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Post subject: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:01 am
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okay folks been playin bass for 3 years and always used/gigged with combos can someone tell me as much as they can about cabs and heads as far as how you connect them to eachother and are all heads compatible with all cabs? sorry for the dumb question


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:48 am
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Heads and cabs are connected via a speaker cable -- typically 2-conductor unshielded AWG18 wire, with ¼-inch phone plugs at each end.

As for compatibility, you need to be cognizant of the amp's specified output impedance and mate it to a speaker enclosure of similar specs.

As well, it pays to use a cab with more (rather than less) power-handling capability than the head to prevent overpowering the speakers and blowing them up. A 1:2 margin of safety would not be imprudent.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:03 pm
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You'd be surprised how many musicians don't know the difference between OHMs and OMG! or the difference between watts and WTF! :roll:

First you have to learn how to add. 8 ohms + 8 ohms = 4 ohms

Others will come along with the truely in depth technical education.

Check out the Rumble videos on their line of amp heads and cabs.

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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:59 pm
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Naiveté does not equate to ignorance.

But for the stupidity of the foolhardy, I am blameless.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:39 pm
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Thanks for the advice I still have my rumble 150 but I was thinking in the wrong run my singer who used to play bass and sing but now just wants to sing (hence why I'm there) uses a Gallien Kruger rig spuds pretty nice but I think I'd go with a fender cab


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:47 pm
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RV's advice is sound. I can add to that the following long winded rambling of 45 years experience. In other words excuse the long post. I'm breaking it down into a few posts.

FIRST, before dropping two grand on a stack...ask yourself, "Do I really need a big bass stack?" For the past several years I have played most paying gigs with a small combo on an amp stand in front of me pointed at my head as a monitor. I feed an XLR direct out to about a 5,000 watt PA most of the time and leave it to the sound tech to balance me in the mix instead of blowing everyone off stage with a big rig and forcing the sound tech to balance everyone else to me. This little combo patched to the PA is more than adequate. So if I honestly asked myself if I really needed the big rig now, the honest answer would be a firm no. People have come to equate a big bass rig as sort of a pre-requisite to being taken seriously as a player. Also in some playing situations you might not have such a beefy PA to rely upon and would actually need a big rig. In either of those two events then you may actually need a stack.

There are companies out there who make big amp stack STAGE PROPS that are not real amps but from the front look real. And behind the façade of a big rig will be a little combo. The prop amps fold flat for easy transport. Some people just expect to see a big wall of amps but with today's modern PA setups including subwoofers it really is not necessary in many situations.

If it is a high powered head, like over 300 watts, and if the amp has Neutrik/SpeakOn jacks you'd be wise to get cabs with these locking connectors and use a cable with these locking connectors to connect it all up. To be brutally honest about it, a phone plug terminated speaker cable is not the ideal high power connector. Phone plugs and phone jacks were designed for low power audio like PHONES and not for high power transfer. Phone plugs and phone jacks themselves are not even what they used to be 20 years ago either and are made of lesser grade materials frequently purchased from the low bidder. Under say 200 watts or so phone plugs are ok, but I would use SpeakOn/Neutrik connectors with the biggest cable I could get on a high power amp. The higher the power the larger the cable conductors need to be. When you play a 300 watt plus stack for an hour or two at gig volume, reach around behind the amp and grab the speaker cable with your hand. If the cable feels warm at all, you need a bigger cable. You feel warmth because the cable isn't passing all the power to the speaker array and some of your watts are just heating the cable instead of moving air via the cab. 18 gauge is probably ok but I now use 14 gauge with SpeakOn connectors. They stay cold to the touch which is good.

An amp will have the MINIMUM OUTPUT LOAD listed in ohms. To get the amp's maximum power output you should ideally get to this minimum load. For example many solid state amps have a minimum 4 Ohm load. If the specs say it is a 350 watt solid state power amp with a 4 Ohm Minimum load that means that into 4 Ohms the amp puts out 350 watts. You can use a higher load, like one 8 Ohm cab safely but the effective power output of any 4 Ohm solid state amp is roughly halved into an 8 Ohm load. When you put TWO 8 Ohm cabs daisy chained together that yields a 4 Ohm load and you get all 350 watts from the head in our example. This means if you want to use more than one cab, say mix a 2x12 with a 2x10, and use a 4 Ohm head then each of your two cabs should be 8 Ohm cabs since two 8 Ohm cabs equals a 4 Ohm load.

