Two 2x10s: stack vertically or horizontally

[Beedster]

Having done a bit of playing around with my two 2x10s, I’m interested in people’s preferences, experience, and thoughts. For example, is bass response enhanced when they’re in classic 4x10 formation? 

Cheers

Chris

[chris_b]

Horizontal. I use my 210's in a loud band so the last thing I want is speakers anywhere near my ears.

[warwickhunt]

I've never stacked my pair of 2x10's (TC RS210) in alternate ways 'during' a gig but whenever they are vertical they just seem to work better for me!  It helps that I can always hear the bass as the top speaker is nearer ear level and yes my amp is always standing on its side beside the cabs.      

[Lozz196]

They`re meant to sound better when stacked vertically but I just look at that as an accident waiting to happen, be it with clumsy punters or clumsy bandmates. Horizontally would cause me less stress at a gig for sure.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Vertical. Horizontal narrows the midrange dispersion angle by over half, creates comb filtering in the highs, and makes it much more difficult for the player to hear the mids and highs. There is no loss of low end, as the drivers are all fully mutually coupled and acting as a single driver in the long wavelengths which benefit from the boundary reinforcement the floor gives. It may seem that there's a loss of lows, but that's not the case, it's just that you can hear the mids and highs with a vertical stack far better than with a horizontal cluster.

[E sharp]

Just a quick question Bill .

If say , I were to buy two of the Barefaced 2x10's and stacked them vertically ; would it matter which way round they were to be stacked ? As I understand that Alex has made them to be a sort of line array system - one speaker for bass and the other for treble (sort of) .

Best to 'join' both speakers together in the stack , or no difference how it's done ?

Thanks , Paul

[ped]

Diagonally, very carefully 

[warwickhunt]

3 minutes ago, E sharp said:

Just a quick question Bill .

If say , I were to buy two of the Barefaced 2x10's and stacked them vertically ; would it matter which way round they were to be stacked ? As I understand that Alex has made them to be a sort of line array system - one speaker for bass and the other for treble (sort of) .

Best to 'join' both speakers together in the stack , or no difference how it's done ?

Thanks , Paul

As I understand it, the tweeters (or coaxial drivers in the case of the TC RS 210s) should be as close together as possible; even though that means they are the centre most speakers in the stack.  

 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

11 minutes ago, E sharp said:

Just a quick question Bill .

If say , I were to buy two of the Barefaced 2x10's and stacked them vertically ; would it matter which way round they were to be stacked ? As I understand that Alex has made them to be a sort of line array system - one speaker for bass and the other for treble (sort of) .

Best to 'join' both speakers together in the stack , or no difference how it's done ?

Thanks , Paul

I assume that one of the drivers is low passed, one run full range. If that's the case the best way to have them vertically stacked is with the full range driver at the top of the lower cab, with the upper cab placed upside down, so that the two full range drivers are adjacent.

[chris_b]

Barefaced Two10's can be stacked either way. That's the way Alex designed them.

[warwickhunt]

1 minute ago, chris_b said:

Barefaced Two10's can be stacked either way. That's the way Alex designed them.

Do you mean they were designed to be stacked both vertically AND horizontally?  Surely that is scientifically impossible, they can only be 'designed' for one orientation?  Everything that I've ever read indicates that drivers in a vertical array are preferential over the old (space saving) 4x10 config.  

[machinehead]

41 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

Do you mean they were designed to be stacked both vertically AND horizontally?  Surely that is scientifically impossible, they can only be 'designed' for one orientation?  Everything that I've ever read indicates that drivers in a vertical array are preferential over the old (space saving) 4x10 config.  

The answer is in BFMs post above and on the Barefaced website.  I think I would be right in saying (unless BFM also has cabs designed this way?) that your thinking above is correct for all 2x10 or 2x12 etc cabs except Barefaced.

EDIT: When I owned a pair of Markbass 2x10s I stacked them vertically and found that to be easy to hear on stage and it sounded good in the audience.

