Bass Amplification Quandary

[Jimmydw]

I've been playing out of the Orange Tiny Terror 500W Bass Head for about a year ½ now, and I love it.
However, Im playing through an acoustic 2 piece stack: 4x10 & 1X15 and Im no longer satisfied with my sound.
It seems like my cabs can't even handle the orange head.
I can't turn up passed 3 without having an almost peaking distorted sound.
Ive been considering upgrading to the ampeg 8x10, or looking into actual speaker replacement and a shell "makeover" if I go this route Ive been weighing my options between the celestion's & a few of the eminence.
I've been doing some light research and have found that in some cases its better if you go for a coupling sound by using identical cabs (4x10 + 4x10 or 1x15 + 1x15 (etc))
Now Im sweating because Im really not sure what I want with this new information.
I want that massive low doom but without watering out the definition in my highs, and at the same time Im trying to keep the harshness of the mids and highs to a moderate to low level. My goal is to achieve that sound without unwanted tone distortion, which Im beginning to believe is impossible at this point. I gig & record regularly.

Other GEAR
My primary bass is an Ibanez sr505 with the bartolini pickups
DR High Beams
I have the Boss ME-50 pedal, which is alright for beginners but Ive outgrown it and am saving up to invest in all analog pedals + 12-18 Equalizer.
All monster cables.


Any input, ideas or insight?

[Jondog]

I'm not a bass player, but I can tell you that those 8x10's are a pain in the a** if your going to be moving it quite a bit. I know a guy who's been renting smaller bass cabs every time he goes out because he's tired of moving the 8x10 around.
It was mentioned in another thread, but a good way to go might be the Orange 2x10 along with the 1x15.

[Jimmydw]

that those 8x10's are a pain in the a** if your going to be moving it quite a bit. I know a guy who's been renting smaller bass cabs every time he goes out because he's tired of moving the 8x10 around.
It was mentioned in another thread, but a good way to go might be the Orange 2x10 along with the 1x15.

I figured as much thats one of the main reasons I was looking into alternate options.
Ill check on youtube to see if I can find some demos for those 2x10 & 1x15
Thanks for the info

[a.hun]

Hi Jimmydw. Welcome!

Where in the world are you for starters? (Handy to put that in your profile!)

Could it be that the horn tweeter in the 4x10 is the problem? I'd try defeating it and see if the peaky distorted sound goes away. If so it is either damaged or you are simply putting too much high frequencies through it with bad (raspy) results.

If looking for significant cab upgrades (depending on where you are) it might be worth googling things like 'fEARful', 'Barefaced Bass' and 'Tecamp'. There are others but these are all top notch and with amazing performance / weight ratios. (I use both of the latter two makes myself.)

BTW the Ampeg 8x10 'fridge' designs do sound massive but that isn't through having lots of real low end. In fact they have relatively low output below about 80Hz so what you hear with them is more the punchy first harmonics rather than the fundamental frequencies from your open strings. Effective but it sounds like you may be needing something different...


Andy.

[Jimmydw]

South East Texas.
Sorry Im pretty terrible at the forum game.
Honestly I have never even heard of the amps you listed.
Ill try disabling the horn and seeing if thats the issue, but Im pretty certain at this point that Im just asking for too much volume from my cabs.

[baytamusic]

2x15 cabs are pretty hard to beat IMO. Maybe and Emperor 2x15? One of my bands played a show the other day that had a backline provided by Emperor, and there was a 2x15 our bass player used and it sounded great and had a ton of low end, but was still punchy. I have this old late 70s GK 4412h cab that's a 2x10 front facing and 4x12 horn setup. It sounds absolutely ridiculously huge too. It's very rare though and may be hard to find. I found mine here in Chicago at a used vintage place, dude from Cheap Trick bought the other two they had I guess. Ampeg 8x10 is always a good choice as well. I personally like big bass fridge type bass cabs, they sound the best IMO.