If you only want to use one cab with a 4 Ohm amp, I'd use a 4 Ohm cab and I'd opt for a 4x10, 6x10 or 8x10 over any other 4 Ohm cab (1x15, 1x12, 2x12, 1x15, 2x15, 2x10) unless there are size or weight restrictions. A modern 4x10 is the most commonly recommended option. A modern design 4x10 cab will perform about the same as a vintage 8x10 cab due cab design improvements such as precise porting.


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:49 pm
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(CONTINUED)

I use the inches of all speakers added together to judge how much air the cab moves. A 4x10 cab has 40 inches of speaker. It isn't exactly rocket science to add up that 40 inches of speaker moves more air than a 1x15 or even a 2x15. HOWEVER, the tone you want might require using large 15's or even 18 inch speakers. I personally love the vintage boom of 15's indoors myself. So for many, many years I stacked a 2x10 or 4x10 for bigger volume on top of a 1x15 and pushed it with 450 watts indoors. This indoor arrangement yields a full rich sound that is also pretty loud indoors. When playing outdoors the boomy tone of a 1x15 does not carry well so I can leave the 15's home and bring just 10's for outdoor things because the 10's cut through better outdoors.

Some amps, usually high end heavy duty class A/B solid state power amps that weigh slightly less than a cruise ship anchor, will handle a 2 Ohm minimum load but the vast majority of bass amps these days have a 4 Ohm minimum load specified. The minimum load is in the amp specs and labeled next to the speaker jacks on the amp. Cabs will also be labeled with their impedance and frequently with their power capacity.

Getting bass cabs rated for higher power than your amp is capable of doing was very sound advice. But don't lose sight of the general bass guitar solid state amp rule that if you are cranking it up much past half on the master gain with the input set normally, then it is time to look for a more powerful amp. It isn't always clean watts that blows speakers, but more common is speaker damage from power amp clipping. Amp clipping pushes way more watts than the RMS power rating which heats up and damages more bass speakers! Clipping generally begins to happen at just above half volume on the master on most bass amps. This is partly because most players have the EQ set to boost bass which takes more of the amp's clean power than the location of the master control leads you to believe. In a solid state bass head with the typical bass EQ setup, when the master is at 12 O'clock you are already using about 80 to 90% of the amp's clean output, push it much harder and it starts to clip. The point of beginning to inaudibly distort differs from amp to amp and depends too upon how the EQ is set. The worst part about solid state bass amp clipping is that when it starts it can be inaudible. ALWAYS REMEMBER that when you push a solid state bass amp too hard, the speaker will get a gradual heat build up of excess heat it can't dissipate quickly. The harder you push the amp, the more it clips and the more the amp clips the faster heat builds up in the speaker. So theoretically a 200 watt amp could blow a 400 watt cab if fed a signal clipped hard enough for long enough. Once a speaker voice coil overheats to the point of melting or warping it begins rubbing against the magnet and makes a bad scratching sound. You may even smell something that smells like a pot on the stove boiled dry, sort of a metallic smell. The cab might sound "farty' which is a term commonly used to describe a badly distorted bass sound which often results from over-excursion of the voice coil. That metallic smell is the smell of speaker death. A good feature on a bass amp is a clipping indicator light. These indicate some square wave activity even before you can actually hear it and while it triggering once in a while is normal, if it is flashing like a disco with every note you play back off the master for now and put an amp with more wattage on your shopping list.

The design of the better quality bass cabs these days is done by computer software that precisely calculates ideal cab dimensions, port location, port shape, port size, crossover points and even baffle angles in some cases for the specific speaker components being used. OEM suppliers have consultants that do nothing but assist makers in cab design using proprietary CAD software for those makers who order trailer loads of their components at a time. Some of these cab makers even get special versions of a standard production speaker made with more robust specs than the stock issue such as longer coil travel or higher power capacity. In my experience I like front ported modern cabs better than a sealed cab design or a rear ported design. All 3 types of cabs are on the market. Rear porting makes for a more compact cab and is frequently used in combo design, but front ported cabs project better.

(TO BE CONTINUED)


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:50 pm
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(CONTINUED)

It is best to avoid "vintage" cabs because cab design has come a long way since they started computer designing cabs to match the speakers. A modern design is always more efficient (meaning it is louder) and fuller range.

