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Good to know that there may be little smell. I also looked at speaker grills and spent a long time thinking through how to print one in four pieces and join it together using superglue, a special jig and all sorts of hard work until a rare bout of common sense broke out. Previously people had mentioned using an 18" speaker grill and cutting it down. I've just checked the sizes for this against the 8" speaker cab and of course when you lay it out, they were right and I was surprised (and wrong). The dashed straight lines show the inside of the 8" speaker cab, the large dashed circle is the cutaway for the Fane speaker and the small dashed circle is the port. The large solid circle is an 18" speaker grille and the smaller solid circle is a 300mm speaker grille. So the 18" speaker grille is pretty much a perfect fit, though it will need cutting down and flattening, though I can't see that being a major issue with a rubber hammer, a Dremel and a decent cutting wheel (or rather a few of them). For circa £10 per grille, this is a very cheap way to get a grille plus an hour or so of cutting. The other option is a small bit of rectangular hardboard with two large circles cut out with some speaker cloth which still might look nice. This is the speaker lightly sanded with some filler and the corners checked for fit. These will actually be glued on with "No Nail" rather than screwed. A little more sanding just to tidy up the front. You can just about see the t-nuts inside on the back for holding the Warwick Gnome on using slider rails. There are the same fittings on the top so the Warwick can be on the top or the back. There are holes on the side for grab handles. I don't use a strap for picking it up as I wanted the Warwick to have the option of top mounting as well as back mounting. Not sure I can paint it until I have worked out the speaker grille and how to fit it so I can easily take it on and off. I'm tending to think I mask off the corner piece areas before the Aracab goes on but would welcome thoughts.

Your term "deeper" most likely needs some definition. A good system even today costs some money. An ELF, and a 2x8" is most likely not suitable in a bigger venue without the help of a PA. First of all, the system (cabinet + X-over + elements) has to be designed and made well. I have seen many combos/cabs throughout the years that have been mediocre at best. If the system is designed for bassist, it has to deliver some kind of response from around 60 Hz up to around 4 kHz (you don't get much higher frequencies from an ordinary coil-magnet pickup). You want extra bass through subs, fine. How big are they, how much do they weigh, and how high the response goes? If you can and want to carry such a system (subs + bass), you can do that but how feasible is that? 31 Hz is very low, therefore your subs need minimum of 2 kW power on top of that 500 W bass amp. Is the venue so big that you get any benefit from a system that goes down to 31 Hz? Will everything sound messy and mushy? Subs have a very limited response. There are some elements that happen to be big, but as said, very limited. If you start the cab design from an 18", you most likely need a ten, and a tweeter to the cab. Have you ever carried such a monster to a stage? TE 1818X was just terrible. Is the answer to you an equalizer, or a better system, I don't know, but the size of an element will not answer to your need of "deeper".

Jimmy Smith. 🎤drop.

It's generally called 'the occulsion effect'. the two easy fixes are a room mic you can mix in, or there's a whole lot of newer IEMs which allow ambient sound in, like these: https://acscustom.com/uk/products/ambient-series/evoke2/

A placebo effect is still an effect 👍

And with added whammy clavinet...

Su Casa Es Mi Casa - Infectious Grooves/Suicidal Tendencies

It's got little to do with the porting and everything to do with the position of the cab and you within the room. You don't need to move the cab, you'll get a different sound simply by standing in a different location in the hall.

Here's a favourite of mine, with some good soloing all round.

I have a MarkBass MB58R 102 cab that is rear ported at rehearsals the hall is large often meaning my cab is several metres away from a back or side wall If the same cab was placed near a rear wall say 12” away would this increase the low bass tone IE make it sound deeper ?

That was partly the plan 😁 Si

Yup! I can't lift it without getting someone to come and help, and I did it despite the blind testing that @Phil Starr organised at the SW bass bash, but I recently bought my first 15" and the sound is glorious. Of course (for me at least) how much that is a placebo effect because it looks so awesome, dominating the room from its corner, I don't know.

