To feet or not to feet, that is the question...

[TRBboy]

I've had a LOT of cabs over the past nearly 30 years, some with feet and some not. Can't say it made any particular difference to sound, but feet definitely help stop the corners and bottom of the cab getting scuffed. 

 

Does anyone have any particular thoughts on whether feet are a good idea or not, and why?

 

I've just bought a pair of Markbass NY151 cabs which don't have feet. My GR Bass 410+ does. Wondering if I should put feet on the Markbass cabs...

 

Thanks, 

 

Oli

Edited Wednesday at 21:03 by TRBboy

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Feet don't affect the sound but they do make the cab more durable. I can't fathom any reason to not have them. However, the Markbass cab corners do extend past the panel, so they do act as feet of a sort. They also interlock when cabs are stacked, so that's the reasoning behind them. For added protection I'd add feet to the cab that's going to be on the bottom of the stack.

[DGBass]

Screwing rubber feet onto shiny new Markbass cabs might affect your warranty, and with a lot of lightweight thinner walled cabs, there often isn't a great deal of wood to hold a screw for a decent sized rubber foot. I recently road tested an LFSYS Goodwood cab and it had no feet, but did have hard plastic stackable corners. At under 9kg, there wasn't a lot of weight to 'plant' it on a hard wood floor. The simple solution was to use a 'mighty mat' non slip carpet mat, the type that can be bought cheap at most DIY or convenience stores. Protects the cab, stops it slipping around, also protects the flooring, and no need for rubber feet. Saying that, I will always fit decently large rubber feet on bigger and used cabs and amp heads, even if they have stackable plastic corners like Markbass kit has. For brand new stuff with a warranty, I'd prefer using a mighty mat. 

[Pow_22]

For some reason my Gen 1 Barefaced compact doesn't have feet and there are no holes to suggest it ever did.  I have thought about adding some as one regular place we play has a laminate floor that doesn't appear to be particularly level and the cab rocks slightly on that surface

[Ed_S]

Where carpeted cabs only have stacking corners, I'd always fit rubber feet to avoid them soaking up the usual cocktail of beer, fruit juice and other less wholesome substances that ends up all over most venue floors and car parks by the end of a night. I totally get the warranty concerns about driving screws into the bottom of a new cab, but I consider the alternative a much worse situation so I've attached rubber feet to all my Markbass cabs and combos before taking them out. Never had any problems with either the feet or the carpet covering, so my vote is definitely to feet.

 

My CMD 121p for example - still nice and clean:

 

[TRBboy]

Thanks for all the replies guys, there's more to consider than I'd thought! 🤣

 

I'm not worried about warranty really, and I think I'd argue the toss with them anyway, as any warranty issue would be to do with electronic components, not the structure of the cabinet. 

 

Those cabs must be 20-22mm thick at a guess, so no worries about screwing into them. 

 

I got to thinking about it because one of the cabs is used, and the carpet on the bottom (destined for a trim with the hair clippers!) is a bit fluffed up and had all sorts of detritus stuck in it before I cleaned it. 

 

I like that the corners stack, but at some points I'm going to want to use them side by side, so both would be feet or no feet....

 

@DGBass I like the idea of the matting, would you be able to show what you mean? 

 

@Pow_22 I've had similar issues in the past just using the corners, uneven floors and some weird vibration depending on the floor surface. The corners are hard plastic whereas the feet are rubber, so you avoid any such nonsense.

 

Leaning towards feet at the moment I think...

 

@Ed_S did you base your positioning of the feet on anything, or was it just a tongue-out and squint approximation? 😅

[DGBass]

43 minutes ago, TRBboy said:

@DGBass I like the idea of the matting, would you be able to show what you mean? 

 

Something like this rubber nonslip mat, with a soft carpet top. Rolls up and fits in the gig bag easily too.

[Phil Starr]

 

 

I hope you don't mind me using this image but it illustrates the problem for manufacturers.

 

If you look at the top left corner has two diagonal ridges and three hollows. Top right has three ridges and two hollow channels. When stacked the corners on the top cab interlock with those on the bottom and the riges are thick enough that the bottom panel is held clear of the floor. The corner is also the foot. The fitted round feet are obviously better than the corners in clearing the floor but will stop the cabs interlocking. If I were buying two cabs to stack I would expect interlocking corners and which manufacturer wouldn't want their cabs to stack neatly. It drives you nuts though if there is a top handle and the corners wont separte the cabs enough to accomodate the handle and the top cab rocks. You can't suit all of the people all of the time.

