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[Steve Moland]

Thank you all for the comments. I've seem "full range" in connection with cabinets but what's marketing hype and "required" is "to be learned"

In the mean time I believe I gathered enough "faith" here to get the controller on that basis alone.

There is one thing that crossed my mind though. All the small speakers in the cabinet look the same. Any chance they are actually different and respond to different frequencies. That is a simple thing I can picture. Failing that, I'm off to chase Ju Ju.

regards
Steve

[Mac Kerr]

Steve Moland wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 17:04

There is one thing that crossed my mind though. All the small speakers in the cabinet look the same. Any chance they are actually different and respond to different frequencies. That is a simple thing I can picture. Failing that, I'm off to chase Ju Ju.

All the speakers respond to the same signal. There are 8 1Ω speakers wired in series to make 8Ω. On old ones there may be 8 8Ω speakers and an 8Ω light bulb wired in series/parallel to make 8Ω. There is no way to get a different signal to any given speaker in the chain.

The system controller is an eq that goes between your mixer and the amp that is driving the 802s.

Mac

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Steve Moland wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 15:39

Chris Hindle wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 15:28 Yes. There's some pretty serious Ju-Ju going on to make a bunch of 4" speakers "work" together. I thought it might be like that but the cabinet only has one input. Well it has two actually, a 1/4 and an XLR which I assumed was only an option as to which kind of cable one preferred. I guess if there were two inputs like I've seen on some cabinets, one for the highs and another for the lows, I can see that something external has something to "mix" with. With only one wire I don't get it.

By the way, the XLR connector on the back of a passive speaker is a very outdated thing.  20 years ago there weren't many choices for high-power speaker level connectors, so all sorts of weird things got used, including XLR connectors, which are typically used for "mic" or "line" level signals - before the amplifier.

Don't make the mistake of using an XLR cable from the store as a speaker cable - the wires aren't big enough.  For that matter - don't use a 1/4" instrument (guitar cable) either for the same reason - get a real "speaker" cable.

[Mac Kerr]

TJ (Tom) Cornish wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 20:54

Steve Moland wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 15:39 Chris Hindle wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 15:28 Yes. There's some pretty serious Ju-Ju going on to make a bunch of 4" speakers "work" together. I thought it might be like that but the cabinet only has one input. Well it has two actually, a 1/4 and an XLR which I assumed was only an option as to which kind of cable one preferred. I guess if there were two inputs like I've seen on some cabinets, one for the highs and another for the lows, I can see that something external has something to "mix" with. With only one wire I don't get it. By the way, the XLR connector on the back of a passive speaker is a very outdated thing.  20 years ago there weren't many choices for high-power speaker level connectors, so all sorts of weird things got used, including XLR connectors, which are typically used for "mic" or "line" level signals - before the amplifier. Don't make the mistake of using an XLR cable from the store as a speaker cable - the wires aren't big enough.  For that matter - don't use a 1/4" instrument (guitar cable) either for the same reason - get a real "speaker" cable.

FWIW, "back then" good quality mic cable was 18ga. When you doubled up the 2 hot conductors you ended up with about 14ga, the heavy braided shield was already about that. Since a really high powered amp was 200W it was not such a bad scheme.

Mac

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

So what's the damping factor of 50' of modern 22-ga XLR cable?  

[Steve Moland]

<<< FWIW, "back then" good quality mic cable was 18ga. When you doubled up the 2 hot conductors you ended up with about 14ga, the heavy braided shield was already about that. Since a really high powered amp was 200W it was not such a bad scheme. <<<

Because I'm always doing long runs between amps and the chain of speakers, I use 12 and 14 gauge. I made my own 12 gauge ones because they were way too expensive to buy.

[Canute J. Chiverton]

I own and use two Bose 802s (For 32 years now) as fill speakers and sometimes as part of a two way system with JBL Scoops as low end. As said in the previous posts, you do need the Controller. Its like night and day without it.  Good luck.

[Ivan Beaver]

TJ (Tom) Cornish wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 21:14

So what's the damping factor of 50' of modern 22-ga XLR cable?

Around 5 if you use the 2 hot conductors.

If you tie them together and use the shield (assuming a decent size-but now they are nowhere as large as they used to be, you might near 10 for a damping factor.

That is assuming an 8 ohm loudspeaker load,

[Greg Cameron]

Ivan Beaver wrote on Fri, 03 December 2010 07:54

TJ (Tom) Cornish wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 21:14 So what's the damping factor of 50' of modern 22-ga XLR cable?   Around 5 if you use the 2 hot conductors. If you tie them together and use the shield (assuming a decent size-but now they are nowhere as large as they used to be, you might near 10 for a damping factor. That is assuming an 8 ohm loudspeaker load,

Maybe the next sub "shootout" should have a side bar listening contest, "22AWG vs. 10 AWG into a 2Ω load with 100' of wire." Frequencies of 80Hz and below of course. See if people can hear a difference

Greg

[Brad Weber]

Steve Moland wrote on Thu, 02 December 2010 16:12

At times I need a set up inside in rooms or halls with great to terrible acoustics. I got a pair of Bose 802 II which just don't sound as good as others I've seen in similar situations but at the time I did not know I'd needed to ask this question.

That you need the Bose controller or something providing the equivalent processing has been well addressed, but I wanted to add that due to their overall wide horizontal and vertical pattern and with significant lobing starting in the speech/vocal range, the 802 may not be the best choice for challenging acoustical environments.  The processor will not fix that, in fact the boosts at low and high frequencies could exacerbate any related issues.