Frank.

Edited January 30, 2019 by machinehead

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

Do you mean they were designed to be stacked both vertically AND horizontally?  Surely that is scientifically impossible, they can only be 'designed' for one orientation?  Everything that I've ever read indicates that drivers in a vertical array are preferential over the old (space saving) 4x10 config.  

The issues with lessened midrange dispersion and high frequency combing when drivers are side by side are eliminated when one side of drivers  is low passed, meaning they have no midrange or high frequency content. It's a very simple concept, so simple that one can't help but wonder why it's not universally employed in 4x, 6x and 8x cabs. I don't do so in any of my cabs, because I don't do a 4x, 6x or 8x. But I did describe why it should be done and how to do it on bass forums ten or more years ago.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Bill Fitzmaurice

[warwickhunt]

Just now, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

The issues with lessened midrange dispersion and high frequency combing when drivers are side by side are eliminated when one driver is low passed, meaning it has no midrange or high frequency content. It's a very simple concept, so simple that one can't help but wonder why it's not universally employed in 4x, 6x and 8x cabs. I don't do so in any of my cabs, because I don't do a 4x, 6x or 8x. But I did describe why it should be done and how to do it on bass forums ten or more years ago.

Ah so the standard BF2x10 cab is this, it'll still benefit from vertical stacking as described but 'potentially' would have lessened mid/high over say the TC RS cabs that I stack (with coaxial drivers paired)?      

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

My 2x cabs are all vertical. If you use two they should be stacked vertical. There's no reason why they would have less mids/highs than the TC. The TC RS cabs look to be an improvement over the usual 2x10, but at least in their advertising they don't show the upper cab in a vertical stack inverted as it should be.

[Beedster]

Thanks for the responses guys, I A/B'd my two Mesa 2x10s with a few heads yesterday and, to my ears (and that's the key thing here I think), there was a loss of bass when stacked vertically. I'm guessing it was simply an increase in mids/highs plus the fact that these were hitting me at closer to ear level than I'm used to (I'm mostly using just the one cab on the floor). However, the upside was that I could really hear differences between heads that I perhaps might not have done using conventional horizontal layout.

Main thing I learned yesterday? I miss my SVT. Ludicrously heavy, and a complete pain to rehearse and gig with, but nothing makes bass sound better. Might not be all that safe on top of a vertically stacked rig though 

[Beedster]

Interested to know peoples' thoughts on this arrangement of two 2x10s?

[chris_b]

I don't think horizontal or vertical is an issue if you have diagonal speaker placement within the cab.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

3 hours ago, Beedster said:

Interested to know peoples' thoughts on this arrangement of two 2x10s?

That gives two benefits you don't get if they were side by side. The stack is higher than it is wide, which makes the dispersion pattern wider than than it is high, and the uppermost drivers are closer to ear level.

[Beedster]

Thanks both, no issue with the drivers being diagonally aligned with one another then?

Cheers

Chris

[HazBeen]

3 hours ago, Beedster said:

Interested to know peoples' thoughts on this arrangement of two 2x10s?

Cheapest 210 solution on the market

[BigRedX]

Surely dispersion is only important if the bass isn't also going into the PA?

[Conan]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Surely dispersion is only important if the bass isn't also going into the PA?

Depends. If you play on biggish stages, and move around a bit, and want to be able to hear yourself other than through monitors or in-ears...

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

2 hours ago, Beedster said:

Thanks both, no issue with the drivers being diagonally aligned with one another then?

That does result in narrower dispersion than having them vertical, though not as much as having them horizontal.

[BigRedX]

52 minutes ago, Conan said:

Depends. If you play on biggish stages, and move around a bit, and want to be able to hear yourself other than through monitors or in-ears...

IME any stage large enough to move about on tends to have decent monitoring and I can always hear myself better (and have a better balanced sound of the whole band) in the monitors, unless I am stood right in front of my rig.