FRFR 12 vs 10 to best represent the cabinet IR’s in your patches

[calebkenyon09]

Hello, I have been researching this ad nauseam. At this point it just feels like there is just too much information to come to a conclusion, so I am just gonna ask for some advice.

I’m playing a helix HX stomp and my guitar patches use 12 inch speakers with 2x12 IR’s mostly, and a supro 1x15 IR for guitar. I also play bass and I play a 1x15 IR, but guitar is more important than bass for me right now. So I don’t play any amp cabs with 10’s but my understanding is the woofer in a 2 way powered cab is different than the drivers in a guitar amp. So will a 12” PA speaker be any better at reproducing / representing the 12” and 15” guitar speakers in the IR’s I’m using or is the woofer size nearly irrelevant. I like to use different IR’s with different speakers, I’m just looking for something to reproduce the IR’s, I know it won’t be amp in the room and that is fine. So I just need a full range flat uncolored speaker right?

I play clean and with low gain but I do some thump for chet atkins merle travis picking. I like the weight of a 10” PA speaker but if a 12” would be better then the extra 10 pounds or so isn’t a big deal. For bass I am considering getting a sub to go with the PA speaker if the PA speaker doesn’t go low enough for bass, but for now I’ll just get the FRFR PA speaker. So do you have any recommendations?

 

The ones I am considering are QSC K10.2 K12.2, they seemed the best with the extra options for bass settings.

 

Also considering the Yamaha DXR10 DXR12 or EV ZLX12P. These are the ones I think will fit my needs. This price range is what I’m looking at and open to other suggestions.

 

Thanks   

[DunedinDragon]

You're trying to compare apples and oranges.  The speakers models you're referring to are representations or models of physical passive guitar cabinets using specific microphone and microphone placements which create specific tonal characteristics like they would in the real world.  Modern powered live speaker cabinets (or FRFR if you like) such as the QSC K.2 or Yamaha DXR series are purely engineered and tuned for accurately representing the sonic characteristics of whatever signal they receive using some very advanced cabinet design, circuitry, and DSP engineering which is specific tuned to whatever speaker and high frequency driver is being used in that speaker cabinet.  All of that advanced engineering is a big part of what you pay for in those those speakers, that's why you tend to get what you pay for in those type of speakers.  And that's also why, when you examine the frequency response graph of a 8 inch, 10 inch or 12 inch speaker unit, they're almost exactly the same.

The key difference in the size of a powered speaker cabinet is how well it tends to fill a space efficiently and effectively.  For example, I own six DXR12's which I use for a variety of purposes both as FOH speakers and standard stage monitors and they work well in all sorts of situations.  I also have a QSC CP8 which I've used as stage monitor in the past in smaller situations.  That works okay in a more intimate setting, but would get lost on a bigger stage even with more volume.  It's not that the sound is different so much as it just doesn't envelope the stage in the same way as a DXR12.

As far as the DSP options for tuning, the QSC K.2 series probably has the most complete options of the ones you've mentioned.  Quite frankly I've worked with bass players that are perfectly happy with the sound they've gotten out of the DXR12 monitors with the low cut filter turned off when going direct to the board using just a Tech21 Sansamp.  I almost always go direct from my Helix to the mixing board nowadays and rely on my DXR12 stage monitor mix and am perfectly content with the sound I get when finger picking Chet Atkins or James Taylor type stuff on my Gretsch Silver Falcon...or anything else for that matter.  I would say that investing in a sub for for the mains is more than enough to help fill in any low end produced by the bass or even kick drum since a subwoofer is non directional anyway so there's no real benefit to having it as a monitor.

 

[PierM]

A monitor/speaker is not a cab, and a cab it's not a monitor/speaker.

An average monitor, has a frequency range of 20Hz/20Khz, with its own response (flat just doesnt exist, but the closer you are to the 0dB reference flat line, the better).

An average guitar cab, has a range of 70Hz/5000Hz, with its own response (that you grab in a cab block and/or in a IR). You see that's just a slice of the entire range available.

So, why you need 20Hz/20Khz to repro a guitar speaker? You don't, because a modeler it's NOT simulating a guitar cabinet, but a Mic'ed cabinet in a room, so there is speaker response + mic freq response + room response, plus pre and post dynamics and FX. This equation won't fit a 5Khz range of a cab speaker, so there you need a Full response monitor, better if close to a Flat response (ideal, as in real life, does not exist).

 

All this fluff to say size of the speaker in the real cab doesnt really matter (response and range does), as it's like thinking to play a Led Zeppeling album using 2 stack of 4x4 12" speaker set, to grab Page's tone.