Jack 15 review

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Jeciron
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2020 6:52 am

Jack 15 review

#1 Post by Jeciron »

I built myself a Jack 15 couple years ago, thinking I'd use it with an old, inexpensive tube amp and speaker I had. Right...... Predictably, none of the salvaged stuff worked out, but the Jack 15 seems to work really well. I play for fun. I'm good enough that I play out in casual settings, brew pubs, friends parties, etc. and I"m not a connoisseur of bass amps and cabinets. I'm of the opinion that a player on stage rarely hears what the audience does, so I value listener's opinions more than my own. I'm just using a single 15 speaker without the tweeters and it seems fine for a vintage rock/blues sort of sound. I power it with an inexpensive tc electronics Thrust BQ250 amp. I've used it enough that I think my opinion might be of some value.

I'm very pleased. The people I play with like the sound I'm getting, and no one in the audience will tell me to my face that they don't. I like the sound, too as best I can tell. I find it has plenty of volume for the genres we play, classic rock and blues, in fact, I can easily be too loud for small to medium sized rooms. Of course, we're not a metal band, and we don't play in places where people think bleeding from their ears is a good thing, so I can't speak for those situations. I can say that during covid, one the places we play regularly moved their music outside. The venue doesn't provide a PA, and I was concerned that my rig wouldn't be powerful enough, but that hasn't been an issue at all - I've never had to push the amp at all to keep up with the rest of the band.

The build was not difficult, but I'm a fairly competent carpenter, so bear that in mind. I didn't make it pretty, because, you know, it's a bass cabinet and it's going to take a beating. It's extremely tough, you could probably park a car on top of it, and has no issues with rattles or unwanted vibrations. It's heavy but not horribly heavy, but the large cube shape is awkward enough that I'm thinking of putting some wheels on it, maybe just a single pair and an extendable handle so I can tip it back and roll it like a suitcase, but I'm a little worried about things rattling.

I'm happy and it saved me a lot of money, people like my sound and it and definitely sounds far better, and is much louder than the old cabinet it replaced. I'd definitely do it again.

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Tom Smit
Posts: 7457
Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:24 pm
Location: Sarnia, Ont. Canada

Re: Jack 15 review

#2 Post by Tom Smit »

Glad you like your cab!
Have you thought about a little dolly cart?
If you put wheels on your cab, you could put a couple of riser blocks on the opposite sides so that the cab rests on the riser blocks and the wheels.
TomS

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