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I ended up ordering a used caitlinbread pedal today. I was over complicating things, analysis paralysis.
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05-29-2026 09:43 PM
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Which one did you order? When you get it (and have a chance to experiment) let us know your impressions.
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I went with the Formula 51. I’m interested in the Sag control.
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must be fast Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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The volume of the Superblock is dependent on the speaker you plug it into.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Can you elaborate in that a bit? What would give me max volume from a USSB? I'm not really very good at this part of things. I'm thinking an efficient open back 10". And probably even louder with a 4 ohm (is that correct)? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
How about this open back 10 from Raezers Edge? The stock speaker is a Ragin Cajun.
https://raezers-edge.com/product/110-open-back/
EDIT: I've been doing some searching and there's a Mesa 1x10 closed back 1x10 cab (they came in both closed and open) with some variant of the Celestion Vintage G10 speaker. I've read about those for years but I've never actually seen one in real life.Last edited by Jim Soloway; 05-30-2026 at 05:27 PM.
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The Formula 51 came last week and I played 2 gigs this weekend running the pedal directly into my QSC speaker and it was perfectly acceptable. I'm not a tone hound, but plugging the guitar directly into the QSC was missing something, the pedal added enough to make it work for me.
SAG : 0
Tone: 1
Volume; Adjusted to taste
Gain: 2
- Sag is something to do with distortion, if I turn it up while it's clean it's a limiter. Fans of Jack White fuzz would probably like this knob.
- Tone at 0 is tweed and tone at 10 is blackface. The instructions were a bunch of marketing jargon, so I'm not sure frequencies it changes, but 10 sounds bad and 0 was a little too muddy.
- Volume is overall volume and it does not affect the other knobs
- Gain is meant to replicate the volume knob on a champ, low is clean, higher is more driven, you get grit quickly as the pedal is made for the dimed out blues rock tone.
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It's simple, Jim. The speaker's efficiency is the main guide to how much volume it will emit from the same signal. This is typically measured as SPL at 1 meter from the cone with a 1 Watt signal. Different cabinet styles also affect this. For a wide range response, an open back cab puts out the biggest and most diffuse sound stage. So it will sound louder to you and those on stage with you - but it won't make much of a difference in the audience. A sealed cab beams a fair amount, so it's loud if you're standing on the axis of the driver's voice coil and cone, but it may be down several dB if you get much beyond a few degrees off axis. Ported / vented cabs will be more efficient near the resonant frequency of the port(s) / vent(s) - and that's in the bass. Each of these obviously sounds different when mic'ed, and there are techniques for getting the best recorded sound from each. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
The cabinet has to be well matched to the speaker's operating paprameters for maximum efficiency and best sound. Most speakers with a low Qts of about 0.2 to 0.4 (known colloquially as "total Q", which is a measure of how well damped the speaker itself is by its voice coil and suspension) sound best in vented or ported cabinets. Most moderately well damped speakers (Qts between 0.4 and 0.7 or so) do best in sealed cabinets, while most speakers with Qts above 0.7 or so seem to sound best in open cabs. Because they're less "self-damped", they rely on environmental air to damp their cone movements and usually sound a bit looser and bigger than closed or vented cabs. A Twin is the prime example of an open back cab with high Q drivers - the Jensen C12N hs a total Q of 0.8 (4 Ohm version) or 1 (8 Ohm version).
That 1x10 RE would get as much volume from a 10 as any driver and cabinet I know with a Ragin Cajun, one of the most efficient 10" speakers available at 100.5 dB from a Watt at a meter. It has a total Q of .64, which is high in the medium range and obviously close enough to work fine in the open back RE 10. The guidelines for Qts and cabinet design are just guidelines - there are several speakers with Qs out of the traditional range that work well in given cabinets. There are many operating parameters in effect. But efficiency is pretty consistent as a guide to probable max SPL from the same signal.
The Warehouse G10C/S makes 98 dB. The Eminence Beta 10A makes 97 dB (1 Watt / 1 meter), which is a slight but audible decrease form the RC at full throttle and in clean headroom as you near maximum output. Although I suspect this is of little importance to you based on your playing style, the 10A also has the biggest and best controlled bottom of any 10" speaker I've heard in a well matched cabinet. I've been trying to trade my Jensen Jet Tornado Neo 10 for one for the last few weeks to make my Quilter Block Dock 10 cab a bit better for bass and for the low A string on my 7s. The trade-off with the 10A is that it doesn't have a sparkly, chimey top end and is better suited for a straight ahead jazz tone than for the beautiful wide range tonal palette you use.
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I hear a rather dramatic difference in volume between my Toob Metro BG+ and my Vibrolux Reverb used as a cabinet with the SBUS. The two 10" cannabix rex speakers in parallel (therefore 4 ohms) are much louder than the Toob, and the difference is at least 1/4 turn of the volume knob. The RE Stealth 10ER is somewhere in between. The speaker sensitivity and impedance have a large effect on the volume.
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That's interesting. I guess it's not really news, but it's possible to get a good guitar tone from a powered speaker if you put a box in front of it like the Formula 51 or the Joyo American, which I'm using much the same way. Since I'm often running a couple of vocal mics in addition to the guitar, it simplifies things. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Yes, I've used my TC Electronic Spark Boost and other boost type pedals thru my FRFR Power speaker, but it might need a Reverb pedal too.
The TC Spark Boost has the Baxandall tone stack like the old Polytones. Set on 'Fat' it's a good tone for my ears.
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No surprise there. The SICA drivers used in the BG+ have a sensitivity rating of 91 dB (1 Watt @ 1 meter). The 10" C Rex gets 99.3 dB from the same Watt, and the second speaker adds another 3 dB to the SPL from the first one (at the same power level). So you're talking about an 11 dB increase in SPL from the same signal. This is clearly audible and fully explains the different gain control settings to get the same SPL from the two sources. Remember that the SBUS does not make any more power into 4 Ohms than it does into 8. It may make even less, given Quilter's description of the SBUS as "optimized" for 8 Ohms. Originally Posted by sgosnell
The Vlux is also an open back cab, so you're hearing the full sound energy coming from both the front and the back of the speakers. A Toob is much more front focused, since only the port is rear firing and that's an additional outlet for the lows. Most of the rear radiation from the speaker cone in the midrange and above is lost in the cabinet.
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