Author Topic: 12" Bass speaker recommendations  (Read 604 times)

kilowatt

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #15 on: June 18, 2020, 02:44:19 PM »
Just wanted to follow up on the recommendations I received from US Speaker. They said the Faital Pro 12RS550 would work really well with my cabinet, if I installed 2-4" round ports with a port depth of 9.25"/per cabinet section. They also recommended the Beyma 12WR400, with 2-4" round ports with a port depth of 7"/per cabinet section. They said the Beyma would have a more pronounced mid tone, and the Faital would have a deep powerful bass, and slightly mellower mid tone. Installing the ports would not be a big project, but I don't have any speaker design experience, so I thought I would see what everyone thought. I personally like the description of the sound of the Faitals, but "Deep powerful bass" is a very subjective description.

Regards,
Pete

lbpesq

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #16 on: June 18, 2020, 02:54:55 PM »
I'm the guitar one, so what the heck do I know!  But I love the Celestion BN12-300s speaker in my Quilter cab.  It's actually a bass speaker and, relying on a neodymium magnet, is very light weight.   I can't tell you how it would sound in a bass rig, but I can personally attest it would make that rig a lot easier to hump in and out of a gig!

Bill, tgo

kilowatt

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #17 on: June 18, 2020, 02:57:00 PM »
I'm also looking to pick up one of Bag Ends ELF processors,as Edwin suggested, just to test it out. Ron had a hand in it's design, so I'm sure it will be worth it!


Regards,
Pete

gtrguy

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #18 on: June 19, 2020, 11:21:59 AM »
The best sounding 12" bass speaker I ever owned was an old EV guitar speaker. It had the smooth paper cone and I think the bass speakers used the ridge cones. I pulled it out of a vintage Lab Series guitar amp.

edwin

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #19 on: June 24, 2020, 06:10:03 PM »
The best sounding 12" bass speaker I ever owned was an old EV guitar speaker. It had the smooth paper cone and I think the bass speakers used the ridge cones. I pulled it out of a vintage Lab Series guitar amp.

Probably an EVM. A decent speaker, but would be quite mid heavy for bass. Their best attribute is that they are difficult to blow up. I've had a number of them. I never did really like the tone.

The designs and technology for bass drivers have progressed considerably since those days.

gtrguy

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #20 on: June 25, 2020, 11:03:55 AM »
It had a great growl to it. However, I did manage to blow it up after a year.

edwin

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #21 on: July 03, 2020, 07:22:07 PM »
It had a great growl to it. However, I did manage to blow it up after a year.

Definitely that growl! Good job on getting it to give up the ghost! I sure tried.

kilowatt

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #22 on: July 04, 2020, 07:21:28 AM »
Just wanted to give a quick update on this project. Talked to the people at Bag End, and they have been fantastic. After several discussions, they are leaning on a speaker that they had Eminence build for a project that never came to be. I'm waiting on specs for this E12-E, and then can decide between it, and the Faital Pro RS550. Faital is building speakers for Bag End, as well. I'm not going to cut in a port, in hopes of making this cabinet something it wasn't designed to be.

Regards,
Pete

sonicus

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #23 on: July 04, 2020, 08:05:30 AM »
Shortly before this pandemic I acquired another speaker cabinet that was a design that  seems to have been implemented in the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound .  I rebuilt it recently . This one was designed as a keyboard fill cabinet.  I spoke with Jim from Bagend about this speaker cabinet and he was really a wealth of information and very helpful . Jim from Bagend  told me that the cabinet was  catalogued as a BAGEND #1265.  I am very grateful for his long conversation with me .  It had 2X12"s and 6X5s  originally . The 5"s were JBL 2105s originally and are not in production any more

When I acquired it there were no speaker drivers installed    I made the decision that since none of the original drivers were currently available from JBL any more , that I would replace them with 21st century high quality speakers from a company in Italy called Faital that I have had exemplary results with in the past and have used their products in my current bass rig for years . I love their products !  I currently have the cabinet wired to be tri amped using external active crossovers and three discrete simultaneous channels of amplification .

