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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:12 am
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Location: Denver, CO, USA
Sunn Beta Lead 212:
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Fender Bassman 100/135 "Pyramid":
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Trace-Elliot:
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The only one I have personal experience with is the Fender Bassman 412 Pyramid. They put Bandmaster speakers in it, so I use mine mostly as a guitar cab. It's the biggest-sounding 412 I've ever heard and the dispersion is amazing, but it gets "congested" and "blurred" at high volumes. The super-dispersion doesn't project very well -- you can hear it anywhere on stage but the sound doesn't reach way out to the audience in the back of the room. It's the size of a refrigerator but it works better as a living-room cab than a stage cab.

The baffle-panel joinery is notoriously weak in the Fender design, but I've always heard those Sunns were exceptionally rugged (part of that is the "shelf" under the electronics that supports the top of the baffles).


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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:09 am
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So are any of these cabs, or something similar, currently available as new production from a major manufacturer or are they available on the used market only?

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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:32 am
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I'm not aware of any current-production "cross-firing" cabs. The Bassman Pyramid cabs were mid-'70s, the Sunn Beta series was mid-'80s (besides the combo they did an inverted-V 6x10 ext cab), the Trace-Elliot cabs were mid-'90s (note the cutout on the top panel -- you could stack one upside down on top of another to make a 6x12 pyramid).

My intent with my earlier post was just to show that there's very little new under the sun -- inverted-V baffles have been around for a long time. I wasn't suggesting that they're a great new idea that everybody should rush out to buy. Since they've never caught on, that suggests their disadvantages more than outweigh their advantages.

In a loud situation, having multiple hot spots aimed in different directions is often a bad thing. You get multiple strong reflections off the room walls -- I think that what causes the "blurriness" I hear.

They're more complicated to build, so they're more expensive. And they're generally weaker.

They have a lot of wasted space -- big outer cabs with small enclosures within the outer cab. That's not so important with an open-back cab, but I do find that small open-backs generally sound boxier than large open backs -- the Sunn fit two 12" speakers in a cab not much bigger than a Deluxe Reverb so the spaces behind each speaker were Champ-sized. My Bassman Pyramid is huge (40"x30"x17") but the individual compartments are tiny -- almost half of the cab's volume is the empty space in front of the speakers.

My Pyramid does sound incredible in my living room. I can literally stand behind it and it sounds the same because it bounces so much sound off the walls, floor, and ceiling. And sitting right in front of it at the focal point of the speakers is mind-blowing -- like audio IMAX. They suck as gigging cabs and not many people have room for them at home though.

**************************

Most guitar cabs are completely "wrong" in hi-fi terms. Jim Marshall didn't know about Thiele-Small parameters -- he sized his cabs based on the visual proportions he wanted. Hi-fi is about reproducing sound, guitar cabs are about making musical sounds. There are so many different situations that there's no ideal design that's perfect for all of them.


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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 2:16 pm
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In one of Kevin O'Connor's "The Ultimate Tone" books he suggest mounting speakers back to back and wiring them out of phase so that they move in sync.

I know longer have the book, so I'm referencing my faulty memory, but I think the speakers were mounted in a closed back cab with one of the speakers just blasting into a piece of wood. I forget the reasoning for such a configuration. I think his claim was that it would give you the power of two speakers in a more compact enclosure. I have my doubts but it looked interesting and I may be wrong about the enclosure.

If anyone has ever actually built such a thing I'll bet strayedstrater could find it. :D

Cheers,

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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 3:30 pm
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mhowell wrote:
In one of Kevin O'Connor's "The Ultimate Tone" books he suggest mounting speakers back to back and wiring them out of phase so that they move in sync.

I know longer have the book, so I'm referencing my faulty memory, but I think the speakers were mounted in a closed back cab with one of the speakers just blasting into a piece of wood. I forget the reasoning for such a configuration. I think his claim was that it would give you the power of two speakers in a more compact enclosure. I have my doubts but it looked interesting and I may be wrong about the enclosure.

If anyone has ever actually built such a thing I'll bet strayedstrater could find it. :D

Cheers,


Ya mean like these? :lol:

http://www.google.com/search?q=push+pul ... 36&bih=718

Very common in subwoofer design. :wink:

Scroll to the bottom:

http://www.danmarx.org/audioinnovation/theories.html

Probably the most well known:

http://www.mksoundsystem.com/home-produ ... x-350mkii/

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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 3:48 pm
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bluesky636 wrote:
mhowell wrote:
In one of Kevin O'Connor's "The Ultimate Tone" books he suggest mounting speakers back to back and wiring them out of phase so that they move in sync.

I know longer have the book, so I'm referencing my faulty memory, but I think the speakers were mounted in a closed back cab with one of the speakers just blasting into a piece of wood. I forget the reasoning for such a configuration. I think his claim was that it would give you the power of two speakers in a more compact enclosure. I have my doubts but it looked interesting and I may be wrong about the enclosure.

If anyone has ever actually built such a thing I'll bet strayedstrater could find it. :D

Cheers,


Ya mean like these? :lol:

http://www.google.com/search?q=push+pul ... 36&bih=718

Very common in subwoofer design. :wink:

Scroll to the bottom:

http://www.danmarx.org/audioinnovation/theories.html

Probably the most well known:

http://www.mksoundsystem.com/home-produ ... x-350mkii/

Cool. Thanks,

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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 3:54 pm
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Location: Natural Bridge, Virginia
mhowell wrote:
Cool. Thanks,


You're welcome.

Any other exotic loudspeaker designs you would like to know about? :lol:

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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 4:10 pm
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bluesky636 wrote:


I found this from Orange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhJIMHKRp3Y

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In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.


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Post subject: Re: XF Guitar Cabs
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 4:21 pm
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Location: Natural Bridge, Virginia
mhowell wrote:
bluesky636 wrote:


I found this from Orange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhJIMHKRp3Y


Isobarics are addressed in the Dan Marx link.

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