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Old 07-19-2012, 12:30 AM
DukeLeJeune DukeLeJeune is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arashaw View Post
I would also like to know how to pick a speaker/cab specifically for acoustic guitar. What are the optimum sizes? Why is a Daedelus speaker much better than say a QSC or EV? What is the best "throw" angle?
Optimum size = big enough to not distort for the size gigs you'll be playing, but not so big that it's impractical. I know that's not a very good answer, but I guess my point is that well-designed cabs can come in different sizes.

Why might a boutique speaker like the Daedalus sound better? Attention paid to the details of crossover design, driver choice and integration, and cabinet construction. I compete against Lou Hinkley's designs in another market, and he is very, very good, so it's not suprising to me that his cabs are arguably at the top of the food chain in the amplified acoustic guitar world. He works very hard on getting the details right, and imo it's quite interesting to see that his passive designs are still highly competitive.

In my opinion, the optimum throw angle would be the angle where the woofer and mid/high frequency sections integrate the best (I know that's not what you were asking, but hang with me here). For instance, QSC's different-sized cabs have different pattern widths, with their smaller cabs having wider patterns than the bigger ones. This is because the smaller woofers have a wider pattern in the crossover region, and they have tailored their horns to pattern-match the woofers in the crossover region.

So now we're sort of back to your first question: If you need a big cab, in order to get good pattern matching through the crossover region (which imo really does matter), then you might be looking at 90 degrees. If you only need a smaller cab, then a wider pattern, 100 degrees or more, might be more optimal. But as you can see I'm giving higher priority to driver integration and pattern uniformity than to pattern width per se.

Okay now that I've gotten that out of my system, the optimium pattern width would probably be whatever gives adequate coverage for your audience, and thus would change from one gig to the next. With two cabs, you would have the option of aiming them as needed.
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