If you are into the fusion slap/tap stuff your cabs will need a horn or tweeter of some sort and this requires a crossover. Crossovers all work basically the same way using an array of capacitors and other electronics to separate the audio frequencies and feed different frequency bands to different components within the cab. True two way crossovers separate the audio signal into highs and lows sending the highs to the tweeters/horns and the lows to the woofers. Some cabs, especially boutique types with 3 different size speakers like a 12", a 6" and a horn, will have a 3 way crossover that separates lows, mids and highs. Crossovers can vary significantly in quality. Crossovers in cheaper cabs are often the weakest link. Some with no horn/tweeter control at all won't even use a crossover, but instead just have a capacitor on the plus lead to the horn to filter out lows. A good feature to look for is "HOW THE TWEETER/HORN LEVEL IS CONTROLLED" as that can be a good indicator of the general quality of the crossover and the thought that went into it which can be extrapolated to encompass the cab in general. For example no horn/tweeter control is not a good sign at all, a horn on/horn off switch is slightly better but still cut rate, a slide switch with a horn off/horn low/horn high is getting better....but the most desirable is a crossover with a variable rotary pot that allows you to adjust from horn fully off to horn on full blast or anywhere in between. To me the variable rotary horn control is a key feature in a bass cab to indicate that cab has a quality crossover which leads me to believe it is probably better engineered in general than a cab with just a horn on/off switch.

The best crossovers split the audio into at least two separate and distinct bands of audio so that there is no overlap whatsoever, meaning a frequency goes to one speaker or the other and never to both the horn and the woofer. In some crossover designs that just filter out lows below a certain cut off frequency for the horn there will be some frequencies that are passed by both the horn and the woofers. This is an overlap area and when both the woofer and horn are passing the same frequency or note, you can have phasing issues resulting in diminished clarity and detail of the note. Ideally a true 2 way crossover will send lows below a certain frequency only to the woofer and send highs above a certain frequency only to the horn. In truth many mainline famous name cabs only have the type crossover that sends highs above a certain frequency to the horn but doesn't prevent the woofer from trying to reproduce the same frequency. This is the reason some cabs sound less good in the midrange notes on up the neck on the A and D string when the horn and woofer both try to reproduce the same frequency tone resulting in a less pleasant tone than the very low notes or the very high notes. Sometimes you can hear a warble tone in cabs without a true 2 way crossover as the woofer and horn fight it out over who can produce the tone the loudest.

In addition to a quality crossover, the power rating and the cab impedance look for quality components in cabs, such as the drivers, the horn, the material used in the cab itself (voidless birch plywood is best), how it was assembled (rabbet & dado interlocking side joints are desirable) and the durability of the other materials such as corners, grill, handles, covering material etc. Thin vinyl coverings that skin off easily are less desirable. You absolutely want to avoid particle board or MDF construction. Big bass tones can literally blow or shake a non-plywood cab or even a poorly assembled plywood one apart over time. I've seen that happen to particle board cabs and I won't ever own one. Solid plywood bass cabs are usually much lighter than the MDF or particle board cabs, so bass cabs is one case where heavier doesn't necessarily mean better.

Speaking of heavier versus lighter lets talk NEO versus Ceramic speakers. No doubt that historically ceramic speakers have sounded much better, especially on the bottom end of the bass spectrum, such as an open B string. But the ceramics were so much heavier. NEO speakers today, meaning the latest improved Eminence Deltalite ones, to me sound as good. Neo speakers in any cab with multiple speakers make the cab so much lighter in weight that the extra expense of Neo Deltalite speakers is worth it. All other things being equal I just can't hear enough difference between the latest Eminence Deltalite Neos and Eminence Delta ceramic speakers to justify the extra heft. Meaning the same head, the same cab but Neo versus ceramic speakers. With the initial Neos on the market the difference was much more pronounced, but the latest Eminence Neos are virtually the same tone wise as their ceramic predecessors. So if you have the money to spring for a NEO upgrade if it is offered then your back will thank you but your ears won't be able to tell much if any difference. A 4x10 Deltalite neo cab will be a full 30 pounds lighter than the same cab loaded with ceramic magnet Delta speakers.

