

 

 

[Lozz196]

Well each cab will have its own efficiency so difficult one, it’s possible to plug into a few different 410s with the same amp and get wildly different results, some needing much more from the amp.
 

There’s then the amount of cones working - more speakers I’ve found make the sound bigger with a greater depth, not necessarily louder, but again difficult to really judge this.

[SteveXFR]

The reason I ask is I've gone from an Orange OBC410 to an Eden Nemesis 210 and the Eden doesn't sound as big but it's definitely louder. This surprised me.

[Lozz196]

Efficiency (or is it sensitivity I’m thinking of). I had an Eden Nemesis 410 which was very loud indeed. I very temporarily swapped to another 410 and with the same settings it was like I hadn’t switched the amp on.

[SteveXFR]

That's interesting. The Eden cab has a very harsh sound so I may change it anyway. The attack when playing with a pick is like a sledge hammer on a metal tank. With fingers it's fine but since I'm mostly playing punk, I'm mostly using a pick. 

[Downunderwonder]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

Right, I'll brace myself for the accusations that I'm an idiot. 

Will a 1x10, 2x10 and 4x10 cab output the same volume levels for the same volume setting on the same amp?

Ordinarily, hell no.

25 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

The reason I ask is I've gone from an Orange OBC410 to an Eden Nemesis 210 and the Eden doesn't sound as big but it's definitely louder. This surprised me.

You have hit on an exception.

 

I guess Eden have gamed the system a little to give you a cab that is loud but has given away trying to make lows. If you go further down that path you have a guitar cab that can tear your head off with 100w.

[SimonK]

Someone will come in with a formula in a moment to provide the answer in terms of SPL, but I certainly find that for the same volume I get better dispersal with more speakers, and thus I actually prefer to practice at home at low volume with as many speakers as possible - I use a Marshall 4x12 and TE 4x10 for guitar and bass respectively at home, and despite the low volumes think they sound much better than the fewer speaker options I have. But I do think this is to do with sound dispersal rather than anything else.

 

Thinking logically, speaker area must have an effect on SPL - if you google it there is a talkbass thread that seems to think 3dB every time you double the speaker area with no change in the amp settings.

[chris_b]

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

Will a 1x10, 2x10 and 4x10 cab output the same volume levels for the same volume setting on the same amp?

 

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

The reason I ask is I've gone from an Orange OBC410 to an Eden Nemesis 210 and the Eden doesn't sound as big but it's definitely louder.

 

 

 

There are no stupid questions. . . . but the answer is, it depends.

 

Depends on the amount of air the driver can move, the number of drivers, the size of the cab and probably a dozen other parameters which will affect the sound and volume. I have 2 x 112 cabs that sound louder than my previous 3 x 112 cabs. A previous 212 sounded louder than my 410.

 

The Eden is probably designed to put out less bass and more mids.

[Stub Mandrel]

Your question is only easily answered if the cabs have the same drivers, ohm rating, and frequency response.

 

In theory:

Double power- add 3dB

Double cone area- add 3dB

Halve impedance- add 3dB (but only if amp can give double the power.

 

Ten times power- add 10dB.

 

Note: 3dB is typically enough for the untrained ear 'to hear a difference'. 10dB is 'twice as loud' (at mid range frequencies and average volumes).

 

Bass needs about 10dB more to sound louder than just an octave higher (guitar) due to psycho-acoustic effects (loudness curve), which is one reason why bass amps need to be so powerful.

 

The EASIEST way to sound louder is to get a more efficient drivers in a well designed cab, which is why some of the small, light modern cabs sound as loud as old fridge-sized 8x10 cabs.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

OK, so if the same driver is used, and the same box volume and tuning per driver is used, with parallel wiring the 2x10 will be 6dB louder than the 1x10. If the 4x10 is parallel wired it will be 6dB louder than the 2x10. However, chances are the 4x10 can't be parallel wired, because the impedance load would be too low for the amp to handle. It would likely be wired series/parallel. In that case it would be the same as the 2x10. The 4x10 can go 6dB louder than the 2x10, but only by turning up the volume. And all the conditions must be met. If any or all of them aren't then the calculation doesn't work.