[nlimbaugh]

I don't know much Bayta. My bass sounds have always been off the cuff guitar gear all eq'd and tube swapped configurations. But, I think your sound would go good with the 2x15 though your guitar history might make you want some of the 10". I mean, for me sometimes hearing those low tones in a volume filled area can take my ears some practice but that big 'feel' without big discerning is what my stuff at least needs to get more of. I bet you'll end up with a killer setup. Have fun at least going for it.

[markjazzbassist]

2 Orange OBC115 should do the trick. Perfect for your doom stuff. Plenty of low end and enough high end and mids as well without a horn or tweeter. They'll pair nicely with your Bass Terror and are pretty easy to carry (not too heavy).

[Randy Bass]

The Orange OBC115 is a great-sounding and ridiculously well-built cab. I am curious, though, if you are saying that you don't want a distorted sound at all? The TB500 is definitely designed to have some grind going on at nearly all volume levels. Is it possible that you are looking for a bass amp with more clean volume/headroom?

[a.hun]

Honestly I have never even heard of the amps you listed.
Ill try disabling the horn and seeing if thats the issue, but Im pretty certain at this point that Im just asking for too much volume from my cabs.

Well, not surprising because most people won't have, but now you have!

BTW those aren't all amp manufacturers. fEARful is one guy who just does (amazing) cab designs which you have to have built elsewhere. Plenty of builders will now do fEARful design cabs for you though. Barefaced (in the UK) don't do amps either, just amazing cabs. Similar sort of ideas except they'll actually build them for you. Tecamp (Germany) will sell you amps, cabs, other neat gizmos, but especially in the US you are talking very pricy stuff.

It isn't true that you'll only get lots of low bass out of 15" drivers. My Tecamp 2x12 will thunder like a much bigger cab. It is all down to good cab design around the right drivers, whatever sized drivers are used. You can even get great low bass using multiple 5"speakers, though at the cost of lower efficiency (loudness). Thing is that your Ampeg 'fridge' wasn't so much an 8x10 as four sealed 2x10s stacked together in the same box. It was never designed for strong low bass in the first place, just strong punchy bass guitar sounds.

Check this out:
Barefaced Super-Compact
It is a brand new sub 12kg 1x12 which'll hang with top quality 2x12 or 4x10 cabs from other makes, and absolutely kill any normal high end 1x15s - including the OBC115. (Actually my smaller earlier generation 10kg 1x12 Barefaced Midget will beat any conventional 1x15s into submission too, both tonally, and in sheer volume terms including bottom end!) A single SC with a powerful amp will do most gigs with plenty of performance to spare. Two of them (or the still sub 20kg 2x12 Barefaced Super-Twin) will hang with the very best conventional high end 4x12s or 8x10s out there. That is the current state of play in high end bass cab design...

Of course a couple of OBC115s - or one with an OBC410 - would do you very nicely too, hopefully much better than your current speakers. But you'd be talking about 60 / 70kg and you couldn't really safely upgrade to a more powerful amp like the BT1K. Orange cabs are very good, but for me personally the performance / weight ratio just wasn't there. (I'm 50+ and live 3 floors up. If you aren't / don't than that may not matter so much!)

Anyway there is some more input, ideas, insight about bass cabs.


Andy.

[bassdrop]

I will concur with Andy that the Barefaced cabs are AMAZING. However, keep in mind that they are higher end prices and there is a substantial 4-6 month backorder on the cabs. Similar performance can be had from a fEarful Bassic 1x15, albeit at a bit higher weight and there are builder all over the US. You'll likely save a few bucks and a few months waiting time, but if you're OK with the backorder and the cost the Barefaced are well worth it.

[a.hun]

I will concur with Andy that the Barefaced cabs are AMAZING. However, keep in mind that they are higher end prices and there is a substantial 4-6 month backorder on the cabs. Similar performance can be had from a fEarful Bassic 1x15, albeit at a bit higher weight and there are builder all over the US. You'll likely save a few bucks and a few months waiting time, but if you're OK with the backorder and the cost the Barefaced are well worth it.

Should be down from a few months to around the stated 6-8 weeks now. By all accounts the newly updated CNC machine is doing it's thing nicely. Plenty of the new 3rd gen cabs out there already and they were only announced late September.

Not cheap (especially not in the US), but still WELL worth it!


Andy.