EVH Cabinets, sound direction, please help

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Meeotch

Meeotch

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Hey all, first time poster here and I am in need of some help with EVH cabinets. I will add that I have read alot of the posts on here regarding this topic, please bear with me.

I own the 5150 III 50 watt head and initially bought a Mesa Recto 2x12 vertical, loaded with v30's. As others have mentioned, I found the v30's to be too harsh and overall did not sound good with this amp.

So, I bought the EVH 2x12 matching cabinet and there is no question it sounds way better! I have been playing around with it and have noticed that standing directly in front of it about 4 feet away (with it on the ground) I can get the exact tone that I want. I tried walking around the living room while playing and at a 45 degree angle about 12 feet away I lose ALL my low end (and I have the lows/resonance cranked).

When I stand about 15 ft away from it, again directly in front of the speakers, the highs become harsh and I have to adjust my EQ.

I tried standing the 2x12 up on it's side and it changes the sounds a bit but I am still not getting anything close to consistent tones when I move about the living room at different angles...

So my question is...is this normal? I am not a gigging musician so I don't know what is acceptable in terms of direction when the cab is miced. It seems that if I was playing a very small event without mics, the audience would be getting a completely different sound than what I am hearing on stage. Should I buy the EVH 4x12 in an attempt to get better directionals? I noticed it is not a slant but a flat front. I play mostly metal and I am not sure if the G12M's in the 4x12 are what I need (apparently the G12H30's have more low end). I like the idea of having a 4x12 but I'm not sure if it will solve my issue here. Thanks so much in advance!
 
It's normal. Small rooms reflect sound and cancel frequencies. It's not nearly as bad in a large room or a room equipped with sound deadening material like a studio.
 
Thanks for the input guys. The more I read about the EVH 4x12 the more I want it hah! Any more opinions on the topic? Just wondering if the 4x12 will basically sound the same in smallish rooms, in terms of sound projection. Any owners of the EVH 4x12 that can chime in? I have never heard a G12M, wondering if it can do metal.
 
It's a terrific cab. It fills the room ,great tight bass response,sounds really good with other heads as well. I don't care what ppl say about weight or size you cannot beat a great 4x12. You will not get that tone out of a 2x12 !
 
G12M's do metal well, but there are many flavors of them.

You won't get the sound of a 4x12 out of a 2x12. Each have their specific purpose but the 4x12 will sound larger. The problem with 4x12's tends to normally be directional issues though. Consider a slant 4x12 and turning it on its sides, or there are a few other types to consider.

I never stand directly in front of my 4x12's. I always prefer to stand off to the side of them - the sound takes into consideration the room you're playing in and generally you aren't pounded from behind with any standing waves of highs or lows that will cause you start trying to dial out what is nothing but a directional difference.

I have never experienced phasing issues in a room though. If you're getting phasing problems I would make sure both speakers are wired in phase correctly from the factory.
 
rcm78":2pxc73iq said:
It's normal. Small rooms reflect sound and cancel frequencies. It's not nearly as bad in a large room or a room equipped with sound deadening material like a studio.
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^^^This. Re 4x12; I definitely prefer pretty much any amp through a 4x12 especially for rehearsing when your not necessarily mic'd up going through monitors. However, I now play my 50 watt EVH through a ported Sovtek 1x12 with an eminence 75 watt (greenback clone of some sort) and it sounds just fine especially at a show where I now don't have to lug a 4x12 to :D
 
That is a killer 2x12 cab, and the speakers in it are a great match to the head. Where my amp is right now in my basement I am fighting some of the same issues that you are. I have been playing around with tilting the cab, on castors, on the floor, on an Auralex GRAMMA, and I found that in my basement it sounds best on the castors, with second best being tilted back a bit by removing just the back two castors. That doesn't tilt it back as much as the tilt back legs, and I find it sounds better with a slight tilt. So basically try moving the cab to different parts of the room, and try different setups until you can get the best sound in your room. Some rooms are worse than others for acoustics, and don't really have a sweet spot, others have very few bad spots.
 
That is great advice...I have never heard of Auralex before, I will have to check them out. I will also play around with taking off the rear casters. Do you have two of the Grammas side by side to fit your 2x12 on top?

I played on the 2x12 for a couple hours today, man that thing sounds so good when you find a sweet spot in the room.

I went ahead and ordered the 4x12. Luckily I will have time to play it side by side with the 2x12 and make a decision on which one to keep. On the other hand, I realized I could hook both up at the same time, doh!... :rock:

I have that Mesa 2x12 just sitting in my closet, I imagined myself holding on to it but man, how cool would that be mixing the G12M and the G12H!
 
I have one gramma, and I just center it under the cab, but I find that I prefer this cab on casters.
 
jay mitchells speaker directivity modifiers, cheap and effective. google for his official thread and material source.
 
Just to follow up...

Got the EVH 4x12 today and played it for about an hour or so, that's all it took. This thing is beyond words, a total monster. I hear about other musicians describing the sound that really hits you in the chest, and I thought I knew what they were talking about. But now I truly understand. There is no question this cab can do metal. In fact you could say it excels at it. Hell it excels at everything I threw at it. I was worried about the G12M's not having enough low end, but in the 4x12 arrangement there is significantly more low end than the G12H's in the 2x12.

I also experimented with combining the 2x12 with the 4x12. I found the best setup was with the 2x12 up on it's end, standing next to the 4x12. This gave a good mixture of the different speakers' sounds in the overall tone. However it seemed like whenever I ran both together, something was subtracted from the 4x12. Perhaps it was running it at 8ohms vs 16ohms, but hard to say...something was different and I didn't like it as much.

So I will be returning my EVH 2x12 (an excellent cab btw), and selling my Mesa 2x12 vertical. No need for anything else really. I'll haul this beast around all day long just to have the tone. It's that good. Cheers :thumbsup:

Ah yes and I forgot to mention, in my living room the sound projection issues were still noticeable with the 4x12, but the loss in low end was less significant when standing at an angle to the cab. Yes, the tone would change as I moved about the room but as others have mentioned, don't think I can really avoid this without playing in a larger room or one with better acoustics. Peace
 
Meeotch":j4lhs74q said:
Just to follow up...

Got the EVH 4x12 today and played it for about an hour or so, that's all it took. This thing is beyond words, a total monster. I hear about other musicians describing the sound that really hits you in the chest, and I thought I knew what they were talking about. But now I truly understand. There is no question this cab can do metal. In fact you could say it excels at it. Hell it excels at everything I threw at it. I was worried about the G12M's not having enough low end, but in the 4x12 arrangement there is significantly more low end than the G12H's in the 2x12.

I also experimented with combining the 2x12 with the 4x12. I found the best setup was with the 2x12 up on it's end, standing next to the 4x12. This gave a good mixture of the different speakers' sounds in the overall tone. However it seemed like whenever I ran both together, something was subtracted from the 4x12. Perhaps it was running it at 8ohms vs 16ohms, but hard to say...something was different and I didn't like it as much.

So I will be returning my EVH 2x12 (an excellent cab btw), and selling my Mesa 2x12 vertical. No need for anything else really. I'll haul this beast around all day long just to have the tone. It's that good. Cheers :thumbsup:

Ah yes and I forgot to mention, in my living room the sound projection issues were still noticeable with the 4x12, but the loss in low end was less significant when standing at an angle to the cab. Yes, the tone would change as I moved about the room but as others have mentioned, don't think I can really avoid this without playing in a larger room or one with better acoustics. Peace
Click to expand...

Try the directivity modifiers , they work.
 
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