I used these 12" Faital drivers for the low frequencies ;
12FH500{ 12" - 500 W - 97 dB - 8 Ohm }
One channel @ 2 x 8 OHMS in parallel = 4 Ohms
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I used these 4" Faital drivers as the midrange & high frequency units ;
4FE35{ 4" - 30 W - 91 dB - 16 Ohms }
Two channels @ 3x16 OHMS in parallel = 5.33 Ohms per channel .
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Total wired channels on cabinet : three
Connectors : three sets dual banana plug
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Faital Website : https://faitalpro.com/en
« Last Edit: July 04, 2020, 08:26:29 AM by sonicus »

kilowatt

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #24 on: July 04, 2020, 08:25:09 AM »
That cabinet is in really nice shape. Great job on the rebuild. The 12FH500's are also in the running for my cabinet. Looks like the are a little more efficient, half the weight, and have a bigger frequency response than the RS500's. Craig, and Henry at Bag End are also great guys'.

Regards,
Pete

sonicus

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #25 on: July 05, 2020, 07:21:16 PM »
Thanks Pete !
                      I am indeed elated at the performance  and sonic qualities of the Faital 12FH500's .
As well I need to state and extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to have been given the opportunity to obtain this BagEnd unit . I love playing my Alembic  Essence 6 tuned E/A/D/G/C/F through it  as a facility of extended tuning bass voices for loops.  ;).

kilowatt

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #26 on: July 06, 2020, 02:29:02 PM »
How do you think the Faital 12FH500's would be by themselves, in my cabinet? It looks to be the same size as yours, but no 5" speakers. Had never seen another one like it, but it turns out Edwin had the same cabinet. Just saw one in Rhode Island, on Craigslist too.

Regards,
Pete

sonicus

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #27 on: July 06, 2020, 02:51:54 PM »
 If you really want to crunch the numbers  you will need exact measurements of your cabinet as well as the design type of your cabinet as to Sealed Infinite baffle / or ported , or etc ... , Their are specs known as Thiele /Small parameters that are used for such electromechanical calculations .
Thiele/Small parameters (commonly abbreviated T/S, or TSP) are a set of electromechanical parameters that define the specified low frequency performance of a loudspeaker driver.   
I do not really know what you have , therefore if you have been working with US Speaker  tell them your specs or contact Fatail directly .  I am not sure without looking what the availability of the Faital 12FH500's currently is .
They are NEO's and nice and light . They very well may be fine for your application depending what your sound preferences are . Mine are definition , clarity and punch inclusive of the full spectrum of the program input .
« Last Edit: July 06, 2020, 06:53:27 PM by sonicus »

kilowatt

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #28 on: July 06, 2020, 04:19:47 PM »
 This is a sealed cabinet, with essentially two sections. Each section of this cabinet is 2.62 cu/ft. US Speaker recommended a 4" port installation to each section. I would rather not go this route. I really need to spend some time to learn more about the science and math behind these calculations.

Regards,
Pete

sonicus

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Re: 12" Bass speaker recommendations
« Reply #29 on: July 06, 2020, 06:49:02 PM »
The BagEnd Cab that I installed the Faital 12FH500 speakers in has three sealed sections ; One each for the 12s and one section for the high frequency drivers . Somewhat similar to your low frequency sections . I am fairly certain that I could slightly increase the lower end performance with tuned ports as well if there were room to do so  on the front of my cabinet. I could do so on the back side , however in my case of bringing this historic relic back to life  , I set forth to " LESS IS MORE & DO NO HARM " as I often do with such restorations of equipment in my hands.   I wanted to keep it a BagEnd  1265 as much as possible . There are are cases where some of the  science suffers for esoteric , cosmetic , practical or financial reasons . Sometimes that is acceptable and reasonable in judgement for me  .

Best Regards to you and for your project !
Wolf
« Last Edit: July 06, 2020, 06:54:53 PM by sonicus »