Novel speaker cabinet designs for use with head at home?

[danomess]

I can remember seeing a small multi speaker cabinet lying about in some shop-forget what it was for, but may have been from a car sound system. I suppose getting speakers voiced for a guitar in a small size would be problematic. A friend of mine had a small Roland guitar practice combo that had 4 tiny speakers in it tho.
Possibly the reason it hasn't been done is down to technology and maybe demand, with the rise in I pad music apps and the THR there may be growth in this area soon

[ICBM]

A friend of mine had a small Roland guitar practice combo that had 4 tiny speakers in it tho.

These sounded completely awful, but you can hardly say the whole thing was designed at all, or even likely to have been achieved by experimentation... it was basically just four cheap car radio-type speakers in a very open-back chipboard box. What were they thinking? I don't know, but it was the 80s...

[Sporky_McGuffin]

Or it might be the Microcube RX - no idea if it sounds any good:

http://www.roland.co.uk/products/pro...spx?p=939&c=57

I tried a novel design for a guitar speaker - 25 one-inch drivers in a spruce plank, a sort of guitar line array. It filled the room with sound pretty well, but it was a rather odd sound. Every guitar came out like a resonator. Needed some bass too, so I made a little active crossover and drove the array from my Cornell while another amp did the low end. That sounded quite good, in an unusual sort of way...

[erictheweary]

Pretty sure the speakers in the THR are full range ( wrong term? ie normal) speakers so if you run an ipod through them they sound okay, so there is speaker emulation applied to the guitar sounds. IIRC the Fender Greta has a 4" guitar speaker in it so sounds ropey as an ipod dock.

[ICBM]

Pretty sure the speakers in the THR are full range ( wrong term? ie normal) speakers so if you run an ipod through them they sound okay, so there is speaker emulation applied to the guitar sounds. IIRC the Fender Greta has a 4" guitar speaker in it so sounds ropey as an ipod dock.

It's not a 4" guitar speaker - it's a 4" radio speaker, if it's even as good as that. Unbelievably shit and pointless. Unfortunately due to the amp's chassis design it isn't possible to get a better one - or anything with a larger magnet - in there... I tried. Basically the Greta is a head with an internal load in case you forget to plug in a cabinet.

Even the 1" plastic speaker in the ZVex Nano was less dreadful, I think... or maybe just seemed so given the low expectation it created!

[ROOG]

For the reasons which others have given, the 10" and 12" guitar speaker is a simple two wire solution which generates the expected sound, why would any amp manufacturer want to argue with convention, unless there was an incentive?

It seems to me that HiFi solutions such as the Bose sound systems have to 'major' in "looking nice?" and providing a compact solution to the old separates and two speakers idea that makes up 'real mans' HiFi. I am not totaly convined that they have won that one.

So how is that going to work for the world of 'Man sized' guitar amps with 4 x 12's? well perhaps it is the search for reasonable 'tone' in our ever shrinking modern homes. (Mine anyway).

[ChrisJordan]

Another vote here for the Matrix system.



The prototype amp head that was being demo'ed at the Great British Guitar Show was fantastic and received brilliant feedback. The were a few of the smaller Brit luthiers who wanted to get their mits on new gear.

[MrFoxen]

The sound of a guitar speaker is in the distortion and non-linearity. Pretty much any other speaker is designed to not do that, at least within it's passband, which is why they tend not to sound right. Going for a clean speaker, like a active studio type monitor and using a simulator pedal is probably the best way to go.

[Cirrusband]

well perhaps it is the search for reasonable 'tone' in our ever shrinking modern homes. (Mine anyway).

I think you have bigger things to worry about if your house is shrinking. Have you checked the neighbours aren't stealing bricks or moving your walls closer together when you're not about?

[ROOG]

I think you have bigger things to worry about if your house is shrinking. Have you checked the neighbours aren't stealing bricks or moving your walls closer together when you're not about?

It's a posibility where I Live!

Any how since when was anything more important that the search for tone at home?