[funkydoug]

Is it fair to say that in Bill’s scenario of a series-parallel 410 vs a parallel 210, the drivers in the 410 will each be further away from their excursion limits and so there may be more low end response at medium volume and above?

 

Another factor may be that (if stood vertically) the 210 will probably disperse mids wider than the 410, so depending on stage positioning it may sound louder.

Edited 21 hours ago by funkydoug

[DaleASmith]

7 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

OK, so if the same driver is used, and the same box volume and tuning per driver is used, with parallel wiring the 2x10 will be 6dB louder than the 1x10. If the 4x10 is parallel wired it will be 6dB louder than the 2x10. However, chances are the 4x10 can't be parallel wired, because the impedance load would be too low for the amp to handle. It would likely be wired series/parallel. In that case it would be the same as the 2x10. The 4x10 can go 6dB louder than the 2x10, but only by turning up the volume. And all the conditions must be met. If any or all of them aren't then the calculation doesn't work.

isn’t it the case that the extra volume here is due to the reduced resistance being presented to the amp? 
The question is a 1x10 and 4x10 both the same load ( 4 ohms say ) and same sensitivity, would the 4x10 be louder, or would they be equal? 
for the record I have no idea. I feel like the 4x10 should move more air, but my opinion means nothing 😂

[Stub Mandrel]

32 minutes ago, DaleASmith said:

isn’t it the case that the extra volume here is due to the reduced resistance being presented to the amp? 
The question is a 1x10 and 4x10 both the same load ( 4 ohms say ) and same sensitivity, would the 4x10 be louder, or would they be equal? 
for the record I have no idea. I feel like the 4x10 should move more air, but my opinion means nothing 😂

 

3dB from the extra piwer into 4 rather than 8 ohms.

 

3dB from extra area.

[Pea Turgh]

10 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

There are no stupid questions. . . .

Challenge accepted:

 

How many pieces of pizza can you fit in a trombone?

[chris_b]

46 minutes ago, Pea Turgh said:

Challenge accepted:

 

How many pieces of pizza can you fit in a trombone?

 

Trombone or trombone player?

[SimonK]

36 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

Trombone or trombone player?

 

I can't ever recall doing it with pizza, but certainly interfering with the brass players plumbing is standard par for the course certainly in relatively junior (or immature) band situations! As is lobbing things at the tubas when the conductor isn't looking...

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

5 hours ago, funkydoug said:

Is it fair to say that in Bill’s scenario of a series-parallel 410 vs a parallel 210, the drivers in the 410 will each be further away from their excursion limits and so there may be more low end response at medium volume and above?

Axial frequency response of the 210 and 410 will be almost identical. It would favor the 410 with enough voltage for the 210 to suffer from power compression both thermal and mechanical, but that's a different question than what the OP asked.

Quote

Another factor may be that (if stood vertically) the 210 will probably disperse mids wider than the 410, so depending on stage positioning it may sound louder.

True, the mids will sound louder off-axis.
 

Quote

 

3dB from the extra piwer into 4 rather than 8 ohms.

3dB from extra area.

 

Not quite. In the OPs scenario the voltage to each cab is the same. In the case of the 210 the displacement (T/S spec Vd) is doubled. When you double displacement with the same voltage to each driver, as is the case with parallel wiring, you get a 6dB increase in sensitivity. Doubling Vd again with the 410 would get you another 6dB with parallel wiring, but with series/parallel wiring the voltage to the individual drivers is halved, which reduces sensitivity by 6dB for a net zero gain over the 210. To realize the 6dB higher maximum SPL from the 410 compared to the 210 you'd have to turn up the volume to double the voltage output, which then results in all four drivers receiving the same voltage as those in the 210.

 

The takeaway here is that it's not the power or cone area that counts. It's the voltage and the driver displacement.

Edited 18 hours ago by Bill Fitzmaurice

[fretmeister]

3 hours ago, Pea Turgh said:

Challenge accepted:

 

How many pieces of pizza can you fit in a trombone?

 

How many trombones can you fit in an oboe player before they (thankfully) stop playing?

