Priller
Well-known member
Seems you're already aware, but just to be sure, it's a REALLY bad idea to mix different resistance cabs from the same amp, even one with dual outputs. The differential loading can burn bits out, and it'll sound awful to boot. I went through an SWR phase, as the gear got stupid cheap for a while, and some of their amps were rated to 2 ohms, but they also didn't have an integral HPF, so had a nasty habit of (quietly) burning themselves out trying to push sub frequencies via the 'Super Extender' knob. I had a Super Redhead for a while that I spent far too much money on having the internal speakers rebuilt to 8 ohm so I could put it on a 210 extension, also at 8 ohm, and run essentially a 410 at 4 ohm. I had read abut this via Bryan Beller, and it seemed an ideal recording and live rig. I ended up just not being able to make the Super Redhead work for me, only liked the tone with the gain dimed, so I ended up selling the package at a sizeable loss. The only SWR kit I still have is an Interstellar Overdrive rack preamp, which is my all-time favourite amp and one I'll be buried with.I have two, but one is 8ohm, the other is 4ohm. My mistake, when I bought the second one, I thought they were the same cab - and they are except for the pesky 4 and 8 at the end of the model number. Ugh. Mark Bass no longer makes the 4ohm cab, oddly.
Then you run into physics. If you have two cabinets and you don't have two outputs from the amp, your setup could end up burning up your amp or messing with your sound.
For example, two 4ohm cabs in series makes an 8ohm resistance, while two cabs in parallel makes 2ohm resistance. If you try the 2nd setup, your amp will let the blue smoke out. Everything electric runs on blue smoke. The series setup would take more of your power as 8ohms takes about 1/3 more power to produce the same output compared to 4ohm. If you mixed my two cabs in series, you'd get 12ohms, which would really make you wonder WTF is going on if you weren't aware, when two cabinets are quieter than the 4ohm cab on its own.
One of my heads has two outputs @ 500W, 4ohm per so that could work in parallel but the 2nd cab would still produce a different sound level.
So I just want to go to a single, higher rated, 4ohm cabinet for my gig setup. Now, that said, I'm now tracking down Traynor 410s because there are several used ones in the $899 range in Ontario. 4x10 + horn would be my preferred setup for most gigs and I rarely (very rarely) ever play a gig without an XLR to the front of house, but it would still do well at it. I've soured a bit on the 15" single in the TC1510 and for the reason Priller gave - I went to the store Friday and tried out the setup with a long cord and at 8' away the bottom did sound a bit muddy where sitting right beside the cabinet, I was hearing mostly the 10s. It's not that 15" speakers are muddy per se, it's that the mix between the two with the different throws etc. don't really produce the sound I expected.
You have to live with this stuff and do some trials in practice before it makes much sense, which is a *****. The good news is that Long & McQuade will rent you both the TC1510 and the TC410 if you want to try them separately or together. My buddy's SVT setup is 4x10 + 2x10 and a 15 in a stack but I'm not so sure about moving 200lbs of cabinets around with me, lol
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I played with two SWR Goliath III 410's for a while as a theoretically easier load-in than an 810. Turns out, each 410 weighed about 2/3 of an 810, and not having the height and wheels actually made them an even bigger PITA anywhere that didn't have stairs. Not bad if you had a hand to take the other side, but a nightmare on your own. I used a Fender Bassman Pro 810 for a bit (paired with the Bassman Pro 300 tube amp - a monster to beat even an Ampeg Fridge), but when I got that Fender Bassman Pro 215 it sounded far better than any 4 or 810 I'd ever played through and I largely moved away from 10's altogether.
From listening to the cab and speaker boffins over on TalkBass (including a guy who used to design Genz Benz gear before the Fender takeover), they all say most bass cabs are poorly designed for porting, usually prioritising appearace over clean bass extension at useful frequencies. I always wanted to build a fEARful cab, as they apparently will blow the doors off much bigger units through carefully matched driver, porting and internal cab dimensions.
I've personally moved towards 12's as a nice compromise between the rigidity of a smaller cone (with 15's needing to be heavy to maintain stiffness at low frequencies) but also not needing the massive excursion to move enough air that you need with a 10. The main problem is you can't squeeze four drivers into a bass cab like you can for guitar because the cab is too small to handle all that moving air from the low frequencies, so you end up with 212 cabs with the drivers oriented diagonally. That said, all the 212's I've played through have sounded amazing. My church rig was a Traynor SB200 on two 112 Traynor extension cabs, and that setup sounded better than almost any other rig I've ever played, even if it was low power. If I was playing out again, I'd be shopping for a set of 212's from GK, Ampeg, Bergantino, Mesa, MarkBass or similar...