[chris_b]

I had Bergantino 112 and 210 cabs and the 210 didn't have feet on the right surface to stack with the 112.

 

I didn't want to drill holes in those cabs so bought a set of feet from Maplins and placed them between the cabs.

 

A good solution that didn't require woodworking tools or damage to the cabs.

[Ed_S]

2 hours ago, TRBboy said:

 

@Ed_S did you base your positioning of the feet on anything, or was it just a tongue-out and squint approximation? 😅

 

It was kinda squinty - I wanted them close enough to the edges to be stable and far enough away from them to still be well under, so I matched them up (by eye) with the centre of the first large ridge or channel. Very scientific.

 

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

 

 

I hope you don't mind me using this image but it illustrates the problem for manufacturers.

 

If you look at the top left corner has two diagonal ridges and three hollows. Top right has three ridges and two hollow channels. When stacked the corners on the top cab interlock with those on the bottom and the riges are thick enough that the bottom panel is held clear of the floor. The corner is also the foot. The fitted round feet are obviously better than the corners in clearing the floor but will stop the cabs interlocking. If I were buying two cabs to stack I would expect interlocking corners and which manufacturer wouldn't want their cabs to stack neatly. It drives you nuts though if there is a top handle and the corners wont separte the cabs enough to accomodate the handle and the top cab rocks. You can't suit all of the people all of the time.

 

Can only speak for myself, of course, but I think plastic stacking corners will always be a massively inferior solution to metal corners that don't break and rubber feet that give significant ground clearance. I used to have the NY121 cabinet to put under the CMD121p and even then I had rubber feet on both; even if you never use the combo on its own, at some point you have to put the combo down on the ground, so if its carpet then collects guff it'll just be transferred onto the top of the extension cab. I'll take misaligned over soiled.

 

I suppose if the stacking corners were redesigned so that the ridges had undercuts in them (kinda mushroom shaped in profile, if you get what I mean) and there was an optional corner-piece with a rubber foot mounted on it, that was moulded to interlock with the new shape, slide diagonally into the corner and lock in place somehow, that would give you the option of both. But it'd still be made of plastic.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

2 hours ago, TRBboy said:

  but at some points I'm going to want to use them side by side

 

Avoid that. It makes it harder to hear them, for you and the audience. Vertical sources always work better.

[Lozz196]

I think I`ve only had a couple of set-ups where the cabs stack together with the plastic corner things, but in each case, due to more than a bit of ODC in always wanting to use the same cabs in the same position I`ve put feet on the one I`ve chosen to be the bottom one.

[TRBboy]

2 hours ago, Ed_S said:

 

It was kinda squinty - I wanted them close enough to the edges to be stable and far enough away from them to still be well under, so I matched them up (by eye) with the centre of the first large ridge or channel. Very scientific.

 

 

Can only speak for myself, of course, but I think plastic stacking corners will always be a massively inferior solution to metal corners that don't break and rubber feet that give significant ground clearance. I used to have the NY121 cabinet to put under the CMD121p and even then I had rubber feet on both; even if you never use the combo on its own, at some point you have to put the combo down on the ground, so if its carpet then collects guff it'll just be transferred onto the top of the extension cab. I'll take misaligned over soiled.

 

I suppose if the stacking corners were redesigned so that the ridges had undercuts in them (kinda mushroom shaped in profile, if you get what I mean) and there was an optional corner-piece with a rubber foot mounted on it, that was moulded to interlock with the new shape, slide diagonally into the corner and lock in place somehow, that would give you the option of both. But it'd still be made of plastic.

Agree with your thoughts here!

[TRBboy]

1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Avoid that. It makes it harder to hear them, for you and the audience. Vertical sources always work better.

Yeah, it will only be when they're sitting under my 4x10 👍

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Playing arenas with no PA? 😄

[TRBboy]

6 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Playing arenas with no PA? 😄

More like farmer's fields on the back of a trailer, with a small PA 🤣

[stevie]

5 hours ago, Ed_S said:

Can only speak for myself, of course, but I think plastic stacking corners will always be a massively inferior solution to metal corners that don't break and rubber feet that give significant ground clearance.

Modern plastic feet/corners are quite tough, but subjected to enough force, they will crack. What may not be immediately obvious is that, by deforming, they act like a crumple zone to protect the cabinet corner - and they're cheap and easy to replace. Because they're more rigid, metal corners  transmit most of the force through to the corner.

