Offset Speaker Sacrifices Bass?

[tsp17]

I just got an earful from someone that even slightly off center speaker placement in a cabinet means real bass response reduction.

 

Accurate?

 

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[H]

And in a 4x12, 2x12?

[tsp17]

"And in a 4x12, 2x12? "

 

I was wondering the same. i have a 2x8 and 2x10 that are both full and rich on the bottom.

 

Maybe multiple speakers makes up for it?

 

 

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[Blunote]

Must be that all the bass friendly air molecules sink to the bottom of the cabinet, leaving fewer bass friendly air molecules on top.

 

Or, your friend's been smokin' something.

[smurph1]

I'm basically deaf so I probably couldn't tell anyway..That's a funny picture though..

[Guest HRB853370]

I have a Gibson GA40RVT and a GA42RVT. The GA40 is a 1x12 that is offset to the left if you are facing the front. The GA42 has 2x12. I dont notice any significant difference other than the 2x12 might sound richer.

[bolero]

Maybe but I doubt it matters much for gtr was this guy an audiophile? Prolly more noticeabl with hifi

[Genericmusic]

[tsp17]

Whew, it was starting to get in my head. My new/used Carr Rambler has a slight offset.

[Steiner]

 

+1

 

High frequencies tend to cancel more so than bass; I should say the effect is more noticeable at high frequencies. You're going to get some (noticeable?) frequency cancellations with multiple speakers unless each speaker pushes air EXACTLY the same. The effect is more noticeable when the speaker cone normal vectors cross. Your Carr's normal vectors cross behind the cab - forgetaboutit.

[TalismanRich]

I would think that having the cabinet properly designed (all that "Q" stuff, free air resonance, Theile Small Parameters and other magic mumbo jumbo) would have much more of an effect on the bass response than being slightly off center.

 

Case in point, my IMFs with 8 inch woofers will put out significant output at 28 Hz. They have an speaker that is drastically offset. They are also transmission line loaded to optimize the bass.

[tsp17]

It is a 1x12 and the speaker is only somewhat off center.

[LK155]

I would think that having the cabinet properly designed (all that "Q" stuff, free air resonance, Theile Small Parameters and other magic mumbo jumbo) would have much more of an effect on the bass response than being slightly off center.

 

Case in point, my IMFs with 8 inch woofers will put out significant output at 28 Hz. They have an speaker that is drastically offset. They are also transmission line loaded to optimize the bass.

 

 

Ah, yup, those IMF's are incredible speakers.

But they don't share a lot with guitar speaker enclosures.

Virtually all of the low frequency oomph those things deliver is due to the cabinet, with its convoluted foam-lined trajectory path (the transmission line), using the sound waves coming off the back of that KEF bass driver. And oomph they have! Floor-shaking, teacup-rattling, deep, powerfull bass. Wish I still had mine. Gave them to my son, along with a vintage Marantz 2325. He liked them so much (TLS50II's) that he later bought a pair of TLS80's to go with them. That setup'll be impressive.

[bolero]

very nice!!

 

I love vintage audio

[tsp17]

here is a good theoretical explanation i got over in the amp tech forum on TGP. makes some sense. it sounds like what my amp tech told me.

 

"On a purely theoretical level, the lowest frequency that an open baffle cab can produce will be set by the shortest path between the back and front of the driver.
That will define the wavelength at which the output from the back of the speaker will cancel the output from the front of the speaker, frequencies (freq = 1/wavelength) below that won't be reproduced.
That's why speakers sound so thin when they're free standing; as the baffle size increases, so does the bass extension of the cab.
Ideally the cab will be a circle with the driver at its centre.
Hence bigger cabs can reproduce lower frequencies (also bigger cab panels having lower resonant frequencies may be involved).
So, given the above, if the speaker isn't mounted as centrally as possible in the baffle/cab, the effective size of the cab is smaller, because cancellation will start to occur at a shorter wavelength.
That's my take on the theory; in practice a lot of other stuff comes into play and whether the driver is centrally mounted in the baffle probably isn't significant in the overall tone of the cab."

[bolero]

well that's it....I'm ditching my 4x12's and getting custom cabs that look like this

 

 

 

..might be a bit hard to balance the head on there, but hey they'd be be easy to roll around!!