FInally getting around to building a 4x8 speaker cabinet. Recently found a silverface champ in town for really cheap with a g8c installed, really impressed, meaty and spanky, lots of bass and surprisingly 3D. Has anyone ever paired these up? Or for some reason built a little array of 4? How do they sound in tendem?
Or will I be the first- Curious to hear anyone's experience here...
if you do. Please post back here with the results! That should make an insanely good sounding & lightweight combo!!
of course! building tomorrow, speakers arrive next week. I see now blackstar has a little 4x8 cabinet available if anyone else is interested.
We'll be experimenting with a couple designs, probably start with a classic 4x10 size, which is a little large for 4 8" speakers, but an amp will need to be able to sit on top, 2/3 or 3/4 closed, maybe with the vertical oval cut-out. Or maybe with the extra space in this 'larger' cabinet a closed back will work better. Any recommendations are welcome!
After long shop delays/router issues/life, the 4x8 cabinet is built and getting loaded with g8c's today! I'm going to be testing out the two 2x8 chambers separately (one closed, one 2/3 closed) at 16ohms, and the full 4x8 at 8ohms. Using an AC30 built by Ben Verellen with about as pure a signal as you can get- 1 volume, 1 tone cut. A little fatter, more bass than a vox- should be interesting. Also going to try the 4x8 in parallel with a 15" alnico 50 watt with '02 Fender CVRI head. Hopefully post by the weekend. If anyone is interested to hear different combinations of speakers, or amps, let me know- I've got tons of them around. reaper, g10c, 10" gb's, jmp, traynors, 1484, jet, etc etc. I'll try to not be too florid in my description, and will stick to wgs terminology. I won't use the word 'urgent' more than twice, however.
Well, for the two or three of us who are interested in this little speaker array, here are my first impressions.
AC30 clone, American Standard Tele with Lollar Special T's, so a bit darker and hotter than a normal tele, with more mids, almost a tele/p-90 hybrid sound. 11-50 strings. No pedals.
The 2x8, 2/3 closed is really impressive. Highs and lows are well-balanced, very punchy without being overly snappy even on the bridge with the tone wide open on the guitar and the amp.
Rich and crystalline highs, not at all shrill or glassy, upper mids to highs are very 3-d. I've never heard this kind of layering of the high frequencies: the mid-highs hitting first, bright and round; upper- and lower- highs a bit thicker and a bit slower in the mix, still articulate but a bit more woody.
Bass is surprisingly tight and big. Hits fast and doesn't linger. Totally beautiful breakup with a strong attack on the thicker strings. Another new sound to me, less flubby than say, a Greenback breaking up, but equally as unhinged and raunchy.
Mids and lower-mids are thicker, woody, recessed. They hit a bit later with a flatter emphasis, tend to linger a bit, not as punchy.
The 2x8 closed back definitely brings the mids and lower mids forward in the mix, a flatter, more compressed and even response. Surprisingly swampy and thick, but still retaining a crystalline, almost glittery quality in the upper mids-highs. Not as punchy as I would have expected. Almost jazzy on the neck, oozes sparks on the bridge.
So, the two chambers in parallel for a 4x8 cab, top chamber closed, bottom chamber 2/3 closed. This sounds much bigger than simply the addition of the two cabs (you hear this in 4x10's too). Incredibly rich with a rolling loose rumble in the lower mids, a very punchy bass, and upper-mids to highs which are considerably smoothed out in texture, flatter, but maintaining a good mix of crystal and wood tones. Huge sound, again, unlike any 4x10 I've heard (including my 60s Jensen/10GC mix). Surprised also that with more volume and/or harder attack, this cabinet maintains a nice balance of colors even as the sound becomes more compressed.
Feel free to ask questions, hope I represented these speakers accurately. I know there's not a lot of 4x8 cabs out there, and the ones I've seen are tiny (this is a full 24x24x12 cab).
Man ... I've already got way to many projects ... but I just might have to put building one of those on my list!
If you can, please post pics ... If not, email them to me & I'll post them. Unless you don't want to give your design secrets away ...