Extension Cabinet

[oneleftnut]

I'm asking this ques on behalf of our bass player. I know nothing about bass gear. That being said. He currently plays through a "Markbass" combo. I believe its 2x10. He's looking at running an extension cabinet and he found a Mesa Powerhouse at a good price. I did a quick search of the web and it god bad reviews, blown speakers etc... Mesa in my book has always been a quality company so this kind of shocked me. Anyone ever use a Mesaboogie Powerhouse 1x15? Can I get someones 2 cents?

Thanks

[Old Cane]

Remember, there are people out there that can destroy tanks and battleships. I'm sure someone has blown speakers in every cabinet known to man. If it sounds bad and is unreliable then you have something to worry about. If not, it may last your buddy forever.

[marshman]

I've heard from a couple semi-reliable sources that driving a 500 watt speaker with a dimed 100 watt amp will destroy the speaker in next to no time. Plenty of folks out there doin' silly stuff to their gear, so there's no accountin' fer taste.

I've never used that (or any other M/B bass cab), but M/Bs reputation for bullet-proof gear would see me making the purchase, if that means anything to you.

[4mal]

Mixing and matching bass cab's doesn't always work. Bass cab's actually work together in harmony less often than not IME. The only way to know, is to hook 'em up and take the rig up to volume in a club sized space.

The issues are
1. relative efficiencies between the cab's - The more efficient of the cab's will domintate the other volume wise up to the point where it runs out of gas, then maybe it smokes wheil the other can is just getting warm ...

2. the frequencies emphasized by each, or the cab's 'voicing'. Most commercially available bass cab's - particularly the smaller ones have big humps inthe low end frequency response. It is pretty rare to find cab's where those humps work together and become 'smooth' and controllable.

It's worth a shot but your guy needs to go in with both ears open ...

Originally Posted by marshman

I've heard from a couple semi-reliable sources that driving a 500 watt speaker with a dimed 100 watt amp will destroy the speaker in next to no time.

Pretty much an old wives tale - the theory was something like 'the clipped signal of a square wave held the voice coil in extreme positions for too long and the voice coil would over heat for lack of venting' - I think in reality it was more like the dimed amp was dumping DC as it failed and that took the speaker with it originally ... amps driven past their design limititations can exhibit unfriendly behavior ...