The actual amount of "tuning" of a cabinet built for musical instrument use falls somewhere between slim and none and usually closer to the latter.
I don't know about the current models, but the original SVT's claim to fame was the 8-10" speakers, every two sharing a totally sealed sub enclosure. This drastically reduced it's ability to reproduce the lowest octave of a bass, with a response that falls off drastically below 100hz. It is this reduction of bass that gives it it's legendary "tight bass" tone - the fundamental frequency is reduced and the second and third harmonics are emphasized.
Reduced bass has many benefits for the band stand - the sound is clearer without a lot of bass to muddy the waters and/or vibrating everything in reach. Chordal work on a bass really comes through with harmonic emphasis.
I agree that the art of cabinet tuning
was pretty much driven by cost effectiveness and size practicality over actual response parameters, but in the last few years (particularly with the "boutique" builders), cabinet tuning has been given more serious consideration. Too much consideration IMO, if you read my posts you will see that I'm very old school when it comes to my tone preferences. I'm fortunate enough to have the wherewithall to indulge my "equipment addiction" with anything that catches my fancy, but I usually find myself dragging out the old tube stuff when I play.
With hi-fi sound reproduction faithfully reproducing recorded or live music is the name of the game, with musical instruments I think it's the variances from this perfection that give the instrument it's character (tone), and these variances traditionally come from statements in the R&D stage like; "Yeah, that looks about right" rather than "But it's -9 db at 110hz!" Most audiophiles would look at the respose curve of a
great sounding 4X12 guitar cab and think you had lost your mind!
The new SVT and old SVT 8X10's are the same spec, but the new ones don't have the old stiff as a board CTS 10's. The newer ones are pretty the same, slightly lower resonance (must be the new drivers), and as you mentioned the old CTS loaded cabs drop off hard at about 110hz, and are pretty much altogether done at 55hz. This works good for a bass guitar live, keeps the bottom tight and focused, nice "chunk, chuck, chunk" but guitar needs a cab with a lower resonance rolloff to sound full and chunky. Weird huh?
Of course this isn't to say that low end resonance doesn't have a place in bass guitar land.
Different register, different cab for the application. I didn't mean to sound like I was inferring that a bass cab needed to be tuned for lower frequency reproduction than a guitar cab, I just meant they are *usually different.
*Usually; I have fairly extensive experience with British valve bass rigs using all purpose 4X12 cabs, but that's for another long and arduous post.
