Anyone ever run bass through a Peavey Classic 410 cab?

[Ian Savage]

Just curious really, I'm looking at getting one of these as part of a gigging six-string rig and looking at the specs they've got a power handling of 400W RMS, 800W program (which is higher than some bass cabs I've had!), but I strongly suspect that being semi-open-backed they won't have very much 'wallop' for bass duties (only at jam nights and such, nothing properly high-volume).

Anyone ever tried it, or run bass through any other kind of open-backed cab? Cheers all!

[Subthumper]

[quote name='Ian Savage' post='966669' date='Sep 24 2010, 01:37 PM']Just curious really, I'm looking at getting one of these as part of a gigging six-string rig and looking at the specs they've got a power handling of 400W RMS, 800W program (which is higher than some bass cabs I've had!), but I strongly suspect that being semi-open-backed they won't have very much 'wallop' for bass duties (only at jam nights and such, nothing properly high-volume).

Anyone ever tried it, or run bass through any other kind of open-backed cab? Cheers all![/quote]

Hi, I think you'll find thats a guitar cab. Putting a bass through it will most certainly blow the drivers due to the open back design not putting any load on the speakers and cause them to over travel. Also being a guitar cab will mean the drivers will be high resonance and not make much bass anyway. It might work as the high cab in a bi amp rig though.
Cheers Just

[Mr. Foxen]

[quote name='Subthumper' post='966697' date='Sep 24 2010, 01:58 PM']Putting a bass through it will most certainly blow the drivers[/quote]

It wpon't certainly. It might if you expect it to produce bass cab lows. Expect it to sound like a guitar cab and you are good to go. It's based on a Fender Bassman anyway. I wouldn't use it as a standalone, but as the top half of a dual amp rig, golden.

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='966730' date='Sep 24 2010, 02:21 PM']It wpon't certainly. It might if you expect it to produce bass cab lows. Expect it to sound like a guitar cab and you are good to go. It's based on a Fender Bassman anyway. I wouldn't use it as a standalone, but as the top half of a dual amp rig, golden.[/quote]
Hmm, not exactly, it might be ok or not depending on the application. Even if you run it as part of a two-part rig, unless you have a separate amp powering the bottom cab and high-pass filter the Peavey you still risk blowing the speakers at higher power. They'll move loads if you put much below 100Hz through them, even if acoustic output is negligible.

[Ian Savage]

[quote name='Subthumper' post='966697' date='Sep 24 2010, 01:58 PM']Hi, I think you'll find thats a guitar cab.[/quote]

I know that, that's why I said I was thinking about one as part of a six-string rig just wondered whether anyone had tried putting bass through one as the cab's power rating suggests it'll take it but I wasn't sure whether the cab design would make it impractical.

[Mr. Foxen]

Power ratings are best ignored. It won't be the power that breaks it, it will be excursion, so its more about frequencies. don't expect any bottom from it, and don't try and eq any in, ideally by using a guitar head with it, and it will be fine, but probably won't sound much like a bass. I'm gonna be playing bass through a guitar rig in about an hour (next to a bass rig).

[Ian Savage]

Right, so sounds like it's worth a try but don't expect any real low-end and keep an eye on the cone excursion - would adding a panel to make it closed-back have any effect?

[Mr. Foxen]

Would make it sound like a closed back guitar cab. Pretty much all the rules for making bass cabs don't apply to guitar ones, since they are supposed to colour the sound loads.

[Phil Starr]

It is not a sensible thing to do. The cab starts to cut out at any frequency below the point where the shortest distance around from the back of the speakers is haslf a wavelength of that frequency. in practice two octaves above low E.

The speakers are designed with stiffer suspensions lighter cones and shorter travel etc. etc. for this application. Any deep bass will push the short voice coils right out of the magnet gap so you'll run out of output at probably less than 50W. Depending upon the detailed design of the drive units you may well blow them at a relatively low power and they won't sound good anyway.

If you want the punchy sound of a guitar cab there are better ways of doing it.