Speaker Cabinets for Bass

Buy bass cabinets at session

No bass cabinet, no volume! Anyone who plays electric bass or acoustic bass can’t do without a bass cabinet and an amplifier. But why are bass cabinets and the bass amplifier in separate units? From a certain venue size and, of course, depending on the volume a band wants to handle, it has become standard for electric stringed instruments to separate the amplifier from the speaker cabinet. The main reason for this is mobility: in the early days both the amplifier unit, because of its valve technology, and the cabinets, because of their heavy magnets and bulky construction, were very difficult to transport. So combined units of a certain size would have been almost impossible to move. The most famous representative of this kind of stage-ready bass amplifier is probably the Ampeg SVT and the associated 8 x 10-inch cabinet. The use of eight 10-inch speakers came about because people wanted to combine as large a cone area as possible with a very fast response. Especially in rock music it was and is important to have punch at high volume, but also definition for fast runs or generally fast playing.

Sound differences with different speaker sizes

But the combination of several 10-inch speakers and the bass instrument also produces a relatively hard and cool tone, which doesn’t suit every musical style.
That’s why cabinet variants of 12 inch, 15 inch and 18 inch have also become established. In modern jazz and fusion you will often find 12-inch cabinets, for example, which are still responsive enough but offer a noticeably warmer tone than their smaller counterparts. Another reason for the popularity of these cabinets is that, thanks to manufacturers like Markbass, Aguilar, Glockenklang, EBS, Gallien Krueger and many more, small 1 x 12-inch cabinets with high efficiency are available, which are perfect for sessions and smaller gigs, such as in bars.
All larger formats like 1 x 15 are usually used in combination with 2 x 10 inch or similar cabinets to round off and thicken the overall sound, or in genres like reggae where the bass is mainly supposed to deliver punch.

Which bass cabinet is right for you?

You can easily find that out in our stores, as we always have all common sizes and some exotics ready to try. Thanks to our service package with a 33-day money-back guarantee, you can also buy in the webshop with no worries and try it out at your leisure in a band context.