Which 15” speaker should I get?

[Disarm D'arcy]

Hello ILF,

I just a got a 1*15” cab from Ashdown, the cheapest one I could find. Sadly yet unsurprisingly, the speaker is not so great. It craps out and crackles when I use the Pharaoh or when I use a reverb setting with a lot of lows.

To give you a little context, I use that cab with my Verellen spaldo head, and mostly playing a bass VI with effects.

I’d like a speaker that handle lows super well and has as a lot of headroom.

What do you specialists recommend?

Thanks!

DD

[fever606]

Eminence Big Ben. Had one in an Ampeg 1x15 with both a Music Man 65 and on OR-80. It's the champ.

[greyscales]

I use an Eminence Kappa-Pro15A and have not been able to destroy it, despite my best efforts. Handles subs like a champ and has headroom for days.

[ALLisNOISE]

You’ve made sure you’ve bypasses the tweeter, right?

Tweeters and fuzz generally hate each other to the deathest of deaths... unless you want that Shellac klang

[BoatRich]

Eminence Delta/Kappa 15’s are incredible and is highly recommend either.

[Disarm D'arcy]

Sounds like the Kappa 15 LFA is a winner for me.

What do I have to make of all the fancy volume calculations people do? Is this actually relevant or entire corksniffery. It’s corksniffery in my experience of switching speakers une guitar cabs, but I never changed a bass speaker in a bass cab before.

[qersty]

Yeah it is different with bass speakers as the enclosure design is more important due to the lower frequencies. The cab is already built tho and I don't think you will have much issues if you just swap the speaker without calculating. Also listen to ALLisNOISE and check the state of your tweeter, it may be fucked over as in bass cabs they put the shittiest speakers imaginable. I like GOOD tweeters and think the extended high end sounds wonderful with fuzz. It is a little more work to swap it out as you may need to modify the cab and/or rebuild the crossover. Or you could just gut it and keep the 15"

[Disarm D'arcy]

There’s no twitter though. It’s just a box with an input jack and 15inch speaker.

So I guess I shall jump the gun once my pedals sell.

[Dapper Bandit]

Another shout out for Kappa 15s. I think they might be the only speakers I never blew.

I've always thought there is much more benefit to volume calculations etc. for bass speakers vs guitar. That being said when I put in the Kappas I just tore out the old speaker and tweeter and just ran them as is. Handled the lows well and actually had a better high end than the cheapo tweeters.

As far as headroom, they survived some scary levels of abuse in my experience and had fuzz, oscillating delays, whammy and bit crushers thrown at them with prejudice.