Mixing bass and guitar speakers in a stereo cab?

[scottlynn73]

I've got this idea to run a guitar and bass head into my old Simms Watt bass cab at the same time.... At the moment I got Hot 100s in there but was thinking about doing an X pattern with two Eminence 12" bass speakers....then I run my TV200 and an OB1 into the same cab.

So, terrible or cool idea? My theory is that this will sound all kindsa doom!

[Hubaxe]

it will be difficult to find someone that tried that.
You want to run your guitar signal through the TV200 + OB1 at the same time, through separate speakers circuit ?

The TV200 provides already a huge amount of bass.. Theoretically, it will work, but not sure the sound adjustment between the two amps will be very usable.
I've routed my cab as stereo, (X pattern speaker type layout). If I understand ok you want to do something similar?

[Randy Bass]

Bass cabinet design is a fairly precise science and has a significant impact on how the drivers perform. I have tried mixing bass and guitar speakers in two different 4x12 cabs and found that the concept doesn't work very well as a bass cab, but does work fairly well for heavy guitar sounds if you connect all four speakers together. If the input signal is the same, but you are using two separate amps, the results should be similar.

If you are actually talking about playing guitar and bass through different speakers loaded in the same cab at the same time, you are going to end up with turbulent air inside the cab messing with the speaker cones in a manner that would likely be undesirable. I suppose you could try it as long as you keep the wiring for each set of speakers completely separate and the power handling of each set is sufficient for the amp to which it is connected. It is conceivable that the irregular cone excursion caused by the turbulence inside the cab could cause damage to the speakers if you are pushing them anywhere near their limits. You would probably want to make sure the cab is vented/ported if you try this.

[Mystic38]

From a loudspeaker design perspective this makes little to no sense..

Despite common practice, the matching of drive units to cabinets is not a "plug n play" approach, as a closed back cabinet has a tuned resonance that is based upon its cabinet volume and the free air resonance of the speaker.

All to often folks just pull out one speaker, toss in another and then make proclamations about the driver's bass and low mid performance that is essentially misleading information.. they are in fact commenting upon a combined system of driver and cabinet... as, putting the same driver into a different cabinet volume will result in different observations...so its not wonder the ezweb is full of conflicting opinions on the same driver.

So.. if you have a closed back cabinet..

1. reducing the 4 bass drivers to 2 will reduce the tuned resonance significantly, this tuning will further be reduced as the two guitar drivers will be operating as forced auxiliary bass radiators. You will also lose bass volume and punch (due to the detuning).
2. if you are playing bass and guitar simultaneously then you will, at a minimum, have erratic compression of the guitar sound based upon the bass playing.. I cannot think of any scenario where this will sound good... at worse, severely distorted guitar sounds until the drivers burn...(perhaps install fireworks triggered by voice coil temperature to make this event obvious??..lol)

IMO, If your desire is a 412 bass + guitar for size reasons, I would install a vertical divider to have two vertical 212.. in this case, the bass side would be as well matched to the cab as it currently is, given that the tuning should be unaffected, and for the guitar side you could have this closed back or make it open back..

[a.hun]

Yeah what are you trying to do? Is this for guitar / bass / both?

Sounds to me like a 'who knows?' for guitar, and probably a 'don't bother!' for bass...


Andy.

[Hubaxe]

my understanding is the OP wants to play guitar using both amps at the same time (Y cable or similar), and with one splitted cab..

Hey OP, we try to answer mate!, come back here and explain your plans!

[megalithic]

I was once playing through a 12" ported bass speaker by accident and I thought there was something wrong with my amp. The Engl 1x12" ported cab with a Vintage 30 is awesome though. Also played through a 15" closed-back non-ported bass cab, sounded great.

I don't know what to say, it may or may not be good to have those speakers, I think it's one of those things you have to try. Although personally I think using two heads into one cab is pointless overkill, using a guitar amp into bass speakers shouldn't pose any problems if you have the right impedance.