I Have A Speaker Cab Idea..................

[Jeffblue]

..........I have a pair of 16 ohm 10 inch Celestion speakers that I'd like to build a cab for. They will be wired in parallel for an 8 ohm impedance. The build would entail a solid partition between the speakers, one speaker would be sealed and the other open back. What can I expect of the performance and tones from such a cab? Thanks.

 

[beaubrummels]

The closed back will be tight and nid heavy, the open back will be loose, flabby and bass-y and lacking in some detail.

 

[Securb]

The closest experience I have with mixing open/back cabs is a lot different than 2x10. My setup was 8x12. I had my open-back Fender Quad with 4 Utahs sitting on a closed back Ampeg V4 with four blackback Celestion G12H speakers for years. The V4 had a lot of thump and projected tons of mids and bass, while the Fender let the notes bloom and gave me really chimney highs. It was loud as heck.

 

[Jeffblue]

The closed back will be tight and nid heavy, the open back will be loose, flabby and bass-y and lacking in some detail.

Do you think there might be an advantage of the combination of open back and sealed?

 

[Jeffblue]

The closest experience I have with mixing open/back cabs is a lot different than 2x10. My setup was 8x12. I had my open-back Fender Quad with 4 Utahs sitting on a closed back Ampeg V4 with four blackback Celestion G12H speakers for years. The V4 had a lot of thump and projected tons of mids and bass, while the Fender let the notes bloom and gave me really chimney highs. It was loud as heck.

What would be your estimation of the tone with the combination of identical ceramic Celestions open back and sealed?

 

[jeremy]

a buddy of mine has two 2x10 cabs, one open and one closed. they sound great together. closed gives the bass punch, open gives more bloom and a wider sound

 

[chadd]

Do you think there might be an advantage of the combination of open back and sealed?

Yes, but with caveats. If you're recording or playing live with a soundman and mic both sides, you can pull up whichever sounds better for a particular song. If neither applies to you, then the only benefit is likely to be more stage volume of an open back cabinet and possibly hearing a little more top end because of that.

Mesa combined open and closed backs with their Road King 4x12s, splitting them into open and closed back 2x12s. However, you could also assign channels to specific speaker outputs on the RK. Running cleans to the open back side and dirty tones to the closed side made for a really versatile amp.

 

[Securb]

What would be your estimation of the tone with the combination of identical ceramic Celestions open back and sealed?

I think you are going to get a very balanced tone. Like others have said lots of punch on the bass and mids, but nice bloom on the highs. Especially when hitting shimmery clean with a bit of delay or modulation. I used my setup with my thrash band, but we were not atypical. There was a huge Police, RUSH, Pink Floyd influence, so there were bridges or interludes I played very cleanly with some modulation. I could go from lush soundscapes to the brutz back and forth with little effort. The only effort was for my roadies, that had to drag around and set up that rig.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I used that V4 with the next band with my first JC120 combo. The open/closed combo once again sounded fantastic.

 

[Jeffblue]

That is exactly what I was thinking. Best of both open back and sealed would accentuate each other. I think the only way to make that better is combining an Alnico and a Ceramic magnet speakers.

 

[GuitarStv]

That is what I've been doing for years. 1x12 open back combo with a 1x12 closed back extension cab. Sounds great to me.


If you're building the cab from scratch, make a removable panel for the top and the bottom. Then you can try both speakers both ways and see what works best for you.

 

[Jeffblue]

You gentlemen have great ideas. Thank you for your input. We live in exciting times and ways to share information.

 

[Securb]

That is exactly what I was thinking. Best of both open back and sealed would accentuate each other. I think the only way to make that better is combing an Alnico and a Ceramic magnet speakers.

In my case, I think the British characteristics overwhelmed the American characteristics even though the head was an 100w Fender.