slant cab vs. straight cab

[barneyc4]

Whats the difference between a slant cab and a straight cab tonewise?

Is it true that straight cabs have more low end?

 

[mesanomad100]

I havent played through a straight cab but in theory it should be,there is more air inside the cab(space) because there is no slant,the place where the slant should be is taken up by more of the cabinet,the bigger the cab the lower the sound it will produce,so yeah it will be lower but I prefer a slant cab,more projection to your ears and.......................they look better IMHO

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

Same here...much prefer the slant cabs.

 

[barneyc4]

So you must have ordered a slant siletto 4x12 then?

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

Yup

Guitar Center has already messed up a few things, but it should finally be here this Wednesday or Thursday.

 

[barneyc4]

What are you doing with your old recto cab?

 

[siggy14]

I have straight traditional and have had the slant traditional. Honestly i like the way the straight looks and sounds better.

Technically you shouldnt be in the line of fire of a cab anyway, you should be standing ten feet away from it.

As to the difference in sound, I havent noticed a huge different, actually it is pretty **** close to the traditional slant i have had, maybe a slight more bottem end. But if i want to make it more like a slant I will just get some poly fill which will take away enough volume.

 

[Machine Gun]

Same here, I prefer the looks of the straight cab. I like the extra surface area on top too. Just me I guess.

 

[Russ]

Wouldn't polyfill act as a volume expander inside the cab? I always used polyfill to fool a subwoofer into believing it was in a larger cabinet in space confined enclosures. My take on that scenario is that you would need to physically build a box to mount inside your cabinet to remove the internal air volume but you would want to be sure that you did it in such a way as to not create odd harmonics inside. You could even attach plywood panels to the insides of the cabinet to take the volume away and tune it in this way. Again, polyfill will make your cabinet act like it is bigger. It has something to do with the soundwaves taking longer to exit the cabinet. Lower frequency sound waves require more distance to be heard. This is why it is not necessary to have 12" subs in confined spaces. Sometimes it is more efficient to run 10's or even a single 8". Sometimes you have to use a single 8 and use polyfill to get the right tuning so that you are getting the most efficient performance out of your compact sub box.

Due to the additional internal air volume the straight cab will sound deeper, true. The perceived brightness of the slant cab comes from some of the highs directed upwards as opposed to straight out of a straight cab and its lower internal air volume.

If you run a straight on top of a straight the upper cab sounds brighter for this same reason of directed sound. If you want a slant to sound more like a straight you add fill but you still have the slight brightness to it that you can't remove because of its physically angled baffle.

You could physically remove the angled baffle phenomenon by putting your slant on top of a fullstack or at similar height but then you would only really be experiencing the lower 2 12's in that cabinet anyway. You could lay it on its side but then you would be getting lateral dispersion with a slightly lower internal air volume as a straight unless you added fill thereby artificially increasing the internal air volume.

I would say that for the most part a slant is a better choice unless you absolutely need the beaming of 4 12's. Again you can add fill to deepen your sound to that of the straight but you cannot get the dispersion in a straight that you can in a slant. FWIW you can even port your cab if you want to get deeper tones.

 

[MesaENGR412]

I like the straight front/slant baffle because it's the best of both worlds. You ge t the good looks of a straight front and the angled sound of a slant front, plus all the surface area on the top. I plan on eventually having a quad stack of them.

-AJH

 

[123thefirst]

Wouldn't polyfill act as a volume expander inside the cab? I always used polyfill to fool a subwoofer into believing it was in a larger cabinet in space confined enclosures.

Something like that. In some sense the effect will be similar to having a larger cabinet though. It will definitely dampen the bass resonances and make the frequency response smoother but will bring down the level in general.

It has something to do with the soundwaves taking longer to exit the cabinet. Lower frequency sound waves require more distance to be heard.

Yes, you get an increase in the delay or audio latency. Effectively you get a flubbier, smeared bass response which will even probably affect the mid-range too.

 

[CudBucket]

When adding fill, how much do you add? Do you just place some on the bottom of the cab or fill it up?

 

[dmcguitar]

So adding polyfill to say a standard recto 4x12 would make it more bassy? but filling it with plywood would reduce the internal volume? if i added 2 inches of wood to the floor of the cab would that effectively make it like the traditional cab? would it matter if the space is removed from the top or bottom of the cabs?

are there are lightweight space fillers that can be used to achieve the effect of a smaller cab/internal volume?

 

[cjae]

if I remember..
Mark Tremonti says that he prefers straight cabs since he thinks slant cabs produce less bass....

 

[chemten]

I like the straight front/slant baffle because it's the best of both worlds. You ge t the good looks of a straight front and the angled sound of a slant front, plus all the surface area on the top. I plan on eventually having a quad stack of them.

-AJH

that is the kind of slant i would like as well. unfortunately, i got the older mesa oversized for real cheap on ebay and my only complaint is that i cant put a 2x12 on the top of it due to the size difference.

 

[tobytheplatypus]

see, i want a slant cab, on top of a straight cab, being pushed by my Triple Rec

 

[satisfied5582]

for me a prefer a 2x12 vertical slant cab or just vertical straight, now 4x12 i like straight cabs. mesa 2x12 vertical slant i really enjoy, this cab will be with me for life or until it crashes then i'll get another.

 

[VijfZiel]

I owned a marshall 1960b from the 90's, straight obviously, and a mesa 4x12 slanted, and the marshall seems to have a little more bassy and darker sound, I have not test a mesa straight, but with marshall, thant's my point of view