Barefaced Bass - Ultra lightweight high power bass guitar speaker cabinets

03/10/23 - Two10S - UK

Hi Alex,

I'm still loving my Two10S you'll be glad to hear, and I'll get to try out a Four10 in a couple of weeks as part of a communal backline at a festival. This prospect is triggering some major GAS so thoughts are turning to the purchase of a second cab, but I have a doubt I hope you can clear up for me.

For context I pay in a five-piece covers band with vocals, guitar, bass, keys and drums. I usually play through either an Ashdown ABM 600 EVO IV or a Trace Elliot Elf head, depending on gig size, whether I can be arsed making two trips to the car, etc.

As I understand it as a layman, the ABM would put 600W into one cab at 4 ohms, but only 300W into two cabs at 8 ohms (both switched to 12 ohms). I appreciate that double the power ≠ double the volume, nominal impedance, and so on, but I'm struggling to understand what practical benefit having double the speakers with half the power might give, either for myself as the player or the audience, assuming the amp is run at full bore in both scenarios. Is the doubling up of the speakers the most important component?

I'm sure you get asked this question a lot so apologies for retreading old ground!

Kind regards 

Greg

Hi Greg,

That's a good question - and very very difficult to answer! Quick answer is that outdoors it probably helps quite a bit, indoors, not so much.

You could of course use the Ashdown to drive one cab and the Elf to drive the other, so when you'd have 600W for one and 200W for the other. Or you could add a Four10 and get 600W into a modular 6x10" stack. Glad you're loving the Two10S!

Best regards,

Alex