What would be a good passive replacement 15"speaker (not cab) for the KPA?

  • I have a powered Kemper and I use a (passive) cab with a 15" JBL speaker.


    What would be a good passive replacement speaker (not cab) to get the most out of the Kemper?


    Thanks in advance.

  • Tried it?

    Naw. I have had my KPA direct in to my PA though (A pair of DSR112's over a pair of PRX618XLF's). That sounds pretty convincing .... and forceful. I end up taking a lot of the lows out for most things though. One exception is metal and palm mutes. In this particular setup, it is kinda cool to actually FEEL the palm mutes out in the audience ;).


    Most of the time, it has been my experience that the LF just muddies up the mix though. YMMV.


    Have you ever tried a 15" guitar speaker? I haven't looked at any of these in specific (all of my passive cab stuff back in the day was 12" speakers). Note, most guitar speakers roll off the HF, so if you have been playing through a JBL PA speaker, it may be a little dark when you move to a guitar speaker vs a PA speaker.


    I have had many amps and amp heads in the past (all tube amps). What I found through the years is that you have to make your entire signal chain work together. If your guitar pickups put out lots of HF, then this generally gets rolled off either in the EQ prior to the amp, or in the speaker in the cab, or both. Conversely, if your guitar doesn't have screaming HF, generally the amp and cab will need to be more bright to open it up ..... otherwise you get the dreaded "sounds like it has a pillow over it" sound.


    What are you trying to fix by replacing the JBL speaker? What JBL speaker were you using? What kind of Axe are you using and what pickups?