# 12" compared to 15" speakers



## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

I have never played through a 15" speaker (I'm talking guitar here...not bass)..so I'm curious (sorry, I was born curious and it just won't go away...LOL)

Apart from having a lot more botton end, how would you compare the tone, etc from a 12 " versus a 15" speaker in a cab with speakers of same quality, efficiency, doping, etc, etc (I'm trying to compare oranges to bigger oranges here...not oranges to bigger apples).

Thanks

Dave


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Thanks Paul

I was wondering if jazz players might be "drawn" to the tone of a 15"

I have heard the term "bloom" but never knew what it meant ...can you please define it for me.

Also, is the 15" capable of providing decent high frequencies, or is that part of some form of trade off?

Thanks

Dave


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## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

15's work well for blues & rock, fit well anywhwere IMO. I used a Carr Rambler a couple times with a 15 Eminence legend in it and the sound was great, a good full range 15 covers all the frequency you'll need.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Thanks for the long post and all the information Paul.

If one was to want to try a 15" speaker (in case one ever gets GAS).... what brand, model, etc would you suggest. One can can get a 15" Eminence Legend 1518 locally for $80.00 (plus tax). What do you think ?

http://www.loudspeakers.ca/products.htm

Thanks

Dave

PaulS was posting at the same time I was...looks like my question is answered...any other suggestions?


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

15" speakers seem to produce sweeter and more bottom mids. They sound fantastic, SRV used them alot. I used to play an old modded silverface bassman through a double 15 cab (they were Jensens if I remember correctly), it was killer! I've actually been thinking of getting one again myself.


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## JC103 (Oct 6, 2007)

I just bought a 15" Fane Crescendo clone from Weber, I love it! It's smooth, sweet, and just a touch on the darkside. I play it with a 1979 Hiwatt DR103. Perfect match for that amp and just right for playing blues.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Paul said:


> The speaker in my Victoria is an Eminence legend. I don't know what the 15 is in either the Leslie 147 or the Peavey Delta Blues, both of which are also in my house. The Victoria and the Peavey are both open back.


Leslie 147 will be a Jensen or Rola. If it's the original speaker, it'll be a square magnet ceramic in black or if it's an early one, it'll be the coveted Jensen P15LL alnico speaker painted silver. The delta blues uses an Eminence speaker.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

As far as the deepness of bass in an amplifier goes, it has far less to do with the size of the speaker (ie: 12" vs. 15") than it does with cabinet volume and capacitor selection in the tone stack section of the preamp. A Fender VibroKing has three 10" speakers and it's got MONSTER bottom end. A Blues Jr. has a 12" speaker in a fairly small box and suffers on the bottom because of the smallish cabinet. My Blues Jr. has been modded (different tone caps, different O/T, different speaker, different tubes) to address this shortcoming it and sounds much better but still not as good as some other 18 watt amps I've heard. The cabinet size of the little BJ is a limitation.


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## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

I have a similar blues jr, laquered tweed ltd edition, with the Bill M mods and an Eminence Texas heat in it and I have to agree with the cabinet size and the lack of good bottom end. Easy on the lugging though.. 
Been tempted to run a bigger ext cab off it for a test. The amp sounds great but a bit more cabinet size would help. Hmmm since were discussing 15's maybe that woud be a good choice for an ext cab.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

PaulS said:


> ... with the Bill M mods and an Eminence Texas heat in it ...


I went with a Celestion Vintage 30 but I am also investigating going with a Weber.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Yoda said:


> As far as the deepness of bass in an amplifier goes, it has far less to do with the size of the speaker (ie: 12" vs. 15") than it does with cabinet volume and capacitor selection in the tone stack section of the preamp. A Fender VibroKing has three 10" speakers and it's got MONSTER bottom end. A Blues Jr. has a 12" speaker in a fairly small box and suffers on the bottom because of the smallish cabinet. My Blues Jr. has been modded (different tone caps, different O/T, different speaker, different tubes) to address this shortcoming it and sounds much better but still not as good as some other 18 watt amps I've heard. The cabinet size of the little BJ is a limitation.


That's true cabinet design is critical although a 15" speaker generally has lower resonance than a 12".
That's why most subwoofers for PA systems still use 15's and 18's as the choice for speakers.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

nonreverb said:


> ... most subwoofers for PA systems still use 15's and 18's as the choice for speakers.


In addition to Paul's excellent response ... P/A systems are designed to reproduce signals accurately. Guitar amps try to avoid accuracy like the plague. Colouration of the guitar signal is what we want. It's why we buy pedals. What I'm driving at is that comparing a guitar amp to a P/A or to a car stereo isn't even as close as apples and oranges. It's like comparing apples and UFOs because they're both round and have legends built around them for landing on the ground.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Yoda said:


> In addition to Paul's excellent response ... P/A systems are designed to reproduce signals accurately. Guitar amps try to avoid accuracy like the plague. Colouration of the guitar signal is what we want. It's why we buy pedals. What I'm driving at is that comparing a guitar amp to a P/A or to a car stereo isn't even as close as apples and oranges. It's like comparing apples and UFOs because they're both round and have legends built around them for landing on the ground.