Edited 22 hours ago by stevie

[Ed_S]

1 minute ago, stevie said:

Modern plastic feet/corners are quite tough, but subjected to enough force, they will crack. What may not be immediately obvious is that, by deforming, they act like a crumple zone to protect the cabinet corner - and they're cheap and easy to replace. Because they're more rigid, metal corners  transmit most of the force through to the corner.

 

That's fair, I can see how that'd work from an engineering standpoint. I guess 'inferior' is a poor choice of word without a good deal more qualification, isn't it. Better to simply say I personally don't like them for a number of reasons, both practical and aesthetic, and much prefer my cabs to have metal corners and rubber feet.

 

Is your preference for the plastic all-in-ones such that you'd actively avoid metal/rubber?

[Phil Starr]

7 hours ago, Ed_S said:

 

I suppose if the stacking corners were redesigned so that the ridges had undercuts in them (kinda mushroom shaped in profile,

 

There are cabs with a round 'dimple' routed out to receive a round foot.

 

1 hour ago, Ed_S said:

 

That's fair, I can see how that'd work from an engineering standpoint. I guess 'inferior' is a poor choice of word without a good deal more qualification, isn't it.

 

 

I deliberately deleted the word better from my post though I did contemplate 'better' but in the end there are a lot of compromises involved in cab design and the feet/corners are the least of the worries. Or should tht be 'least'

[tubbybloke68]

On 24/04/2025 at 00:02, DGBass said:

Screwing rubber feet onto shiny new Markbass cabs might affect your warranty, and with a lot of lightweight thinner walled cabs, there often isn't a great deal of wood to hold a screw for a decent sized rubber foot. I recently road tested an LFSYS Goodwood cab and it had no feet, but did have hard plastic stackable corners. At under 9kg, there wasn't a lot of weight to 'plant' it on a hard wood floor. The simple solution was to use a 'mighty mat' non slip carpet mat, the type that can be bought cheap at most DIY or convenience stores. Protects the cab, stops it slipping around, also protects the flooring, and no need for rubber feet. Saying that, I will always fit decently large rubber feet on bigger and used cabs and amp heads, even if they have stackable plastic corners like Markbass kit has. For brand new stuff with a warranty, I'd prefer using a mighty mat. 

I decided to put feet on my LFSYS monzas as i felt the locking corners didn’t feel stable enough when stacked. l also used a flexible adhesive and measured the screws carefully beforehand and am very happy with the results. Road testing a new cab hey?? Oooo that’s a teaser! Pray tell ….🤣x 

[Jack]

22 hours ago, chris_b said:

I had Bergantino 112 and 210 cabs and the 210 didn't have feet on the right surface to stack with the 112.

 

I didn't want to drill holes in those cabs so bought a set of feet from Maplins and placed them between the cabs.

 

A good solution that didn't require woodworking tools or damage to the cabs.

My Barefaced FR800s had feet on the bottom, but then when you stacked two it went horn>woofer>horn>woofer which I never really liked. I preferred to stack them sideways so you had a column of horns and a column of woofers next to each other, but they didn't have feet on the sides. Anyway, I bought a 4 pack of black hockey pucks for next to nothing online and they worked a treat. Tough, lights, black, rubber so a little vibration-absorbing, great.

 

 

EDIT - It's been bothering me that I would have needed 8 pucks for 2 cabs so I dug through some old photos and they did have feet on the sides, it's just that they weren't tall enough to clear the handle on the below cabinet.

Edited 6 hours ago by Jack

[Phil Starr]

28 minutes ago, Jack said:

My Barefaced FR800s had feet on the bottom, but then when you stacked two it went horn>woofer>horn>woofer which I never really liked. I preferred to stack them sideways so you had a column of horns and a column of woofers next to each other, but they didn't have feet on the sides. Anyway, I bought a 4 pack of black hockey pucks for next to nothing online and they worked a treat. Tough, lights, black, rubber so a little vibration-absorbing, great.

 

If you are combining two tweetered cabs then it is better to stack them vertically with the tweeters as close together as possible, so  as you say horn>woofer>horn>woofer is not good. There are two approaches, simply invert the top speaker so the horn is now on the bottom and in some cabs very close to the horn on the bottom cab, this approximates to a D'Appolito configuration giving a fairly coherent wavefront but you'll get some phase issues in the vertical plane due to the spacing between the horns.  You've now moved the two mid bass drivers further apart so you'll lower the point where the mids become directional and start beaming so this works best in speakers where the crossover is lower like the LFSys. Radiation in the horizontal plane should be good and a lot beter than a side by side arrangement.

