New bass drivers

leonard smalls

leonard smalls

GufmeisterGeneral
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
1,028
Reaction score
0
Location
The Marches
I've just managed to blow one of my 15" EV bass guitar speakers...
Anyone know any good places to buy a new one, preferably 400WRMS or more with range 30Hz up?
I'm not tempted to replace the voice coil, as the driver is now about 20 years old with rusty magnet and the cone is ripped - hardly worth the effort perhaps..
And anyone know anything about Volt drivers? I've found one at £250 (which is not cheap!!!), but looks the business...
Perhaps a trusty Celestion Truvox is what I need..
 
The Volt radial drivers are excellent. Low distortion, high power handling, and really robust.

I'd be tempted to a JBL or two myself! 2235 from JBl pro.
 
You can try Harman Pro UK but the 2235 is no more and you would need some 2226H or J's.

The classic is the LE140, very similar to the 2235 and of course used in bass guitar rigs for years. People seem to treasure these, but you do see them turning up sh in the US for about $200 a piece.
 
I would love to say buy Celestion, Fane or another UK supplier, but unless you have a wall of sound, how much low bass will they achieve? [ans: bugger all IME]. Volt seem way overpriced IMO and trade on self promotion, like ATC. I'm afraid I have to suggest Italian ie RCF

eg:

L15P200AK
-
15"
800 Wrms
95 dB
35-2kHz
Classic RCF Low freq sub woofer
£146.00

from:

http://www.allangordon.co.uk/Drivers/Cone-Drive-Units.htm

This has a +-9mm linear throw which matches JBL stuff and is very long for proaudio drivers

I have heard RCF stuff sounding excellent, but you may want to confirm from others about ultimate reliability [year in year out wise] as I am out of that area nowadays
 
What about somewhere like Halfords?

I got a JBL sub speaker today 10 inch for thirty quid.
 
Hi,

leonard smalls said:
I've just managed to blow one of my 15" EV bass guitar speakers...

I'm not tempted to replace the voice coil, as the driver is now about 20 years old with rusty magnet and the cone is ripped - hardly worth the effort perhaps..
Click to expand...

You need to decide what sound you want. Both EVM15B and 15L are pretty "neutral", moreso than most MI Drivers. I used to be very fond of using 15L's for E-Bass, as they gave a good balance between good upper range and going low.

So, rusty magnet or not, a re-cone/re-build may still be worth it.

Past that, I would consider the dead driver a chance to completely re-evaluate the setup and consider going for a single 18" with a dual or quad 10" possibly with the addition of a horn for overtones.

The 10" system will give a quicker sound with more ability to deliniate sounds and notes higher up, while the 18" can handle all the really heavy stuff. The added overtone horn I would make switchable, it comes in handy at times.

Note, i don't play bass, I merely deal (or dealt) with the sound side of this.

Ciao T
 
3DSonics said:
Hi,



So, rusty magnet or not, a re-cone/re-build may still be worth it.

Past that, I would consider the dead driver a chance to completely re-evaluate the setup and consider going for a single 18" with a dual or quad 10" possibly with the addition of a horn for overtones.

Ciao T
Click to expand...
Problem with reconing etc is that I'd have to send the old driver to someone like Wembley loudspeakers (£10), have it reconed and voice-coiled (about £120) then have it sent back (£10). It was always underspecced for my amp anyway, rated at 200W - 300W of Marshall clipping proved too much for it.. And it would still be rusty!
So it may not even have a magnet big enough for what I want either (though it is a 4")
Multiple drivers isn't an option, nor is 10" and 18" as the folded horn cab I have is for a 15" speaker (not that I ever liked 10" or 12" bass cabs, they always seemed too Mark King twangy rather than Bob Trujillo rockin')..

I'll look into RCF - to tell the truth ultimate fidelity isn't what I'm looking for, I've got DI outputs on my bass, effects unit and amplifier should I need a really clean studio sound which is unlikely as round here they're all bleedin' folkies!

And I've just checked Wilmslow Audio - their drive unit prices aren't for the faint hearted. The Volt I was looking at for £250 on a pro website, without even asking about trade, was about £320 at Wilmslow...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi,

leonard smalls said:
Multiple drivers isn't an option, nor is 10" and 18" as the folded horn cab I have is for a 15" speaker (not that I ever liked 10" or 12" bass cabs, they always seemed too Mark King twangy rather than Bob Trujillo rockin')..
Click to expand...

Ahh, you did not mention that driver belonged into a Horn cabinet, nor what sound you wanted....

Things become clearer now.

In your case you want a really seriously strong driver, especially if you expect a to drive the Driver with a few 100 Watt of clipped signal. Look at P-Audio's range of Drivers, among others they have excellent copies of JBL, very affordable and not much worse than the originals.

P.Audio P150-2226 JBL Copy

They also have their own "heavy duty" stuff (I'm having an eye on their 21" for my "modest proposal" speaker), it's worth to browse around a little.

Ciao T
 
The P audio stuff looks like just the ticket, at 1/2 the price of the JBL...
And the 21" looks like the biz for a proper home speaker - puts paid to all that "lifestyle and no bass" nonsense we currently have to contend with!
 
Hi,

pauldixonuk said:
If you want amazing clarity with sub extension I can thoroughly reccommed the PMC transmission lines, with a suitable amp of course.
Click to expand...

They are not at all suited for Musical instrument amplification and in normal rooms their omnidirectional bass radiation causes huge problems in the modal range which are difficult and expensive to fix (something they share with virtually all "HiFi" speakers BTW, on both counts), plus they do not really go that low either (eg nothing like the 8Hz from the Bagend Subwoofers)

pauldixonuk said:
If you just want a massive driver to look at then PD are pretty large. Depends how much room you have of course.
Click to expand...

In todays market PD is too expensive to compete against the far eastern competition and their drivers start showing their age. 15 Years ago that was different.

BTW, I do not want " a massive driver to look at", I want a driver that manages realistic SPL's down into the 32Hz region while operating as Dipole, so that we attain reasonble directivity and compatibility with acoustically small rooms. Of course, I could get 32 - 64 8" HiFi drivers to get a similar displacement and SPL capacity as a good 21" or 24" Pro Audio Sub Driver, but quite frankly this would strike me as silly.

Ciao T
 
I bought the P Audio JBL 2226 copy.. SHould arrive tomorrow, which is when I find out it wasn't the speaker that had blown, but the amp!
 


Write your reply...

Latest posts

Back
Top