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I don't buy this. I haven't done measured acoustical tests on different-size drivers, but I'd wager that, provided the frequency response characteristics of the two speakers were identical, or, perhaps, very close, a listener couldn't tell the difference between a smaller driver and a larger driver. And as we all know, it's not just the driver, but the driver and the cabinet that determine how a particular speaker system sounds, in addition, of course, to the electronics involved.
Originally Posted by Tal_175
But the "... response characteristics ... identical ..." thing is the fly in the ointment. Two different speaker models almost never have response characteristics that are precisely identical. So I think one could tell the difference between two drivers of different diameters, but I am skeptical whether the diameter of the cone in itself is what's causing the difference. You'd also potentially hear differences between two different model drivers of the same cone diameter.
I suppose what I'm about to say is inflammatory, and I apologize in advance to Tal_175 as I've frequently read Tal's posts with appreciation. But I think the "... more laid back, effortless, and ambient bass ..." idea is just mysticism. I don't have any idea what "laid back, effortless, and ambient bass" means. If there's a difference between two drivers, it can be measured.
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11-10-2023 11:24 PM
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Yeah it can probably be measured. Smaller speakers tend to have a quicker response with a different attack envelope than larger speakers. "Laid back" is a more figurative way of expressing this but nothing Tal said is mystical.
Personally I think 10" speakers are the best balance of directionality, transient response, frequency range for archtops. But henriksen does a lot with 6" and sometimes the sonic compromise is worth it for the convenience.
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I can see how the lower mass of a smaller cone compared to a larger cone could lead to faster transient response, other things being equal. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
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Cabinet size is also a big factor of course. What surprises me is that the size seem to make a difference even for open back designs. Princeton's with 12 inch speakers still sound "smaller" than say Deluxe Reverbs. I don't think the difference in cabinet resonances is a big enough factor. It seems like there is enough of an enclosed area inside the open back cabinets to create different pressure/vacuum cycles as the cone moves.
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what amp is that with ? Originally Posted by sgosnell;[URL="tel:1297482"
(I can’t quite get enough with my
Bam200)
ta
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Quilter Soundblock US, AI Clarus I, GK MB200. All can be very bassy if desired. My Toob came with the removable legs to allow use firing vertically, and that pretty much kills the bass, but when firing horizontally the bass is much more powerful. I have the BG+ model, but I haven't heard the GP.
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It seems to be difficult, even for the designers, to intuit the response of a speaker.
There is a pdf available from Celestion that explains why:
https://celestion.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/62.pdf
"Designing guitar speakers is, in many ways, much more challenging than pro PA or hi-fi, because guitar speakers are so non-linear. Hi-fi speakersare designed for linear operation mainly within what’s called their ‘pistonic band’, the region where the speaker is moving in and out in linear fashion. Above that band, the speaker goes into ‘break-up’— instead of the whole thing acting coherently like a pump or piston, little bits of the cone are all doing their own thing — but then you’d typically move that part of the signal over to, say, a mid-range driver or tweeter. With guitar speakers, there’s almost no pistonic band. Within their usable frequency range, it’s almost all break-up."
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Interesting.
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thanks interesting Originally Posted by sgosnell;[URL="tel:1297581"
I use my BG upfiring
(i love the even dispersion thing)
about an inch off the floor ….
I added some rubber feet to facilitate
this ….
perhaps i’m losing a bit of bass
(i think I’ll try it with a graphic eq
to goose up the bass a bit)
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
I think everything about electric guitar sound is mystical!
I've tried a few small speaker options but keep returning to 12" open back. I can't say why exactly...
Having said that, I'm eager to try a Bud6 some day.
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This is totally true, I have a Fat Jimmy Gigmaster 20, my main amp and Princeton sized, and a BFDR. Both with the Fat Jimmy speaker. Originally Posted by Tal_175
Both pine and Rolex. So very close construction-wise.
The slightly larger Deluxe Reverb box has more bass when playing the same amp section through each. Kind of surprising really.
EDIT: Not Rolex, Tolex! Though I kind of like Rolexes too....Last edited by bluejaybill; 11-12-2023 at 01:12 AM.
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There are a lot of technical papers on speaker cabinet design.
