SWR BigBen replacement woofer

Triad

Triad

Commercial User
Jul 4, 2006
1,695
289
4,921
Europe
Disclosures
Builder
#1
Hello guys... since I have a hoarding problem when it comes to cabs, I've just bought a damaged SWR BigBen (first generation). The original woofer is included but is damaged (fried).
It's an old cab, I never tried one and of course there aren't specs for the 18" in it.
Is it worth repairing (probably more than 100 bucks) or I should simply ditch it and buy a suitable Faital Pro (like the 18FH500)?
I'll probably turn it into a full-range cab adding a mid. Not sure about how much room I have on the baffle, should receive it for the end of the week, maybe. Any advice?
 
#3
Triad said:
Hello guys... since I have a hoarding problem when it comes to cabs, I've just bought a damaged SWR BigBen (first generation). The original woofer is included but is damaged (fried).
It's an old cab, I never tried one and of course there aren't specs for the 18" in it.
Is it worth repairing (probably more than 100 bucks) or I should simply ditch it and buy a suitable Faital Pro (like the 18FH500)?
I'll probably turn it into a full-range cab adding a mid. Not sure about how much room I have on the baffle, should receive it for the end of the week, maybe. Any advice?
Click to expand...
If you're not gonna move it (often), consider loading it with this guy:
ELECTRO VOICE EVM18 - #4445675 - su Mercatino Musicale in Casse / Monitor Live Passivi
A good deal more treble extension than the original woofer (though not quite twice as high, as it would appear at a first glance):
http://www.electrovoice.com/downloadfile.php?i=971120
http://support.swramps.com/manuals/pdfs/procabs_om.PDF
You may not need a midrange driver. Well, if you build a contraption to keep it tilted towards you, that is.
Should work with a variety of tunings in that enclosure, provided you don't hit it with more than 60W sine (which would make what, a hundred real-world watts?).
 
#4
I love the EV 15B, never played thru the 18" brother BUT I think it would get "beamy" over 500hz due to the size...
The stock woofer should cost 100 bucks or so to repair, not sure if it's worth it since a Faital 18FH500 costs €220 and of course is 4.3kg against 11.
My gigging days are loooong gone, so I doubt I'll ever get the thing out of my room, to be honest.

EDIT: I also see it's only got 3.3mm of xmax... not worth it, for me.
The Faitals also aren't too bad off-axis in their mid 1000s, so I could even cross it over at 1500-1800hz with a Ciare soft dome tweeter and call it a day.
 
Last edited:
#9
To be honest, the idea of using the EVM 18B is definitely appealing LOL.
I looked at the specs... is it as bright and snappy as the 15" brother?
 
#10
Triad said:
To be honest, the idea of using the EVM 18B is definitely appealing LOL.
I looked at the specs... is it as bright and snappy as the 15" brother?
Click to expand...
I have no direct experience with either. (Wouldn't blame you if you stopped reading at this point... :))
Judging from the freq response plots, compared to the 15B the 18B may even be marginally brighter; it does, however, beam more severely as evidenced in the polar response and beamwidth plots, hence my tiltback suggestion.
As you pointed out, and I hinted at, its modest Xmax limits the mechanical power handling to low-power use only. Well, you could put it in a very small box, but you'd lose most of the ultra-low bass it seems (from the T/S params) to be capable of. Inside enough cabinet airspace (and the Big Ben is bigger than the Mesa Boogie 118 - called Road Ready or Diesel or both- that came loaded with the EV and in which posters here who know the 18B are most likely to have heard it), and powered by a nice small tube head, I bet it can make a wonderfully thunderous low-B capable practice cab plus a more than decent electric guitar rig.
Well, you'd probably have to cut the bass knob a good deal in the latter case, for tonal reasons. But in turn, if fed with a >80Hz guitar signal, you could push it a lot more. Heh, with enough power it could give an average guitar 412 a run for its money.

[Paging @Michael Vee (who seems to be a fan - see, among other posts, here here and here, specifically mentioning its on-axis brightness), @Rockbobmel, @agedhorse, and whoever else has heard the puppy.]
 
Last edited:
#11
Uhm... I played thru the 15" and even the 2x15" and liked the tone enough. In real world the 15" is pretty loud and takes pretty much everything you throw at it... I remember playing my fiver thru that cab, in a store, but pretty loud and it sounded great. My amps are Ashdown Retroglide 800 and Warwick ProTube IV. Also have a WA300 and a power amp but doubt I'll use them with the 18".
I still don't have the cab here so can't be sure there's enough room on the baffle for a mid... 'cause if there is, I'm probably going with a 6" and the usual Ciare PT383.
I even have an Eminence 3ways crossover (500/5000hz)... if all the speakers are 8ohm or close in their crossover points, it should work pretty well.
The EV option is still there but due to the nature of the beast, I think it could be a love or hate affair.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HaphAsSard
#12
A pretty affordable 18" speaker with cast frame and decent 6mm xmax which works well in small to med boxes is the
Eminence Sigma Pro 18a2 Speaker Detail | Eminence Speaker

advertised sensitivity is really good at 99dB, real world within the bandwidth it would be used for is a more realistic high 97 ish

anyways to make life easy aside from mixed opinions on sealed back midrange speakers, no mid chamber needed just mount on the baffle. the real trick with sealed back is the resonant frequency is really high and likewise the impedance curves can be really tricky with passive crossovers.

