does mic placement even matter

[DanTravis62]

Well of course moving the mic matters. Everyone agrees with that. It's the idea that there's big differences between speakers from the same lot independent of mic position relative to the cone that's controversial.

When you go look at the frequency response graphs from that video Dan posted, most of the paired speakers look like this:
View attachment 446829

You're not going to hear that.

The ones that do have a difference, it seems largely to be an efficiency difference like this:
View attachment 446830
If you normalized for volume, the vast majority of that would go away meaning they'd be functionally equivalent for recording.

That's the problem, those efficiency differences aren't equal across the range, and even if they were you would perceive it as different sounding at the source

 

[Rackman]

That's the problem, those efficiency differences aren't equal across the range, and even if they were you would perceive it as different sounding at the source

They're pretty damn close. In the bottom picture if you pulled the hotter speaker down 1.5dB it would be very very hard to tell them apart. Probably impossible.

Admittedly he had a shit ton of frequency graphs, but I have yet to find one that showed a dramatic EQ tilt or change in notch/bump position between two same-lot V30s.

Frankly I think you're full of shit and the frequency graphs from your own chosen video prove it

 

[Nigel]

I love throwing a 57 up on a Mesa V30 at a 45° angle and it just working.

 

[tjnx]

They're pretty damn close. In the bottom picture if you pulled the hotter speaker down 1.5dB it would be very very hard to tell them apart. Probably impossible.

Admittedly he had a shit ton of frequency graphs, but I have yet to find one that showed a dramatic EQ tilt or change in notch/bump position between two same-lot V30s.

Frankly I think you're full of shit and the frequency graphs from your own chosen video prove it

I'm gonna piss you both off and offer up that both of you are right. Celestion or whoever has it in their best interest to produce a consistent product, but you can't forget the dumbass + greed quotient when it comes to working with raw materials.

Every factory is required to have a minimum of 1 dumbass that will get product out of spec and 1 greedy manager that will fudge the numbers and push it through to make a buck. With that in mind its almost a given that each speaker will differ to a degree. Celestion qc isn't held to a mission critical standard for tolerances and I doubt their testing that each speaker matches to an eq curve perfectly or its thrown out. There's probably not enough margin for that.

FWIW in my ir packs I have the same mic at measured positions on each speaker in the cab and they all sound a little different. They are likely cranking out batches of speakers that are all very close too but yeah some are pretty different.

 

[Greazygeo]

Yes and no…After a ton of experimenting with placement, different mics, cabs, speakers, amps etc…I pretty much know right where to put the mic’s. Not going to obsess over it anymore. Of course moving the mics around does make a difference in brightness/ darkness…some speakers just sound like shit.

I think for the majority of people, mic placement is the least of their worries….

 

[Floyd Eye]

There isn't even a good reason to believe all 4 of the speakers in a given cab came out of the same lot. In fact I think it's highly unlikely.