voxpop

Personal favourites include... Brimar or Mullard for warm soft sound. RCA for strong bass and treble with good punch. Telefunken for very smooth and clean hifi sound.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1353348173' post='1874065'] As Lawrence says, you'll reduce power handling a bit, but that Celestion driver has a very high Qts which is more suited to a sealed system. The undersized magnet syndrome strikes again. [/quote] Would it be better to use this driver, I could do with a 16 ohm replacement instead of the current 8 ohm celestion. http://www.lean-business.co.uk/eshop/eminence-delta-15-16ohm-15-400watt-speaker-p-774.html

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1353344836' post='1873987'] Massive humps and bumps have no place in any speaker system. They are usually caused by bad design or skimping on cost. The 100Hz bump that is common in bass guitar cabs is usually caused by using an undersized magnet to save money. [/quote] Would I be better off perminatly blocking off the cab ports / holes and making a sealed cab with the celestion driver.

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1353335721' post='1873744'] Depends a lot on the exact size of the box - a 90 litre cab with 2x7cm holes comes in about 60Hz. With that particular Celestion it'll still give a hefty 4dB hump centred around 100Hz. More than I'd want but it's not such a bad sound for a lot of scenarios and it makes the box able to go very loud without too much power and it will sound bassy - an old-school solution. Don't forget a lot of mixing desk shelving bass EQ shelves/cuts are set around 80-100Hz, the extra octave below requires a BIG size/cost premium. 42Hz is a lot deeper than most people think! I find it odd that Bill is always so down on other people's non-flat designs, when his own Jacks are very deliberately designed this way with a massive hump in the low mids, a BIG drop between 1 and 2kHz and comparatively little deep bass. I imagine they really suit a certain P bass vibe, but it didn't work for me - it's always a compromise and different people prefer the sound of different solutions. Even damping in cabs is something of a personal taste thing for bass, it's not always meant to be hifi. [/quote] This is exactly the sound of my cab, very old school with a big hump around 100hz. It's not bad at producing a good stage sound but sometimes the hump can interfere with the room, that why I block up the holes / ports. Thanks to all that have stepped in and given their points of view,I've taken on board all ideas and opinions.

I have a cab the contains a Celestion BL15-400X driver. The cab has two 7cm holes cut into the front of the cab. To my ears it sounds better with the holes blocked with foam. It gets tighter and more dynamic. Why cut the holes into the front as it is clearly not tuned to any frequency as there is no tubes behind them. Seems to me it's a crazy design, or maybe there is no design or thought put into it. Just put a driver into a box, cut to holes and charge a fortune.

It's all gone weird.

I use daddario Pro steels and Elixir.

You could swap out the ecc83 valves for ecc81, which is around 70% of the gain of the 83. Upgrading the valves for old stock / vintage will improve the sound as all new valves are poor IMO. Expect to pay up to £40 each for quality vintage valves.... It is worth it.