Harsh sound coming from cabinet center-normal?

[dobranskym]

Hi. Today I've been experimenting with my 4x12 cab and position of the chair in front of it. I found a pretty interesting thing. Few days before the sound of my amp somehow changed to something pretty harsh and non pleasant and I wondered why. Today I found what was the fault! It was because I moved my chair more to the center of the cabinet and did not realise it. I found that when I sit right in the axis of the cabinet, where the sound from all speakers blends together, it is really bad. The overall eq response is significantly changed. You get more highs and presence but it sounds really really harsh and you can't get rid of that. I found this thing happening only in the center of the cab, few metres in front of it. When I stand or sit everywhere else, the sound is pretty much the same. Do you experience the same thing with your cabinet? Or is there some fault such as a speaker out of phase in mine? Thanks.

[Jondog]

Pretty much why mic placement when recording is important

[bclaire]

Also why some people install beam blockers over their speakers....

[fiveightandten]

Yes. Welcome to guitar cabinets, and speakers in general. When you're in the line of fire and hearing the bright sound, you're in the "beam". All guitar speakers are beamy, to a degree.

The design of the cabinet, the baffle, and the speakers themselves all plays into how beamy the sound will be. Generally, more speakers = more directional. Single speaker cabs tend to disperse sound more evenly, as they don't have the phase cancellations that multi-speaker cabinets have. With multi speaker cabinets, the baffle design is the most important thing.

It's just something you have to deal with. I tend to EQ my amp to sound good off axis (out of the beam), and I point the amp so it's not aimed directly at anyone (as much as feasible). With my little 1x12 combos, this isn't really a big problem, but with 2x12 cabinets I have to be more mindful of it.

As Billy mentioned, there are devices designed to counteract this. Weber "beam blockers" are one. They are supposed to deflect sound from the center of the cone. I've heard people report both good and bad experiences with those. And the "Mitchell donut" is another approach, opposite to the beam blocker. It's a foam donut that is supposed to diffuse the sound evenly from the entire speaker, and they have a hole in the middle.

I haven't tried beam blockers. I made a few Mitchell donuts and they do exactly what they're supposed to do. The sound is much more evenly dispersed. They do, however, cut top end and cut a little volume as well. This may or may not be desirable, depending on your situation.

-Nick

[adkguy07]

This is a pretty interesting discussion about cabs and dispersion of their sound. I just use a PPC112 cab with an Orange amp and I accidentally discovered what the OP described, when I bent down to dial the amp when my ears were no more than a foot or so, away from the V30 speaker. The highs all that of a sudden were a harsh, trumpet-like, and a blaring dominated the sound. In my normal seated position a few feet away and off axis to the speaker.....no harsh highs and a mixture of mids and bass frequencies restored in the tone. In other words, I could “feel” the sound not be attacked by it.

I've come upon a few forums threads recently were some players are resorting to using 2x12 cabs with them turned vertical just because they like what it does for their tone.


adkguy07

[dobranskym]

Okay, so I guess I was right that it is completely normal. Pretty interesting that I have discovered this so lately, bc I have been using my 4x12 for a few years now. I have pretty shitty cabinet though. I wonder if the original Orange cabs are also directional that much.. What interested me is that you don't hear only more high frequencies, but the whole eq spectrum is so much different, to the point that I can't deal with it without using 10 band eq. The 3 band eq on my Rockerverb is pretty useless, because no matter how you set it, the sound is just awful. So.. Now I guess what is the "real" sound of the amp. I should place mic in front of one speaker and hear what the sound is like. The last time I was in studio was with completely different setup..

[fiveightandten]

Okay, so I guess I was right that it is completely normal. Pretty interesting that I have discovered this so lately, bc I have been using my 4x12 for a few years now. I have pretty shitty cabinet though. I wonder if the original Orange cabs are also directional that much.. What interested me is that you don't hear only more high frequencies, but the whole eq spectrum is so much different, to the point that I can't deal with it without using 10 band eq. The 3 band eq on my Rockerverb is pretty useless, because no matter how you set it, the sound is just awful. So.. Now I guess what is the "real" sound of the amp. I should place mic in front of one speaker and hear what the sound is like. The last time I was in studio was with completely different setup..

Original (assuming you mean 1970s) cabs were very directional. They’ve always been that way. Only some of the new designs deviate from that. The PPC212OB, as it has the speakers diagonal in the baffle, and the new vertical 2x12.

Vertical 2x12s (or horizontal ones turned on their side) disperse better horizontally, because the speaker coupling causes cancellations in the common plane of the speakers. As such, the poor dispersion is shifted to the vertical plane and they throw sound well horizontally.