IIRC, open back cabinets like guitar cabinets, which in the past weren't really "designed" by acoustical engineers but were more or less built ad hoc to hold certain speakers without consideration of their acoustical properties, have been called "infinite baffles". There's a correlation between the enclosed volume of such a cabinet and the response of the speaker, but I don't recall how that was parameterized.
The physics and acoustical properties of vented (or ported) cabinets have been widely explored. I imagine Henriksen had a close look at the literature when they designed the Bud cabinet. Bud Henriksen was an engineer, I think, and that was the sort of thing an engineer would do.
Just as a side comment, I still have the Peavey Bandit USA Redstripe that my wife gave me as a present oh so many years ago. At the time, I think I recall that Peavey explained the relatively large size of the Bandit cabinet as giving the combo a bigger sound when compared to smaller 1x12 combos in the product line.
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After playing with 12”, 10”, 15” and 8” cabs – mostly open, some closed – I have ended to a highly scientific theory about the bass register and the speakers: the small speakers are too small to handle bass register well, so the try too much and in the end overdo it, and the low register will be mushy.
But the 12” and 15” speakers have enough power and size to handle the details of the bass sounds, so they do it easily and in perfect balance. They
do not need to overdo it, they just master it.
In the end I like the 12” best but I have no difficulties to play with my 8” speaker combo.
But I have tried some 10” configurations (starting from a Princeton) and I have never could bond with any.
So the size matters, but I don’t know why!
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The speaker matters, and the cabinet matters. Fender amps are old technology, and use old technology speakers. Not quite as old as field coil, but close. Comparing a Fender, be it a Princeton, Deluxe, or whatever, with the speakers they use, to a modern cabinet using modern small speakers is like comparing a 1957 Chevy to a Tesla. A 1957 Chevy may be sexy to some, but it's a very different car, and has drawbacks due to the old technology. A small solid-state amp through something like a Toob has a similar sound, IME, but has definite advantages over a Fender, even a Tonemaster. Whether those advantages are worth using is best voted via one's wallet. I'll take the newer gear, but some people's conservatism won't allow its use. Jazz guitarists tend to be very conservative when it comes to gear, and tradition dies hard, if it even does. But whatever your tastes, there is gear to satisfy them.
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Originally Posted by Herbie
I understand what you're saying, but the 8x10" Ampeg SVT cabinet is the best bass cabinet ever! There are many great 10" bass cabinets, I actually think 10's are better for bass than 12's, just maybe not the way guitar speakers are designed.
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Dunno if this video ever made the rounds in this site. I think it's accurate.
The 6 sounds better to me in that clip. The bass isn't overpowering on the 10. It's kind of surprising that the 10 feels brighter, i think this is because the 10" version of the eminence speaker is more sensitive in the upper mids than the 6" one. These sound like they're close mic'ed. In the room, I feel that the 10 projects better but again the 6 is great. You can't beat the bud 6 for portability and sound.
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They're good sounding amps, I just find it kind of hard to justify that kind of money for a small solid state amp.. I mean, I bought a 5 watt Victoria champ couple of years ago 800€ used, got a Marshall Sc20 head recently for 700€ new (European price without tax),.. For solid state my last buy was a Bugera Ac60 as an Aer backup, was like 200€.. All that probably because I've never had a non tube amp approach the level of enjoyment tubes give me, and I've tried many of them over the years. Henriksen was indeed the best though!
At some point, some gear just starts to seem too expensive for what it is. I guess some time in the future maybe I get a Henriksen again..
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Let's see if this works for me.
Here are crude overlays of graphs from Eminence showing the output vs frequency and impedance vs frequency for the Eminence Beta-6A and Beta-10A. I'm not 100% certain that these are the speakers in the Bud Six and Bud Ten, but they're at least similar. If the speakers in the Bud Six and Bud Ten are like these, then this is part of why the Six and Ten sound slightly different.
Or maybe I'm off my meds again.
The first image shows output vs frequency. The Beta-10A, in blue, and the Beta-6A, in red, are fairly close in frequency response, except the 10A has a slightly extended low end compared to the 6A, and has a hump around 1 to 3 kHz, while the 6A has a little bit gentler high-frequency rolloff but is generally flatter. The image also shows the approximate frequency centers of the Bud's tone controls.
[Added later: N.B. these graphs DO NOT incorporate the tweeters used in the Bud 6 and 10.]
