Why Using an FRFR Guitar Cab for Bass Guitar Is Not a Good Idea

If you’re a bass player, you might have come across Full Range Flat Response (FRFR) cabinets designed for guitarists and wondered if you could use one for your bass guitar. While it might seem like a convenient or cost-effective choice, it’s important to understand why this isn’t usually a good idea. There’s quite a bit of misleading information out there, so let’s clear things up.

The Fundamental Difference: Frequency Range

The key difference lies in the frequency range each instrument requires from a speaker cabinet. Bass guitars produce much lower sounds, extending down to around 40Hz, whereas guitars generally reach down to about 80Hz. That’s quite a significant gap.

Why does this matter? Because extending a speaker’s frequency range down by an octave (from 80Hz down to 40Hz) means the cabinet and drivers must work a lot harder. Specifically, it requires either four times as many speaker drivers or drivers with four times the movement capability (called excursion) to handle those deep bass notes properly.

Size and Power: Bigger Is Better for Bass

To reproduce those low bass frequencies effectively and at a good volume, bass cabinets must be much larger than guitar cabinets. They need to be built with larger drivers and longer voice coils to handle the increased excursion and power. This is why bass speaker cabinets are physically bigger and heavier than guitar ones.

The FRFR cabinets currently on the market are designed with guitarists in mind, with approximately 99% of sales catering to that group. It simply doesn’t make commercial sense for manufacturers to produce the larger, more expensive bass-specific cabinets when their primary market is guitar players.

What Happens If You Use a Guitar FRFR Cab for Bass?

You can technically play bass through a guitar FRFR cab, but there are some important downsides:

• Lower volume: the cab won’t be as loud or powerful for bass frequencies.

• Limited low-end response: it won’t reproduce the deep bass tones as well.

• Risk of damage: pushing bass frequencies through guitar drivers might damage or even wreck them because they aren’t built to handle that level of excursion or power.

Think of it like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. An AC30, for example, famous for guitar tones, can handle bass if you must, but it’s far from ideal or recommended.

The Bottom Line

If you’re serious about your bass sound, investing in a bass-specific FRFR cabinet designed to handle those low frequencies properly is worth it. Your ears will thank you, and your equipment will last longer.

It’s also good to know that while FRFR cabinets designed for guitar aren’t suitable for bass, an FRFR cab built to handle bass is perfectly capable of reproducing the sound of a six-string guitar with a modeller. So, if you’re a multi-instrumentalist, a bass FRFR cab gives you flexibility without sacrificing sound quality.

If you’re in the market for a bass cabinet or want advice tailored to your setup, feel free to ask! Getting the right gear can make all the difference in your sound quality and experience.