(To be continued)


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:52 pm
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(Continued)

WATTS AIN'T EVERYTHING. At one time a 135 watt bass amp was considered high power. Today bass amps doing 1200 watts are out there. Do not judge solely on watts. Look for a head not only with enough power, but also with a versatile EQ for flexibility.

Bass amps with a tube or two in the preamp but a solid state power amp are called HYBRID bass amps. They get closer to everyone's favorite tube amp bass tones than an all solid state amp. They cost more than all solid state amps though and know up front that the price of added maintenance will probably be more on a hybrid. These preamp tubes last a year or two at the most these days. If used daily expect about a year from the preamp tubes. Also if buying a hybrid bass head make sure there is someway to bypass the tube preamp in case a tube fails while using it. Tubes aren't what they used to be in spite of what tube makers say and modern versions of 12AX7 tubes have failed on me with absolutely no warning whatsoever. In the olden days a 12AX7 would diminish in performance or get noisy or microphonic before failing completely so you had some warning or notice to get it some attention. Now like a lightbulb they are working fine and then just blow with no warning at all.

An XLR out to feed PA or for recording is today a MUST HAVE feature for me, even in a combo. Built in compressors/limiters in most bass heads are about worthless so that should not be a deciding factor but still nice to have as it is better than no compressor. A good sounding preamp and good EQ controls are key. Compare several different heads from different makers using the same cab. Everyone has their own ideas about desirable features and desirable tone. For example the older I get the more I pay attention to size and weight and tone than to watts on the spec sheet and volume. If you judge a bass head or cab by the spec sheet alone or by watts per dollar you are almost always going to choose poorly.

THE END!


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:40 pm
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Brotherdave, you seldom fail to delight and amaze me. I read every word and am better informed because of it. Thank you.

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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:47 pm
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BD, your calculations for determining radiating speaker cone area are not appropriate as they are based on linear assumptions rather than logarithmic measurements.

Here's how the common speaker sizes break down, based on the pi x (R x R) formula for determining the area of a circle:

10" -- 78.55"
12" -- 113.11"
15" -- 176.73"
18" -- 254.50"

Thus, a 4 x 10 cab with a total cone area of 314.2 square inches is significantly less than a 2 x 15 cab with 353.46 square inches. It will not be moving more air and it will not be louder, assuming both enclosures are driven with identical amounts of power and input signals of similar frequencies (I am deliberately ignoring cab design and their relative efficiencies only because that is a topic for another discussion).

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 1:11 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
BD, your calculations for determining radiating speaker cone area are not appropriate as they are based on linear assumptions rather than logarithmic measurements.

Here's how the common speaker sizes break down, based on the pi x (R x R) formula for determining the area of a circle:

10" -- 78.55"
12" -- 113.11"
15" -- 176.73"
18" -- 254.50"

Thus, a 4 x 10 cab with a total cone area of 314.2 square inches is significantly less than a 2 x 15 cab with 353.46 square inches. It will not be moving more air and it will not be louder, assuming both enclosures are driven with identical amounts of power and input signals of similar frequencies (I am deliberately ignoring cab design and their relative efficiencies only because that is a topic for another discussion).

Arjay


Not going to argue with geometry. However outdoors a 4x10 is to me apparently louder that a 2x15, or carries better anyway. Do you have a formula to explain the phenomena where the 2x15's gets lost outdoors but sounds great indoors? I think a single 4x10 carries better outdoors than even two 2x15 cabs because I used to use a pair of 2x15's and they sounded lost outside but inside they were swell. I also think Cokes should still be a quarter and the Cubs still have a shot at the pennant....next year.

Tried to find some SPL specs on 2x15's to compare to 4x10's but nobody is making both 2x15's and comparable 4x10's and publishing SPL specs that I can find. I can only find the Mesa 2x15 and they don't publish SPL specs for their cabs. Ampeg does but no longer specs a 2x15. Can you advise SPL specs in db for a 2x15 versus the 4x10 in the same line please? Would love to see the figures.

Where I come from, pies are round and don't do multiplication but come in sweet potato and rhubarb flavors which can be tasty once you get used to the idea of it. I should have stayed awake in geometry class. I bow to your superior knowledge of geometry and the use of pi. Splendid there Pythagorean Player! I left my compass at home, my dog chewed up my protractor, someone stole my Pickett slide rule and the batteries have been dead in my TI Scientific since about 1985. So thanks for the math lesson! However, I prefer to use ears.