The second image shows impedance vs frequency. I'm not quite sure how to interpret this graph, so someone feel free to join in. I think it means that the impedance of the speaker is higher at some frequencies, notably in the bass. That probably correlates to the amount of power the amplifier has to deliver in order to produce the same loudness at different frequencies. But someone feel free to disabuse me if I bollixed that explanation. Again, red is the Eminence Beta-6A while blue is the Beta-10A.
Added later:
So, going further out on a limb, since the electronics in the Bud 6 and Bud 10 are the same, they'd be pushing against a different impedance vs frequency environment. That would cause the tonal balance of the Bud 6 and Bud 10 to differ. (You can mail my Dr. Obvious award to ...) The biggest difference in tonal response would be in the lowest frequencies, and would depend on what impedance vs frequency regime the electronics were designed to expect. If they were designed for the Beta-6A, then I'd expect the very lowest frequencies of the Bud 10 to be under-amplified, but there would probably be some over-amplification in the area of the Beta-6's peak, which would enhance the apparent bass output of the Bud 10 relative to the Bud 6. Since the region of under-amplification for the Bud 10 is below the lowest fundamental on the guitar, I would imagine it wouldn't be very audible in practice. But for the Bud 10 the frequencies in about the 80-200 Hz range might be a bit over-emphasized compared to the Bud 6.
Well, that's far enough out on that limb for the time being ...
Last edited by dconeill; 11-13-2023 at 04:14 PM.
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I added some speculation about the effects of the varying impedance vs frequency responses in the context of the Bud 6 and Bud 10 to my post #43 above. The sections are set off with the phrase "Added later". I'm not very sure of my ground here, but that's never stopped me before.
Any audio engineers here who can review and correct what I had to say?
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It's strange that Bud and Blu are virtually never mentioned outside of archtop and acoustic circles. The only people who use them with solid body guitars seem to be archtop players who occasionally use solidbody guitars. I guess SS amps without any modelling is still a taboo outside of jazz (except as FRFR solutions for Helix users).
Last edited by Tal_175; 11-17-2023 at 12:09 PM.
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So, looking at these two, is it correct to think that you can shift the sound being experienced from one towards the other by turning the different knobs?
I think Omphalopsychos earlier alluded to something like that and made me think that this is possible?
I expect while not completely making a 6 sound like a 10, or vice versa, there is a point where it probably won't matter much to Normal peoples ears?
Call me curious!
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Addendum:
The experience that most imprinted my memory (mental and physical) with ceteris parubus assumptions regarding amps and speakers is when I replaced the 12" JBL Lancings with EV SRO's in my 60's Fender Twin Reverb in 1970. That added the weight of 2 Bud 10's.Last edited by skykomishone; 11-19-2023 at 10:46 AM.
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Looking at the frequency response graphs, the 6" and 10" Eminences are quite different animals. The smaller one is essentially a flat response speaker, while the 10" has the 2 kHz hump typical of guitar speakers. The SPL difference at both ends is also significant. I'm using a 20W Jensen C6V in the Metro GP model and a 130W SICA 6L 1,5SL in the Metro GP+ and BG versions. The Jensen is a guitar speaker, the SICA a flatter-response pro audio woofer. Somehow, in this caliber, the difference matters less. OTOH, Henriksen has always used flattish pro audio speakers in their jazz cabs. The difference really matters when playing distorted. Perhaps this is why Henriksen has little following outside jazz circles.
Playing clean only, the player, once used to his/her amp and cab, intuitively adjusts to the gear's characteristics, hitting some notes harder than others.
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I've been thinking about the Bud, but I'm having trouble convincing myself it's worth the money, in my circumstances.
I understand, for example, that it can be used effectively for vocals.
Does that mean that it's FRFR (full range,and flat frequency curve)?
Or, like other speakers designed for guitar, does it, in effect, roll off extreme highs and lows?
Now, finally coming to the point, why would the Bud be any better than, say, the Bose S1 for a third the price?
One answer might be the Bud's 5 band EQ, but I play with a pedal board that already has 3 band EQ, which works for me through a powered speaker - meaning 3 band is enough for my taste in sound.
Is the Bud going to sound any better? If so, any idea why?
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When I see the price-tags on any CARR, VICTORIA, MILKMAN, BENSON and other popular boutique tube amps I like my 2 Henriksen amps even more.... Originally Posted by Alter
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