Guitar center has some schweet deals on powered speakers and I was thinking about picking something up for Beat Buddy to use for jamming in the garage.
My goal is to simulate playing with a actual drummer (which will aid in tone design).
Gear: Vox Valvetronix VT50 (12" speaker)
Music: will be 95% of the time rock/metal (distorted guitar)
Items I’ve been considering:
Kustom KPC12MP 12" Powered Monitor Speaker
Kustom PA KPM210 100W Dual 10" 2-Way Powered Monitor
Kustom KPC12P 12" Powered PA Speaker
Kustom KPC210MP Dual 10" Powered Monitor Speaker
I’ve read that a 12" will produce deeper lows, but 2 10" will have a tighter low end.
Thoughts?
This is roughly true, but consider that two 10" speakers have a combined area of more than 157" and a single 12" speaker has an area of more than 113". The actual surface area of the cones is more because the cones aren’t a flat circle, but the relative areas is still close assuming similar cone design. But this means that two 10" speakers, if properly designed, will move more air than a single 12" speaker and they can do it faster because there’s less mass to move per cone. That’s why some bass cabinets are now favoring more smaller speakers over one bigger speaker. It’s easier to design a full range system using multiple smaller speakers than one big one. The single bigger speaker will have trouble reproducing the higher frequencies which is important for percussion sets which, after all, do not consist entirely of a bass drum. In fact, many of the components of a standard trap set ocurre in very high frequencies - snares, cymbals, the “snappiness” of the heads.
I would go with the two 10s over the one 12, and the PA version over the monitor version.
Great! Thank you!
It’s fun trying to explain this kind of stuff to some of my musician friends.to no avail!..You explained that nicely Gabriel.
Beautifully written Gabriel thanks. We have been happy with EV ZXa1 (only 8") for our PA which are now aided by the matching EV sub. I found the xover at 100Hz nicely promotes bass guitar frequencies of course - but even here with open low E at 40Hz most of what hear is higher (whether notes or harmonics). Since we use BB in stereo and get a nice full roll panned across on many intros and fills I was curious where BB sits sonically when adding the sub. Turns out there is very little audible via the sub alone. So…smaller speakers are indeed needed to handle a broad range and unloading the bass and rolling off from 100 Hz down on output EQ (to avoid adding un-needed mud) works fine.
I have a small Peavy PA that works very well with the BB…