Do you prefer rear ported, front ported cabs or sealed bass cabs?

Do you prefer Rear Ported, Front Ported or Sealed cabs??

  • Rear Ported

    Votes: 14 7.4%

  • Front Ported

    Votes: 80 42.6%

  • Sealed

    Votes: 52 27.7%

  • Don't care...

    Votes: 42 22.3%
  • Total voters
    188
#103
Passinwind said:
I have a checkered history when it comes to cabs.
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By "liking this" I freely acknowledge that I have established that I am officially an old guy. To make matters worse on that front, my only question Charlie would be if the Checker(ed) history is with the cab company or the car manufacturer.
 
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#104
Al Kraft said:
By "liking this" I freely acknowledge that I have established that I am officially an old guy. To make matters worse on that front, my only question Charlie would be if the Checker(ed) history is with the cab company or the car manufacturer.
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Both, of course. ;)
 
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#105
We understand why those pros don't need 41Hz on stage, just one reason being that they can't hear it anyway under those conditions, and if the crowd wants real lows the FOH can provide it, etc etc.

What they need is a stage monitor.

This 2x15 could be described as a very, very good stage monitor, but "almost FRFR" was a bit of exaggeration, though it's true that "almost" can go far.

To me, every cab that sounds like that is better called a stage monitor.
 
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#106
This quest feels very quixotic.

Although I'm not necessarily in love the way my low B string sounds at times at home, once I'm at a venue there's so much low end coming through the subs and stage that I'm not exactly lacking. Further, I wind up having to dial back those frequencies due to stage resonances and/or the bass being picked up by kick mic.
 
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#107
Two of those sealed Ampeg 2x10s, which the cool kids stack vertically, or only one stood on end, will not get anyone fired, and are said to be very good as monitors.

EDIT: And I know that a sealed 4x10 (with chambers) can be great too because my fridge is addressable as two separate 4x10s.
 
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#108
Pedulla-Player said:
I'm sure that this has been asked here before, but I'm curious what type of cabs people here on Talkbass prefer - Rear Ported, Front Ported or Sealed cabs - and why??

Thanks for your input!
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My Eden D series front ported cabs are the best cabs I’ve ever played through, especially for live performance. I had an Eden rear ported 1-15 cab before I bought these D series cabs. There was a lack of low end in general which got remarkably worse when not up against a wall. And like open back guitar cabs, when working with FOH support, what come out of the back travels to points on stage where it may not be wanted.

I only have limited experience with sealed cabs, my observation is the audio quality might be the best of the 3 choices under these conditions. They tend to not be as efficient, meaning you are going to need a cab with a higher wattage rating and or an amp with higher wattage to get your required amount of decibels. The other is when you start pushing the cab towards it’s rating limits the tone degrades earlier than a front or rea ported cab.

JMO, but TB’s distinguished panel of engineers and experts that actually know about these things can go into more factual detail.
 
#112
Al Kraft said:
Admittedly a 1" speaker, regardless of port or no port, isn't likely going to fill an auditorium with deep bass...
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Now that you mention it, one of our most famous cab designers said "the only difference is the size of the hole in the baffle board", and one of our other most famous cab designers gave him a "like" for that; I think the topic is, uh, obfuscated.
 
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#113
dbsfgyd1 said:
My Eden D series front ported cabs are the best cabs I’ve ever played through, especially for live performance. I had an Eden rear ported 1-15 cab before I bought these D series cabs. There was a lack of low end in general which got remarkably worse when not up against a wall. And like open back guitar cabs, when working with FOH support, what come out of the back travels to points on stage where it may not be wanted.
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Your comparison to open-back guitar cabs isn’t applicable. With an open-back guitar cab, a large percentage of the back is open, allowing the full frequency response from the back side of the cone(s) to propagate in a semi-random pattern. That’s not at all how a bass cab’s port works. An actual Helmholtz resonator only produces frequencies around the tuning frequency, which for bass cabs is down in the omnidirectional range.
 
#114
ctmullins said:
Your comparison to open-back guitar cabs isn’t applicable. With an open-back guitar cab, a large percentage of the back is open, allowing the full frequency response from the back side of the cone(s) to propagate in a semi-random pattern. That’s not at all how a bass cab’s port works. An actual Helmholtz resonator only produces frequencies around the tuning frequency, which for bass cabs is down in the omnidirectional range.
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Not always. Depends on port placement, midrange can leak from the port opening/s.
 
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#118
ctmullins said:
Your comparison to open-back guitar cabs isn’t applicable. With an open-back guitar cab, a large percentage of the back is open, allowing the full frequency response from the back side of the cone(s) to propagate in a semi-random pattern. That’s not at all how a bass cab’s port works. An actual Helmholtz resonator only produces frequencies around the tuning frequency, which for bass cabs is down in the omnidirectional range.
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I been on gigs with FOH support with open back guitar cabs bleeding into drum Mics etc. . I’ve also worked with guitarists with open back cabs pointed at their knees who had no idea just how loud they were on my side of the stage. So, call me crazy if you want.
 
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#119
agedhorse said:
Ported cabinets don’t have to have sloppy, loose lows. It depends on the intent and skill of the designer.
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I can't claim skill or intent, but my 12" ported cab has a fairly tight sounding low end. It's a fairly small box, and port tuning is at 40 Hz, so I'm never driving it below resonance. The trick is that I was not trying to squeak every last tenth of a dB out of the response curve, but trying to address my practical needs for how it sounds on stage and in the audience.

You can find the design at my non-commercial web page.

It's been 18 years, and I'm now playing most of my gigs with an 1x8, but I just brought out the 12"er last week for a couple of ballroom dance gigs where they specifically told us they wanted it louder than the previous year.
 
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