To biamp or not to biamp.
“I’m building a bass rig with two single 15″ cabinets rated at 200 watts and I’m wondering if I would be better off biamping them?”
Probably not. Biamping is really only appropriate when you want separate amps and enclosures to handle different frequency ranges. If your two cabinets are the same (at the very least they must be similar) there isn’t likely to be a sonic advantage to biamping them. In fact it can be a disadvantage because there is always a compromise in quality around the crossover point. If you want to get more midrange and high end “smack” in your bass sound you may want to consider adding some smaller speakers to the mix, and then it can sometimes be a good idea to biamp the rig. A 15″ speaker will produce a surprising amount of high end, but once the wavelength of the sound gets smaller than the diameter of the cone (which happens at about 850 Hz for a 15″ speaker) the dispersion characteristics begin to radically change and a phenomenon known as beaming occurs (see WFTD above). This is why so many bass players and guitarists have trouble hearing themselves. They put their cabinets on the floor where all of the high frequencies are shooting out of their speaker right past their legs, and they can’t hear them. Upon turning up those frequencies they invariably ruin the sound the microphone is picking up as well as punishing the first ten rows of the audience. Smaller speakers are one remedy for this, but they sometimes aren’t up to the task of properly producing the low end of that big E string so biamping can be appropriate. It all depends on the sound you are looking for and how loud you need it to get. There are many more factors in determining what’s best than can be contained in one of these Tech Tips. My experience has been better when I keep things simple. Get a basic rig that sounds good to you for monitoring and let the PA be your “sound.” Call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer for a more in depth discussion.