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 1:21 am
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As you prefer.

However, if you ask any BSEE or FCC-licensed technician (I fall into that latter category) he or she will tell you the same thing.

No harm, no foul......science and mathematics aren't everyone's cup of tea.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 2:19 am
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modwiz wrote:
Brotherdave, you seldom fail to delight and amaze me. I read every word and am better informed because of it. Thank you.


Yes, that was fun! I knew there'd be a free electronics degree in this thread if I just waited long enough. :wink:

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2017 Lefty American Professional Precision
2018 Rumble Studio 40 Combo
2016 Rumble 200 Combo
One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


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Post subject: Re: Excuse my ignorance
Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 8:30 am
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brotherdave wrote:
RV's advice is sound. I can add to that the following long winded rambling of 45 years experience. In other words excuse the long post. I'm breaking it down into a few posts.

FIRST, before dropping two grand on a stack...ask yourself, "Do I really need a big bass stack?" For the past several years I have played most paying gigs with a small combo on an amp stand in front of me pointed at my head as a monitor. I feed an XLR direct out to about a 5,000 watt PA most of the time and leave it to the sound tech to balance me in the mix instead of blowing everyone off stage with a big rig and forcing the sound tech to balance everyone else to me. This little combo patched to the PA is more than adequate. So if I honestly asked myself if I really needed the big rig now, the honest answer would be a firm no. People have come to equate a big bass rig as sort of a pre-requisite to being taken seriously as a player. Also in some playing situations you might not have such a beefy PA to rely upon and would actually need a big rig. In either of those two events then you may actually need a stack.

There are companies out there who make big amp stack STAGE PROPS that are not real amps but from the front look real. And behind the façade of a big rig will be a little combo. The prop amps fold flat for easy transport. Some people just expect to see a big wall of amps but with today's modern PA setups including subwoofers it really is not necessary in many situations.

If it is a high powered head, like over 300 watts, and if the amp has Neutrik/SpeakOn jacks you'd be wise to get cabs with these locking connectors and use a cable with these locking connectors to connect it all up. To be brutally honest about it, a phone plug terminated speaker cable is not the ideal high power connector. Phone plugs and phone jacks were designed for low power audio like PHONES and not for high power transfer. Phone plugs and phone jacks themselves are not even what they used to be 20 years ago either and are made of lesser grade materials frequently purchased from the low bidder. Under say 200 watts or so phone plugs are ok, but I would use SpeakOn/Neutrik connectors with the biggest cable I could get on a high power amp. The higher the power the larger the cable conductors need to be. When you play a 300 watt plus stack for an hour or two at gig volume, reach around behind the amp and grab the speaker cable with your hand. If the cable feels warm at all, you need a bigger cable. You feel warmth because the cable isn't passing all the power to the speaker array and some of your watts are just heating the cable instead of moving air via the cab. 18 gauge is probably ok but I now use 14 gauge with SpeakOn connectors. They stay cold to the touch which is good.

An amp will have the MINIMUM OUTPUT LOAD listed in ohms. To get the amp's maximum power output you should ideally get to this minimum load. For example many solid state amps have a minimum 4 Ohm load. If the specs say it is a 350 watt solid state power amp with a 4 Ohm Minimum load that means that into 4 Ohms the amp puts out 350 watts. You can use a higher load, like one 8 Ohm cab safely but the effective power output of any 4 Ohm solid state amp is roughly halved into an 8 Ohm load. When you put TWO 8 Ohm cabs daisy chained together that yields a 4 Ohm load and you get all 350 watts from the head in our example. This means if you want to use more than one cab, say mix a 2x12 with a 2x10, and use a 4 Ohm head then each of your two cabs should be 8 Ohm cabs since two 8 Ohm cabs equals a 4 Ohm load.

If you only want to use one cab with a 4 Ohm amp, I'd use a 4 Ohm cab and I'd opt for a 4x10, 6x10 or 8x10 over any other 4 Ohm cab (1x15, 1x12, 2x12, 1x15, 2x15, 2x10) unless there are size or weight restrictions. A modern 4x10 is the most commonly recommended option. A modern design 4x10 cab will perform about the same as a vintage 8x10 cab due cab design improvements such as precise porting.


Awesome Point Brother Dave unless i find my self playing big outside gigs and or large clubs i will stick to my combo hasn't failed me yet why make the jump


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