OK so I'm leaving on a 5 week tour at the end of the month, and our bass player is using my Ashdown 300 watt head, which is a pretty solid road amp. I usually play it with a 1x15 and a 4x10, both 8 ohms for the total 4 ohm load of the amp. But we won't have room to bring both cabs in the van. The amp sounds way better with both cabs though. We'll bring the 1x15. Is there a much smaller second cab that would hold up in place of the 4x10? Does anyone have a recommendation for a 2x10 bass cab, or perhaps even a 1x12? Our bass player likes a really classic full tone, much more James Jamerson than Jack Bruce (more B-15 than SVT) sound.

We leave on the 22nd, so I won't have time to custom order something, nor spend a ton....

Unless you plan on miking the 15" cab, you'll get buried in the mix. There are a couple of companies making decent, inexpensive 2x12" cabs, the footprint won't be much bigger than the 1x15, and it's 24" inches of paper cone rather than 15". Why not just bring the 4x10" and rewire it to 4 ohms...

a 2x12" cab has 72*pi of speaker surface area, a 1x15" has 56*pi, and a 4x10" has 100*pi.

personally, I've found a 2x12" with a 130W tube amp is capable of being ear-rippingly loud, if you're driving the amp into distortion, which it sounds like you're not. but still, if I was in your situation, I'd bring my sealed 2x12" with 200W EV drivers in it. it's a 4ohm cab, with each driver being 8ohms.

part of the answer to your question lies in a series of other questions. do you need the bass to be very very loud with no reinforcement, like, what any sound guy would flip out over, but what you need if you're a loud band that's going to play big rooms with no PA (when does that happen?)? or will you be playing at normal rock venues where the sound guy will be telling you to turn the bass down to reasonable levels so he can use the PA to fill the room with bass?

Have you tried playing the bass through just the two cabs you have, each individually, during practice? Which sounds better by itself with the rest of your band?

Ive heard 4X10", 1X15" and 2X12" cabinets that all sounded slightly different from each other, based as much as anything on cabinet geometry and porting (if any), and the types of drivers in them. Generalizing about how all cabinets of any configuration sound is rather silly -- the important question is how do your specific options sound in the context of your band? If you can make do with one of the cabs you already have, then problem solved.

If not, then I'd generally agree with Scott and see what options of the 2X12 variety you may be able to beg borrow or steal to help augment, but I'd be surprised if either your 1X15 or 4X10 couldnt do the trick just fine by itself.

jermwelfare wrote: Why not just bring the 4x10" and rewire it to 4 ohms...

No way to rewire a 4 speaker system from 8 ohms to 4 ohms. Unless you want to replace the speakers. That would work.

an 8 ohm 4x10 is loaded with 8 or 32 ohm speakers. with 8's you have the options of 2, 8 or 32. with 32's you have the options of 8, 32 or 128.

projectMalamute wrote:

jermwelfare wrote: Why not just bring the 4x10" and rewire it to 4 ohms...

No way to rewire a 4 speaker system from 8 ohms to 4 ohms. Unless you want to replace the speakers. That would work.

an 8 ohm 4x10 is loaded with 8 or 32 ohm speakers. with 8's you have the options of 2, 8 or 32. with 32's you have the options of 8, 32 or 128.

Why is the load of the cab/cabs so important? Will the amp not drive an 8 ohm cab for some reason I cant imagine?

Thanks y'alls. Running an 8 ohm cab with a 4 ohm head is ok, but we're not at full power. Now it doesn't need to be ear-splittingly loud or anything, and we will have decent sound systems everywhere. The bass player's 100 watt ampeg combo just wasn't cutting it, so he's going to use my rig... I'm the keyboard player in this band.

The 1x15 cab has a much better sound than the 4x10. The 15 is made by Ashdown. The 4x10 is a weird Fender cab from the 80s, with a grey carpet covering, that I got when some band walked off with my own 2x10 on tour one time (long story, don't ask!). It works fine, but doesn't sound all that good on its own. That's why I thought it would be best to supplement the 15 with something else, both tonally, and the get the power/ohmage back to ideal. The 1x15 tends to fart out a bit on its own, but sounds great in the rig. The 4x10 is kinda dull sounding, but they work great together. We just don't have the space.

ontrane wrote:Thanks y'alls. Running an 8 ohm cab with a 4 ohm head

There's nothing on the head that can be adjusted to match the cab impedance?

That's very odd. Most tube amps have separate taps for different loads.

I think we are talking about a transistor amplifier, no?

Just ouut of curiousity, how did you get these measurements? What is the formula?


[quote="scott"]a 2x12" cab has 72*pi of speaker surface area, a 1x15" has 56*pi, and a 4x10" has 100*pi.