[ghostwheel]

6 hours ago, fretmeister said:

 

How many trombones can you fit in an oboe player before they (thankfully) stop playing?

up to three bevor one or the other animal protection agency gets involved 

[Phil Starr]

On 19/01/2025 at 19:59, SteveXFR said:

Right, I'll brace myself for the accusations that I'm an idiot. 

Will a 1x10, 2x10 and 4x10 cab output the same volume levels for the same volume setting on the same amp?

 

23 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

The reason I ask is I've gone from an Orange OBC410 to an Eden Nemesis 210 and the Eden doesn't sound as big but it's definitely louder. This surprised me.

What a great question and the answer is actually quite subtle and probably something we all ought to know if we are playing amplified music.

 

Now the first thing is how do we measure loudness? Most people would say 'in decibels' but that's not quite right. The actual measurement of loudness is the phon. More of that later.

 

The decibel is actually a slightly difficult concept and is used to describe slightly different things, it can be used to describe the electrical gain in an amplifier or preamplifier or the sound energy level at a particular point, they are of course closely related but not the same thing. For that reason the decibel (more accurately the Bel isn't accepted as a SI unit though it is regulated and recognised by ISO and IEC). It was initially invented by Bell for measuring the loss along a mile of standard telegraph cable with one decibel being the smallest loss that anyone would notice and 1dB remains the smallest change in volume that anyone will notice.

 

The other way the decibel reflects our hearing is that it is a logarythmic scale. for us to hear a doubling of volume it takes 10x more power. It's a brilliant piece of organic/evolutionary engineering which lets us hear a leaf blowing across a forest floor several meters away but still cope with a herd of elephants charging or even a volcano or landslide. It's not so good when you are buying an amplifier, a 10W amp will give you 10dB over a 1W amp but that will only double the sound level. If you want it four times louder then you need to increase the amp to 100W to get your extra 10dB and then doubling again to eight times louder will need 1000W. Sorry to tell you but moving out your 500W bass amp for an 800W monster gives you just over 1dB extra headroom, only just noticeable and not really worth the expense.

 

Now this is all about gain so far and in telegraph cables you get 1dB loss for each mile mile of cable and in amps doubling the power gives you an extra 3dB of sound. Go back and have a look at BFM's excellent explanation of what happens with 2x10's and 4x10's and you can see what a good deal an extra 6db is compared with the 1dB gained by buying an 800W amp

 

So this is where we move from sound levels to actual loudness, how it sounds to us and the reason why some amps sound louder than others, the mystery or Trace watts if you like. Sound is frequency dependent humans can't hear bass very well, we feel bass when it's loud, our ears aren't much better at picking up bass than the stretch receptors in our guts and on our skin, Similarly we don't hear bats very well or anything much above a few thousand Hz, our hearing is much more sensitive at around 1,000Hz quite high in the midrange and the quietest sounds we can only detect here, the rustle of that leaf blown through the forest. When we remove the measuring microphone and pressure measurements we start again with a new decibel scale. One decibel is now defined differently as the quietest sound we can hear at 1,000Hz, something twice as loud (still at 1,000hz) is 10dB and your bass speaker producing 90db is 1,000,000,000 times louder than that at 1khz with just one watt or less! but at bottom E our hearing has lost most of that energy, deliberately filtered out by the working of the ear and then by the brain. You've lost 30dB or three of those noughts or in terms of hearing the 1.000Hz noise if 8x louder than the fundamental of bottom E. This is where the Phon comes in, it compares all the sound with the 1kHz sounds and allows for all the trickery of the ear/brain interface.

 

Very few people use Phon's, we use decibels because we can measure them and anyone using them knows about Phons and equal loudnessbut there's one big practical thing about knowing all this for musicians. I terms of perception any aplification systen that emphasises the midrange is going to sound louder and for a long time speakers in particular have tended to have huge peaks in the midrange a 6db boost isn't unusual and this can make a cheap 100W amp sound as loud as a really honest high quality 400W amp. Actually the whole of rock'n'roll was founded on that sound so I shouldnt use words like honest, people love this artificial boost and it sounds good to them. The thing for you when buying an amp is to realise that Trace, Orange and many others are made to sound loud for a reason and if your tone rolls off those frequencies you might not be using all that boost.

 

If you've read all this I apologise, I'm such a nerd As a final treat these are the equal loudness curves ISO version