The second method is to stack the speakers but on their sides with woofer above woofer and horn above horn in a classic line array. The problem with this is that the horns are on their side and typically they are designed to radiate a wide horizontal beam which will now be narrow and high. The audence may hear less detail in the bass guitar if they are off axis but the player will benefit from the extra height which will be giving more upper mids to their ears. If you were doing this regularly then you could rotate the horns. LFSys have the horns rotated already though to direct the mids to the bassists ears whilst in the conventional position.

 

Sometimes I bore myself

[stevie]

16 hours ago, Ed_S said:

 

That's fair, I can see how that'd work from an engineering standpoint. I guess 'inferior' is a poor choice of word without a good deal more qualification, isn't it. Better to simply say I personally don't like them for a number of reasons, both practical and aesthetic, and much prefer my cabs to have metal corners and rubber feet.

 

Is your preference for the plastic all-in-ones such that you'd actively avoid metal/rubber?

My overall preference is for the plastic ones because they offer more protection for the corners and allow for easy stacking (in both portrait and landscape formats). There are some horrible plastic ones which look cheap, but I think the small, chevron types can look very smart. To answer your question, @Ed_S, I certainly wouldn't avoid metal corners and rubber feet, and I can understand your preference.

[Jack]

13 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

 

If you are combining two tweetered cabs then it is better to stack them vertically with the tweeters as close together as possible, so  as you say horn>woofer>horn>woofer is not good. There are two approaches, simply invert the top speaker so the horn is now on the bottom and in some cabs very close to the horn on the bottom cab, this approximates to a D'Appolito configuration giving a fairly coherent wavefront but you'll get some phase issues in the vertical plane due to the spacing between the horns.  You've now moved the two mid bass drivers further apart so you'll lower the point where the mids become directional and start beaming so this works best in speakers where the crossover is lower like the LFSys. Radiation in the horizontal plane should be good and a lot beter than a side by side arrangement.

The second method is to stack the speakers but on their sides with woofer above woofer and horn above horn in a classic line array. The problem with this is that the horns are on their side and typically they are designed to radiate a wide horizontal beam which will now be narrow and high. The audence may hear less detail in the bass guitar if they are off axis but the player will benefit from the extra height which will be giving more upper mids to their ears. If you were doing this regularly then you could rotate the horns. LFSys have the horns rotated already though to direct the mids to the bassists ears whilst in the conventional position.

 

Sometimes I bore myself

Definitely good advice. I usually went line array as it was a wider surface to put the rack on, but it didn't really matter. One upside down looked silly. Horns weren't worth rotating as I nearly always used them singly and dispersion and detail didn't matter as it was only ever just for me.

 

For me this kind of stuff is like the 'never have two subs on opposite side of the stage' thing. I get why, but there are other considerations than just acoustics.

[stevie]

49 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

 

If you are combining two tweetered cabs then it is better to stack them vertically with the tweeters as close together as possible, so  as you say horn>woofer>horn>woofer is not good. There are two approaches, simply invert the top speaker so the horn is now on the bottom and in some cabs very close to the horn on the bottom cab, this approximates to a D'Appolito configuration giving a fairly coherent wavefront but you'll get some phase issues in the vertical plane due to the spacing between the horns.  You've now moved the two mid bass drivers further apart so you'll lower the point where the mids become directional and start beaming so this works best in speakers where the crossover is lower like the LFSys. Radiation in the horizontal plane should be good and a lot beter than a side by side arrangement.

The second method is to stack the speakers but on their sides with woofer above woofer and horn above horn in a classic line array. The problem with this is that the horns are on their side and typically they are designed to radiate a wide horizontal beam which will now be narrow and high. The audence may hear less detail in the bass guitar if they are off axis but the player will benefit from the extra height which will be giving more upper mids to their ears. If you were doing this regularly then you could rotate the horns. LFSys have the horns rotated already though to direct the mids to the bassists ears whilst in the conventional position.

 

Sometimes I bore myself

 

This is a very good summary of the stacking options available. Classic theory tells us that you should keep drivers as close together as possible, especially when they are reproducing the same frequencies. However, I suspect that a lot of players might be more concerned about having the grille badge sideways or upside-down when using one of these configurations.

Although normal vertical stacking of tweetered cabs isn't ideal because of comb filtering, it doesn't seem to be a problem in practice as long as the cabs are tonally similar.

Edited 5 hours ago by stevie