What is the point of Stereo cabs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Smash
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I sit in front of my Bose radio all day, every day - maybe 3' away and get HUGE stereo separation, so not sure why a guitar cab - which has speakers further apart - can't do the same. Might make your hair fall out though if you do it right...
 
I run 2 heads into the same cab R/L. Sometimes you don’t have room for another 4x12. For morning practice I will just fire up one head and thereby only use half the cab.

Saw Tracii Guns run a rig like this in Vegas. 2 heads (Dime 100 and 2204) into same cab. I think most people do it to EQ each amp somewhat differently for the tone they want. Chorus, delay and pitch shift effects do sound and feel different when run this way.
 
Running two amps into one cab is one option. Another I used to do is run a mono rack rig, but run each side of the power amp into the two separate speakers. I'd mic one and set it's level for the soundman, and I'd set the other for the stage volume I wanted: essentially I made my own stage monitor for my guitar amp.

Those old Mesa 2x12's with an open back speaker above, and closed back below are great to run with different mixes into the two speakers if you have the gear to pull it off. Run one dry, the other wet and you have a nice wet/dry mix in the speaker. Run another speak on the other side of the stage similarly and you get your actual stereo separation from the two cabs but each has a nicely dialed in wet/dry mix.
 
JC120 has a huge 3D sound from a 2x12 combo. It doesn't need seperate spread cabs to achieve its classic sound, so I guess the single cab option can still work well.
 
Yeah. I would love to play a Jazz chorus. Does it even have the ability to put through 2 cabs?
 
Smashedguitaris⸸ said:
I feel like I am opening the door for some pretty dumb responses here. But can anyone give me a vaild reason why you would ever want to use a stereo cab? I think that you could run two mono cabs as a wet/dry. Or you could run two amps for a serious wet dry into different cabs. But why would you want to run a stereo cab with one amp (two outputs on same amp connected to same cab)?
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Most stereo cabinets are either or mono and stereo. You would need a stereo amplifier or 2 seperate amp heads to run a 2x12 stereo cabinet. I have a stereo rig that uses a 2x12 cabinet . One side is a mark5:25 The eventide h9 handles the stereo split which also runs in stereo in and out of a Strymon cloudburst and in to the effects return on an Orange Rocker 15 terror .
Its sounds HUGE
 
midnightlaundry said:
Stand in front of 2-4x12's cranked, roll in the Stereo Chorus with your badass FX Box and then tell me how you feel..
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And if the wishy washy chorus is too much, put the Eventide Pitchfactor in there with a slight detune and stand back and :D.
 
Smashedguitaris⸸ said:
I feel like I am opening the door for some pretty dumb responses here. But can anyone give me a vaild reason why you would ever want to use a stereo cab? I think that you could run two mono cabs as a wet/dry. Or you could run two amps for a serious wet dry into different cabs. But why would you want to run a stereo cab with one amp (two outputs on same amp connected to same cab)?
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I have and had dual / two sides / two amps in rack power amps; you can send each power amp to a separate input in a single cab for a smaller rig; though I normally use two cabs for this.
 
Wet/dry, especially with stereo time based effects.

That's the reason for them.
 
BlackOut8910 said:
Option 2 - two guitarists, opposite sides of the stage - each runs half of a cab close to them, and half of a cab on the other side of the stage. Very wide stereo field that way.
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This is why I'm rewiring my cabs to stereo. Sounds awesome, the stage volume is more even so you don't have to stay in one spot as much, and from the audience perspective it sounds like the entire stage is the sound source instead of the more common effect of guitars sounding like they are hard panned left and right. Seems to make the two guitars mesh/mix much better too, so that they present one unified wall of awesome. Highly recommend trying at least once. Incidentally, you don't need to have your amp as loud either to get a satisfactory stage volume.
 
My stereo Marshall 4x12 gets great stereo separation when running it in stereo. I've got a Blackstar ID:Core 40 Head that sounds like the amp tones are coming from the wall several feet away on both sides
 
I got one for the reason of using it as 2 different 2x12. I have one speaker on the left and one are the right. I honestly haven't tried running a w/d rig or anything fancy. I typically just plug an amp into one side. I have limited space.
 
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