really simple 6" mid to match the sigma pro is the Eminence Alpha 6CBMRA Speaker Detail | Eminence Speaker
which is right around 97 dB as well. pretty simple. with various listening test done with simple active crossovers it performs pretty well crossed at 700hz.
ironic if you look and its huge impedence spike bellow 700hz due to the nature of sealed back drivers its 8ohm point is right around 700hz as well if you used a passive crossover. try to go any lower....well good luck. works out fine though a 18" will beam at about 900hz so 700hz works out pretty well with the sigma and the alpha.

used as a full range 18" the sigma 18a2 actually works pretty good its frequency response goes pretty high for a 18"
 
  • Like
Reactions: TAZ
#13
I used a Sigma 18" maybe 10 years ago? It sounded good but yeah, wasn't exactly great off-axis.
When I choose the tweeter for a 2ways cab, I always pick one that's 3-4db less sensitive than the woofer to get a "balanced" sound... do you think the mid should be as sensitive as the woofer?
The Sigma is €190, with €220 I could get the 18FH500 (Faital) that is less than half the weights (11kg VS 4.3!) and has, in theory, 9.25mm of xmax.
I already have a mid around, a Fane 6-100 (93.5db), and have a few tweeters around.
 
#15
Yeah, it's something I've been considering too but... I already have a couple of 15"s around and wanted a 18" too LOL.
The good thing is, the BigBen cab with a 15" would probably offer very good lows. Making the plywood adaptor would be a breeze.
If it was worth it, I could even remove the whole baffle and install a new one. But honestly, unless proven wrong, I'd prefer to keep it 18".
 
Last edited:
#16
might as well, its a 18" cabinet no need to change anything. there is plenty of 15" cabinets out there.
ill check out the faital driver its about double the price where im at, so it sounds like price range for you is better in your area. which yes with very little price difference why not go with the faital. the drivers i have heard from faital so far are rather impressive.

as far as a 93db mid matching well to a 98/99 dB woofer, i dont think it would work to well on just a simple passive crossover. a significant amount of extra power would be needed to get everything matched up. and possibly the mid would reach distortion fairly early on, especially with a 9mm LF driver.
 
#17
"Power" or "sensitivity"?
I played thru a Trace 1x15" cab with the woofer cut at 1.6khz and the Ciare PT 383 soft dome tweeter... the tone was good, pretty balanced and never had troubles (never played it to ear-bleeding levels, though). In a 2 ways, I'd still pick a mid-tweeter with 3-4db less than the woofer. But on a 3ways? What should I do? Have the mid as sensitive as the woofer, as the tweeter or half-way? If I had all the parts here I'd simply try and pick the best sounding combo but it's not always possible LOL.
 
Last edited:
#18
The EVM 15B & 18B driver's effectively beam in part because of size and just as much due to the cone geometry. Much has been done in the past 10 years to improve beaming by changing the cone geometry, cone materials/weight, and dust cap/bobbin design. These improvements are not important for drivers used as subwoofers, or as a low frequency driver in conjunction with a low pass filter but are for drivers operated full range, relying on the driver's acoustic properties to provide whatever crossover or voicing needed for the application.

All this fixation on Xmax is a bit puzzling. There as a complex relationship betweeen several variables that define LF performance, a smaller Xmax might be preferable by providing an increase in LF sensitivity, and the smaller VC diameter of this specific driver factors heavily into both sensitivity and voicing.

Everything is a trade off, different trade offs for different needs.

It all comes down to spl versus polar response versus cone area versus linear displacement. For example there may be more SPL gain due to sensitivity versus loss due to power limitations. Managing these tradeoffs well is the key to a good real world speaker design.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AstroSonic
#19
Well, I know that Xmax is only one of the factors BUT usually I tend to choose, for bass, woofers with more than 3mm in that department. Like its 15" brother, I wouldn't expect the 18B to perform like a "normal" 18" woofer... the 15" is really in a class of its own. But probably not what I'm looking for, since I actually like a "full-range" sound and not simply a "bright enough" sound. :)
 
#20
HaphAsSard said:
[Paging @Michael Vee (who seems to be a fan - see, among other posts, here here and here, specifically mentioning its on-axis brightness)
Click to expand...

Paged. Wow, my posts from ten years ago. I loved the Electro-Voice philosophy and products. They were the premium bass cabinet replacement speaker manufacturer of their time, along with JB Lansing (JBL).

I still have the Sonic Micromini cabinet with the EVM 18B. I have not played it in many years, so I can't say anything new about it. I can say that I liked the sound of it in its day, and it was a fairly bright sounding cabinet, oddly enough. I've learned a lot about drivers since then. I know that speaker is limited by today's standards and will sound fairly "vintage". But for players who aren't playing at high volumes and aren't expecting go ultra low, it will perform adequately and also sound terrific for vintage sounds. If you are okay with a single single driver cabinet with a large speaker, it's a really nice voice. I'm sure some of these are still around for people who want to check into them.

I could be persuaded to sell my Sonic Micromini for a reasonable price. I don't want it to just sit around indefinitely.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: HaphAsSard
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back