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Post subject: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or crazy?
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 8:27 am
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I haven't posted here for quite a while so I hope this is an appropriate place to ask this question. Mods, feel free to move it somewhere else if you want to!

Would it be viable or just nuts to build some kind of framework that can hold my small bass amp over the floor with the speaker pointed DOWNWARD, straight at the floor? The scenario I'm envisioning is a small BBQ joint, playing blues for ambient background - so the volume would be low. Everyone always sets up their amps the normal way, so they're pointed somewhere in the general direction of the crowd. But there's an amp maker called Clarus who makes downward-firing amplifiers for upright double-basses. That got me to thinking...why couldn't a bass amp be set the same way with the speaker cone firing straight down? Seems to me that acoustics would dictate that there would be some sweet spot where the distance between the speaker cone & the floor is some multiple (or even division) of the frequencies being played.

Thoughts anyone? Does this sound like it might make a bass tone equally heard in all directions, not just half the room?

thanks...

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 10:34 am
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There are many woofer and sub-woofer cabinets for stereo systems that fire downward, and that works very well, so why not?

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 10:45 am
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shimmilou wrote:
There are many woofer and sub-woofer cabinets for stereo systems that fire downward, and that works very well, so why not?


+1

It should work great for a non-directional dispersal. The powered Cerwin-Vega 15-inch sub wired to my home theater system is capable of causing seismic events when pushed to "realistic" volume levels.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 11:48 am
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OK, I kind of assumed that it would be at least possible, especially since it's already been done by (at the very least) one bass amp manufacturer, Clarus. I have a very compact 50-watt bass amp (it's an Ampeg...sorry for the sacrilege!) that I'd like to try out. My idea is to make an adjustable prototype - one in which I'll be able to adjust the height of the face of the amp from the floor. Once I find a good position, I can just build another one that stays at that height. Of course, like everything else, the final height will be a compromise of sorts, since a fraction of the wavelength of a low "E" will be different than the same fraction of a "D" on the A string, and so on.
I guess I really am nuts but who cares?
...thanks guys

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 1:20 pm
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Build your basic box then cut yourself some matched quartets of wood blocks of various heights. Use these block sets to experiment, with the cab plugged into your (heresy!) Ampeg head. I'm thinking that something in the neighborhood of 3 inches to 4½ inches should be optimum but bear in mind that differing floor coverings will absorb and disperse the sound to varying degrees so you'll need to strike a happy height medium based on the usual type of surface on which you'll be playing the enclosure. I know that when I ripped the carpet out of our living room and installed hardwood laminate, I had to re-EQ my sub-woofer accordingly. Be sure to install a grill of some type over your speaker cone to prevent any handling accidents. Metal would be my choice but some of the synthetic composites are pretty sturdy.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 3:47 pm
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Arjay, thanks for that. I'll try to report back to let you know how it goes. My goal is to create a non-directional sound.

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 4:33 am
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There may be a less expensive alternative to building a custom cabinet. If there is a wall behind you try turning your amp around to face the wall keeping the grille roughly half of a speaker diameter from the wall. Like floor firing, this will also disperse sound evenly but in a roughly 180 degree radius. Of course, there will be a dead spot directly behind the cabinet but that's usually only noticeable on stage. By the time the sound travels to the audience the bass will have permeated to fill in that void. I've tried pointing into a corner with poor results though, so don't try that one. A corner appears to me to be a black hole for sound and tone. When pointing at the wall do some experimenting with very slight upward angles. Place things as thin as a book of matches or as thick as a paperback under the front of the enclosure to increase dissipation through the room.

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 7:18 am
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BMW-KTM wrote:
There may be a less expensive alternative to building a custom cabinet. If there is a wall behind you try turning your amp around to face the wall keeping the grille roughly half of a speaker diameter from the wall. Like floor firing, this will also disperse sound evenly but in a roughly 180 degree radius. Of course, there will be a dead spot directly behind the cabinet but that's usually only noticeable on stage. By the time the sound travels to the audience the bass will have permeated to fill in that void. I've tried pointing into a corner with poor results though, so don't try that one. A corner appears to me to be a black hole for sound and tone. When pointing at the wall do some experimenting with very slight upward angles. Place things as thin as a book of matches or as thick as a paperback under the front of the enclosure to increase dissipation through the room.


Thanks for that - that's an idea that didn't occur to me.

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:16 pm
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cazksbass wrote:
Thanks for that - that's an idea that didn't occur to me.
If you choose to try it be sure to come back to this thread and report your findings.

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Post subject: Re: Aiming a small bass amp toward the floor: viable or craz
Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 5:01 am
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Years ago it was relatively common that bass speakers would be mounted horizontally in the cabinet, facing down with a curved baffle below to divert the sound forward. I'm not as aware of that as a solution today, and perhaps speaker design has changed to avoid the obvious disadvantages of bouncing the sound.

Treble frequencies are very directional, bass less so. Pointing the speaker away disadvantages the projection of that speaker but less so the bass frequencies. It still disadvantages the projection.

The human ear is less able to establish the direction of bass frequencies - which is why you only have one sub in a 5.1 system. Sub speakers often face down to reduce the possibility of you picking up the treble element and being able to hear where the speaker is located. Bass frequencies, being wider, are less prone to being trapped in corners and bounced until they decay.

As an aside, the optimum location for a Sub in a home cinema set up is to initially put the sub where you will be sitting and then move around the room until you find the point it is the loudest away from where you are sitting; and then put the sub there.

So, in summary, you are better off filtering out the treble element and pointing the speaker in the direction of the listener.

An outside BBQ will already give you a lot of issues with directionality. Unless you project the bass in the same direction as the treble people in the treble beam will hear mainly treble (unless the bass is loud) and people outside of the treble beam will only hear bass and more so if the bass is loud.

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