Combining a 15" and 12" Speaker in Stereo

[Don Mogle]

Does anyone out there combine a 15" speaker with a 12" speaker in stereo or dual mono?

Please offer any comments regarding running your rig with these two sizes together.

Thanks!

[Jerry Overstreet]

Hi Don. I've been using this combination since the early 90s. I have a few but my most common set up is a BW 1501-4 on one side and a BW 1203-4 on the other.

My rigs are rack mounted stereo units. Only suggestion I can make is to use a preamp, or efx unit, that has eq controls for ea. side and separate volume controls either at the pre or the amp. That way, you can mix the sounds and volumes for the best image. It's the difference in the 2 speaker sizes and models that create the illusion of true stereo sound.

It also helps if your pre and fx units have both left and right outputs.

Of course you can do similar setups with 2 combo mono amps of different types by putting the fx in only one amp.

In most component stereo rigs, you can mix impedance of speakers. In mono systems if you are daisy chaining speakers they have to be the same Ω.

Feel free to message me if there's anything I can help you with.

[Don Mogle]

Thanks Jerry!

[Glenn Demichele]

Ha: I've been chasing that for so long...
I have a mono preamp output driving a stereo effects unit (GT-001) and the stereo outputs drive two BAM200 amps.
Firstly, even if I'm not running stereo, it's nice to have a spare amp.
My favorite speakers are both in closed-back car-stereo type wedges, One is a BW1501 (15") and the other is a TT-12 (12").
It sounds great in my living room, and when I play it out, I can hear the stereo from my seat, but frankly I think it's lost on the audience because the speaker separation is small compared to the distance from me to the crowd.
In a bigger band I'm in, our sound guy took stereo feeds from me and put it in the FOH in stereo. Of course, I've never heard the FOH, but he said it sounded really cool. We both think it was lost on the audience though even though they could hear it.

One thing I have tried in smaller clubs is a direct/reflected arrangement, where one channel is pointed at the audience, and the other is aimed to bounce off the ceiling or wall. This sometimes gives a spatial magnification in the crowd. To test it out, I set my effects unit to do a stereo pan (back-and-forth at some rate), and I go out and listen to see if I can hear that the two channels are coming from different directions. Again, all this may be lost on the audience, but sometimes my sound for ME is cool enough to inspire my playing.