Jack 15

[ncgrove]

I'd think it would put out whatever tone you put into it. The J15 is pretty big. Think about building two J10s:

[shadburn]

Good call, appreciate the spl chart.
Are they really that responsive to what's put into them?
That's an interesting concept to me as my experience shows that you get a lot of coloration from certain cabs/speakers.
I know these are different from the average cab but still

[DaveK]

To my ears, the J115 has better low end for bass guitar. The 2xJ110 is tighter in the mids, but does not have the low end oomph.

[shadburn]

Yea I'd rather have lots of low end. And size isn't really an issue, anything is better than lugging around the whole studio bass combo at 130ish pounds, same dimensions as the old super twin combo's. Aka the most awkward amp ever. But that tone....
Any other opinions on the jack 15's sound? Does it really just put out what you put in? Thats weird to me considering speakers make such a difference with guitar tone it's hard to fathom that it wouldn't do the same for bass., at least to some degree.

[ncgrove]

A J115 with a 2515 or 3015 is definitely not 130 pounds! I've never weighed it, but if it's over 50 lbs, it isn't by much.

I like to think of the tone this way: The J15 is a PA loudspeaker that works really well on bass. If you were to mic whatever amp you have now and run it through the PA, the PA would reproduce that sound. And if you don't like what you hear, use your EQ to fix it. The cab is absolutely capable of reproducing whatever you put into it, as long as it's above about 40 hz and below 20000 hz, and as long as it's within the voltage limit that the driver will take.

I like it just fine with the EQ flat, but I'm not a tone connoisseur. I consider myself a novice on bass, and I'm sure there are more articulate bass gurus who could answer better.

And the issue with drivers for electric guitar has been explained elsewhere, probably in the XF section.

[Traijin]

I run a pair of Jack 15's W/ 3015's. They weigh in at just under 45 lbs each. I use them for PA applications and also serve as my current home audio mains. I don't experience any "coloration" of sound. The cab is very clear. I can only speak for the 3015's but those Kappalites don't change the sound to a degree where my admittedly untrained ear can discern. Nothing like the Red Coats or other guitar designated speakers.

I used to think those Jack cabs were heavy until I started moving around my Tuba 30's. Those are more like 70-75 lbs each. I move the 4 of those first, then the Jacks seem like nothing in comparison.

[ncgrove]

J15 Update: The cab is still running strong i.e. I haven't dropped it too hard, and haven't shredded the 2515 yet. I did bash one of the corners into a brick wall moving it after a few libations, but the plastic corner took the blow like a champ.

I absolutely love the cab, but I've been feeling a bit Bill Fitzmaurice spoiled lately: moving my <50 lb. cab (that preforms better than a 100 lb. box) is getting old. I'm tooling up to upgrade it to a J15L and shed a few pounds. If I can get it to a little over 35 lbs. that would be fantastic! Gonna put together a J10L first to figure out the techniques before I take on the big boy.

Anyway, we played a show a couple of weeks ago at this absolute dump of a bar. It was one of those things where we had something like 5 minutes to set up, and play, and get off. I didn't even have time to tune. I didn't get any PA support for my bass rig, so the J15 rig was all there was going to be. I broke probably half of the BF Commandments and bypassed the limiter I have wired in before the power amp (i.e. turned the rig to 11). There was still a bit of compressor working, which probably limited the damage I was trying to do. I have the bass eq knob on the BassMax turned to the 9:00 position, so I convinced myself that I wasn't going to send the 2515 cone shooting across the bar. The J15 took everything I gave it.

Here's a couple of videos of the show (The J15 is hidden on the left. Bonus points if you can figure out what power amp I'm driving it with):




Sorry,The quality isn't that good. The point isn't for you to watch how bad I am on the bass. It is, however, to show that the J15 is perfectly capable of providing enough volume for when you don't have any PA bass support.

In case you were wondering (or could even hear with the bad quality video) the cab isn't distorting the bass sound. I think the distortion is from a combination of low action on the bass causing fret noise, me hitting the strings too hard and overdriving the pickups, and the preamp overdriving a little. If I hit the strings more gently, it sounds as clean as can be. Also, the camera mic didn't pick up all the low stuff the cab was dishing out. It was really quite impressive.

Thanks for indulging me by reading this long-winded review update. Feel free to ask any questions.

-Nathan