Ahhh, Dobbies...one of those dinosaur venues with a power-mad Conc.Sec. and everything*...you can get a reaction out of the crowd, but with pliers and gritted teeth. For the majority who don't know the place but will know many similar (still), there's total silence** for the bingo but they talk through your first set unless (metaphorically) grabbed by the collar, and the general vibe from the management is 'Why can't you be Matt Munroe? I liked him.' Last time we were there I gave Herr Conc. Sec. the hairdryer because as soon as we'd finished some fool on their side hit the smoke machine onstage about eight or ten times as we were packing down, it was four feet deep and you literally couldn't see the floor, I nearly walked off the edge. I lost 75% of my sheet, went to his table and gave him a bollocking, he tried to laugh it off till I pointed out if someone did fall on (or worse, off) the stage he'd be hearing from lawyers (and I'd taken pictures) about breaching H&S, and he shut up. We haven't heard back from them, but to be honest it's no loss. * Where you're referred to as 'The Turn'... ** The sort of silence only encountered in the bleak chill of deep space or Northern Club Bingo sessions, it's uncanny, unnerving and something I think CERN should have a look at...

BTW if you decide to listen to these samples, just try to identify the speaker size you have a preference for, don't try to identify all of the variations.

I did a totally unscientific comparison with some cabs (which is probably more relevant going off some comments here, than the science numbers). I can tell you that of those who messaged me after I did this, 'nobody' identified the cab that had a 15" driver! I actually conducted this test again with two bass playing mates + my wife who is relatively new to actually playing bass but has heard every cab/amp I've ever used in the last 38 years; we had to adapt it so that the directionality [position of driver relative to the ear] was taken out of the equation and in the blind test it was concluded that identifying the correct driver size was pot-luck! When writing down notes, the descriptions were likewise so random that one person's tight response was the other person's wooly sound! LOL

The Reardrop explodes

Like any mass produced instrument, there are always good and bad examples, but there is something odd about the Stingray sonically. You can tell it's definitely designed as an evolution to the Precision, as it's pickup placement fits into an almost perfect sonic space for the listener, but it's often a struggle for the player. If you're running a 'Ray balls-out like Flea, it rises magnificently to the occasion, but as an accompanying instrument it does tend to get sonically buried. It's almost as if the sound lacks the necessary body in a live situation. Even my fantastic sounding thirty year old 2eq model can seem to get a little lost [to my ears], but audience members regularly say it sounds fantastic, that they can clearly hear every single note. Maybe many of us have on-stage hearing difficulties and the Stingray is just fine?

So it’s fair to say a 15” speaker cab won’t sound deeper if the low frequency is increased compared to say a 10” speaker assuming both can handle the low bass ? im aware they may sound the same flat but what if you say boosted mostly the 80hz upwards which normal driver would cope better ? IE why do we use 15” or 18” subs with PA surely it’s because they handle very low hz better and sound deeper ?

My experience of festivals is that there is either a supplied (good) backline that you are required to use as a condition of playing, or that everything is on movable platforms that can be wheeled off to a backstage area for setting up and packing down. I think the sorts of gigs people are talking about here are those in sub 500 capacity venues where there is often no backstage area and the green room is already full of all the other bands and their kit. My attitude at these gigs is, the moment we have finished playing, to get our gear off stage as quickly as possible, find a quiet corner and then pack it down. However, some musicians still don't appear to have got the message and can take up the whole 15 minutes on stage packing their guitars and pedals away whilst chatting with their fans.

Agreed 👍

Isn't there other factors too, from a striictly playing point of view, other than just what it can handle - speed of driver/cone response, feel (flappy, tight etc), the 'slam' you get from them... Apologies for the non scientific terms just describing in a very basic way terms from a playing point of view.

A great way in for me has been the Soul Jazz Presents Studio One series https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/sjr/browse/c-music/i-studio-one/o-all/v-grid/s-hide All great compilations showing the best of studio one from all eras. The x00% dynamite series is particularly good if you're unsure where to start.

Why do we still think that the size of the driver cone is the most important factor in describing a cab? Every cab will sound different, I've owned cabs with the same driver configuration but completely different sounds. Not surprising when you consider that just about everything else to do with the cab - size, construction, driver specifications other than the cone diameters - was completely different. If I was still using backline the diameter of the driver would be the least important factor in choosing a cab.