Driver for Midbass Thump? done OB style

[Antripodean]

Working on my Open Baffle Manger project and currently focussing on the bass side of things. I currently have some Scanspeak 10" to take on the low bass but now questioning if they will be able to deliver the midbass thump I enjoy in rock and dance music. Talking about 100-250Hz.

Driver would need to work flat from 100-150 to 400Hz in OB. Any recommendations are appreciated. Not afraid to use pro drivers. Currently 90-91dB sensitivity on the drivers and using active XO with EQ. Constraints - hoping the driver is no larger than 10"

[badman]

Check the classifieds for JBL LE10A, they may well suit the bill for midbass. They're not sub drivers but 100-400 is pretty ideal range for them as 10"s and they're well behaved (read: easy to work with).

The Aquaplas cone (white) is good for impact when used right.

*edit*
Crud, you're in Oz...

hm

Prosound 10 in sealed box will do 100 (but not much more, you'll absolutely need sub(s)) and should do it with some impact. There are many good manufacturers, I'm a big JBL fan though, partially because you can often get excellent used JBLs at bargain prices.

[Antripodean]

Badman, thanks for your quick reply.
Yes, the perils of living on the other side of the globe I have bass happening for under 100Hz so no problems there.
Interested to know if the JBLs will work in open baffle? That's needed in my design.

[ScottG]

Originally posted by Antripodean
Working on my Open Baffle Manger project and currently focussing on the bass side of things. I currently have some Scanspeak 10" to take on the low bass but now questioning if they will be able to deliver the midbass thump I enjoy in rock and dance music. Talking about 100-250Hz.

Driver would need to work flat from 100-150 to 400Hz in OB. Any recommendations are appreciated. Not afraid to use pro drivers. Currently 90-91dB sensitivity on the drivers and using active XO with EQ. Constraints - hoping the driver is no larger than 10"

Look to a driver with good eff. in that range (preferably enough to absorb the "loss" from out-of-phase cancellation).

Also look to a high force factor (Bl) with the driver. ("high" is 20 plus.)

What pro drivers are readily/reasonably available to you?

[Antripodean]

ScottG, Thanks for the advice. I will look at some specs.
Most easily available pro-drivers, for me, are B&C and 18 Sound

[ScottG]

18Sound 10NMB420 seems to just about meet the param's.

http://www.eighteensound.com/index.a...roduct&pid=274

The B&C 10" stuff is less eff. with a little less force, BUT higher mms which can often result in a bit more "impact".

http://www.bcspeakers.com/product.php?id=0000000061

[ChrisA]

Originally posted by Antripodean
Working on my Open Baffle Manger project and currently focussing on the bass side of things. I currently have some Scanspeak 10" to take on the low bass but now questioning if they will be able to deliver the midbass thump I enjoy in rock and dance music. Talking about 100-250Hz.

Driver would need to work flat from 100-150 to 400Hz in OB. Any recommendations are appreciated. Not afraid to use pro drivers. Currently 90-91dB sensitivity on the drivers and using active XO with EQ. Constraints - hoping the driver is no larger than 10"

If you want bass for rock music, buy a real bass speaker. The same speaker musicians use for performance. If you are building a general purpose hifi, that is different, it has to sound good for Jazz, solo flute music, rock and opera. That is why hifi is so hard. On the other hand if you want rock buy a rock speaker. Many musical instrument speakers are designed for open back cabinets which are the musician's equivalent to OB.

Your run of the mill bass guitar speaker's typical specs are.. 10" diameter, 50Hz to 2KHz, and about 96 dB Sensitivity. They typically can take 250 to 300 watts before they blow up.

I can tell you first hand that if you put four of these in a box and drive them with 800 watts the bass sound is strong enough that people who live in the next block will come outside looking for the source of the sound. No exaggerations.


Here is one example - they are very easy to find
http://www.eminence.com/pdf/basslite-ch2010.pdf

[Antripodean]

ScottG, thanks again. I was thinking I would need higher Qts being OB so I was perhaps off track. Those two drivers look interesting, should be able to find one of those.