Sorry, but I think you missed my point...there are audible differences between 10, 12 and 15" speakers due to their respective resonances. As Paul quite rightly stated guitar amp speakers are designed around a more full spectrum of sound, however, a musical instrument designed 15" speaker is a larger and hence is capable of reaching lower frequencies while maintaining good high frequency ranges as well. Now we can go on and on about cabinet design but the point I'm making is that the 15" speaker due to its size gives it a unique sound...different from a 10 or a 12


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

It's a bit of a mystery. There's a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the speaker size issue. The VibroKing example I gave earlier is hard to argue with. Compare that amp to the VibroVerb (with a single 15) and the King kicks the Verb's butt in the beef department. Audio systems use bigger speakers like 12's and 15's yet the best sounding bass rigs use cabinets with multiple 10's. Then again there are such a variety of issues not even touched on in a discussion like this one. Cone stiffness, excursion, damping and whatnot.

It's not that I disagree with your statement about different speakers having different resonances but the truth is speaker size is not as big a deal as one might think. Unless you're talking about a certain kind of envy.

Also, it has to be pointed out that a larger speaker inherantly requires a larger cabinet.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Yoda said:


> It's a bit of a mystery. There's a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the speaker size issue. The VibroKing example I gave earlier is hard to argue with. Compare that amp to the VibroVerb (with a single 15) and the King kicks the Verb's butt in the beef department. Audio systems use bigger speakers like 12's and 15's yet the best sounding bass rigs use cabinets with multiple 10's. Then again there are such a variety of issues not even touched on in a discussion like this one. Cone stiffness, excursion, damping and whatnot.
> 
> It's not that I disagree with your statement about different speakers having different resonances but the truth is speaker size is not as big a deal as one might think. Unless you're talking about a certain kind of envy.
> 
> Also, it has to be pointed out that a larger speaker inherantly requires a larger cabinet.



The comparison is not entirely a fair one as the Vibro King is a 60 Watt amp where the Vibroverb is 40 watt. However, the Vibro King is a good sounding amp...but so is the Super Reverbor the Pro Reverb etc. They all have their own distinct sound.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

nonreverb said:


> The comparison is not entirely a fair one as the Vibro King is a 60 Watt amp where the Vibroverb is 40 watt. However, the Vibro King is a good sounding amp...but so is the Super Reverbor the Pro Reverb etc. They all have their own distinct sound.


Exactly my point. The size of the speaker is only a small part of the overall equation and some applications of size seem to defy common logic like bass rigs using 10's.

I think you'll likely agree with this point: a 15 has a greater chance of deflection from the voice coil to the surround (all else being equal) and also is inherantly slower to respond. Both conditions could contribute to either a loss or possibly a muddying of highs leading the listener to percieve the speaker as having lower or louder bass even if it might not.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

Just thought of something. My Rivera Fandango and it's matching ext. cab both use 12's and it hasn't the balls of the VibroKing with its three 10's despite having about the same power.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Paul said:


> I think part of the problem, scratch that, _challenge_ we are having here is that we are all trying to make objective statements and are using completely subjective words.
> 
> I don't think a 4-10 sounds any better than a 2-12 or a 1-15. They all sound different, sometimes only very slightly, but different. I like to think I have good ears, but I have never been able to identify an amp by sound alone.
> 
> ...



Actually it's more than that...if we want to split hairs even further that we can discuss the design characteristics of each type of a given speaker ie SPL compliance etc. It's too broad a discussion and it's value here is probably not required....suffice to say there are many variables besides dimensions at play...


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## Bevo (Nov 24, 2006)

We tried out a 15 bass cab with a seperate guitar amp played along with a 2-12 through another guitar amp, signal split.

Once the system was eq'd and played on a 7 string it was just massive sounding. Shutting off the 15's amp kinda felt like the wind stopped blowing, lots of sound still but just no power.

Bass cab through the guitar amp sucked, to much highs with the tweeter.

Was fun to try though.
Bev


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## Alistair6 (Jul 9, 2007)

great discussion guys.. i just got a 1x15 cab with a RedCoat Big Ben in it. Havent had a chance to try it out yet as its for my Ceriatone DC30 head which hasn't been started yet (this weekend.. yay!).. ill let everyone know what i think of the 15 though when i have had some time with it.
Ive also always been curious but have always used 12s.. or 10s (a few times)..

A buddy of mine has played through a templeton with a single 15" speaker and he raves about it.. part of that will be the amp itself for sure but i have no doubt its because its running a 15 and sounds much different than if it were a single 12


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Alistair6 said:


> great discussion guys.. i just got a 1x15 cab with a RedCoat Big Ben in it. Havent had a chance to try it out yet as its for my Ceriatone DC30 head which hasn't been started yet (this weekend.. yay!).. ill let everyone know what i think of the 15 though when i have had some time with it.
> Ive also always been curious but have always used 12s.. or 10s (a few times)..
> 
> A buddy of mine has played through a templeton with a single 15" speaker and he raves about it.. part of that will be the amp itself for sure but i have no doubt its because its running a 15 and sounds much different than if it were a single 12


Nice! Personally, I'd love to get an amp with a 15" in it. I've had the opportunity to play through a '60's Vibroverb and it was amazing IMO:smile:


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Cool discussion and information. Many thanks to all.

Does anyone have suggestions as to where to get a 1 x 15" cab unloaded.

Cheers

Dave


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## GuyB (May 2, 2008)

I've seen somewhere (I think it's on these forums but I'm not sure) that a 15" will "concentrate" the sound i.e. that it will be more directionnal : like you have to be more directly in front of it to hear it well and that you loose part of the sound if you are too much at an angle. Is there something true in that ?


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

As I understand it, the width of a speaker's focal area depends on the angle in degrees of the cone. A flatter cone will be shallower inside the cabinet and have a wider focus. This is a part of speaker design I know little about so I really can't comment much further. The only other thing I can think of is that it also depends on whether the speaker is mounted inside or outside the cabinet. Outside will disperse a wider focal area.


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