ChrisA, appreciate your input. I am really looking for accurate sonic reproduction but I don't want to lose the bass slam when I am listening to rock, dance etc. If it is a thumping recording then I want to hear and feel the thumps If it is jazz or vocals then I want to hear it the way it was recorded. Kind of a balancing act

[art64]

Originally posted by ChrisA


If you want bass for rock music, buy a real bass speaker. The same speaker musicians use for performance. If you are building a general purpose hifi, that is different, it has to sound good for Jazz, solo flute music, rock and opera. That is why hifi is so hard. On the other hand if you want rock buy a rock speaker. Many musical instrument speakers are designed for open back cabinets which are the musician's equivalent to OB.

Your run of the mill bass guitar speaker's typical specs are.. 10" diameter, 50Hz to 2KHz, and about 96 dB Sensitivity. They typically can take 250 to 300 watts before they blow up.

I can tell you first hand that if you put four of these in a box and drive them with 800 watts the bass sound is strong enough that people who live in the next block will come outside looking for the source of the sound. No exaggerations.


Here is one example - they are very easy to find
http://www.eminence.com/pdf/basslite-ch2010.pdf

Hello. This is what I exactly did this weekend. I bought a used Crate 2x15 bass cab from Guitar Center for $49.99. It worked great!! I just had to rewire it for 2-channel stereo operation. It may have Eminence old woofer that is no longer in production. Awesome tight punchy bass. This what my system is lacking. I have a Klipsch 12" powered sub gives great low bass 120 hz and below , but mt system is lacking the mid bass. Had the bass cab directly wired to its dedicated amp- no passive crossovers. Just turned the treble control down.
My other speaker is
modified Bose 901 covers removed and turned backwards. Bbe 362 for tone control. Super sound. Big engulfing sound. 901's are for my mid and highs only. Excellent dispersion by the 901 due its array design. I almost got rid of these speakers but I'm glad I didn't. Now my Klipsch has got to go!!!!

[ChrisA]

Originally posted by art64


Hello. This is what I exactly did this weekend. I bought a used Crate 2x15 bass cab from Guitar Center for $49.99. It worked great!! I just had to rewire it for 2-channel stereo operation. It may have Eminence old woofer that is no longer in production. Awesome tight punchy bass. This what my system is lacking. I have a Klipsch 12" powered sub gives great low bass 120 hz and below , but mt system is lacking the mid bass. Had the bass cab directly wired to its dedicated amp- no passive crossovers. Just turned the treble control down.
My other speaker is
modified Bose 901 covers removed and turned backwards. Bbe 362 for tone control. Super sound. Big engulfing sound. 901's are for my mid and highs only. Excellent dispersion by the 901 due its array design. I almost got rid of these speakers but I'm glad I didn't. Now my Klipsch has got to go!!!!

I did the same thing, in stages. I did'n't want to suggest buying an entire bass guitar stack. But it you need bass a small bass combo amp would get you the speakers, cabinet, amp and crossover all in one go for cheap. My bass amp has line-in jacks. I wanted to hear the bass parts in some music and be able to know what notes were played. It worked very well.

Next I tried the bass amp, in parallel with the normal amp on my Roland keyboard because the bass was never a convincing grand piano sound. It made it sound a lot more like a real piano.

It's working for stereo too but the real "solution" is to integrate the drives into the system. My goal now is a tube based bi-amped pair of speakers. Hammond organs built in the 50's and 60's were like this. They were very powerful instruments and could fill a large church with enough sound to rattle the walls. Hammon sold the organ console and then you bought "tone cabinets" as many cabinets as required. Each cabinet had two 15" bass drivers and a bass amp plus two treble channels and drivers for those too. It was all tube driven and the amps was inside the box along with the drivers. There was no separate cross over. The amps were just designed to pass the designed frequencies and had components selected for the purpose. Same as your bass amp. The amp is designed to just one job. I'm looking to build two of these for stereo but scaled down for home use.