Avatar B115 Bass Cabinet

Ported 15" cab. Well built and reasonably light.

This is where it falls short. The sound is not as good as brand name cabs. It can pump out sound but it's not "alive" enough. It's the Peavey of bass cabs I guess.

Seems very sturdy.

No idea.

I wish it had more sonic character. Anyway, it's not for me.

I bought my B115 in Summer 2004 from Dave at Avatar. Packed well, delivered nicely. Worked out of the box and still works wonderfully after 1.5 years so I figured I should post my review here. Im not sure which driver this cabinet has in it but it is not anything fancy like the NEO, must be like a DELTA. It has a horn as well with a single simple pad adjustment on the back that goes from nothing to super crispy. One Speakon connector and two 1/4" inputs all wired in parallel. My cab is an 8 Ohm but Dave will build them to your needs pretty much it seems. It has nice interlocking corner pieces that might come in handy if I get another Avatar cabinet someday. The cabinet is very sturdy and has pretty good handles (inset). I wish sometimes that the handels were the spring loaded ones that hinge out sometime but those have their own drawbacks (rattling) especially with bass so I guess the stock ones are the best option. Good Carpet overcovering and a nice solid grill made of expanded steel. It's not flashy but it is durable.

I have been playing bass a total of 5 years and just started 1.5 years ago again with a new band after 5 years off. When I started I used an old Sound City 120 tube head and a GT 4x10 cabinet with my G&L Basses... not a pretty sound. I pretty much replaced the cabinet and amp at the same time... SWR 350x and the Avatar B115, now I am in dreamland. I play in a 3 peice band so I have to fill lots of space with my sound and I can say that the B115 can pretty much handle anything I throw at it. I have mixed feelings about the horn on the B115 as it does give nice edge but with the 15" driver, there is obviously a upper mid range attenuation. This isn't really a problem for me as I like a big bottom with not alot of mids. I do get a muddy sound on my G string up past the 7th fret tho as is. Actually, Im ordering another Avatar cab to help with that... B210 neo, as Im convinced that there is not a better quality product for the price anywhere.

I have dropped this cabinet from about 1 foot several times... DOH! It still works fine... no rattles, no cracks, just lotsa BASS! The carpet soaks up the beer nicely too. ;-)

I have never had to call for any type of post purchase support but Dave is always more than happy to answer all my questions in detail when I send them to him as I did when I was shopping for a cabinet.

I have found that this cabinet gives me everything I wanted at the time when I bought it and as I mentioned above, Im ready to buy another cabinet (B210) to add some clarity to my sound that I previously didn't think I needed. I really don't give this cabinet any type of shortcoming for that tho as I regularly get comments at our gigs on how great the bottom end sounds out of this cab. I don't think that 12's or 10's could do it as well personally, especially with the SWR Subwave and use of my Aphex Aural Enhancer Big Bottom to give me that 70's Bass Sound.

When I first got it. It was truly clumsy to move around myself @55 lbs and with it's dimensions, but once I got used to it I don't have to impose on someone to always help me carry the beast around. Im ordering casters for it to help solve the mobility problem.

That is about it. Long Live Avatar!!

Probably a 2003, an unused backup when I got it w/ speaker only partially broken in. 2x 1/4" jacks, well-joined and sealed plywood, black carpet, recessed metal side handles, 15" Eminence speaker, rubber corner protectors, metal grille, 2 round back ports. Features that could be changed/added: better quality carpet covering (but I shouldn't complain at this price). Lacks dampening, but folks tinker with this anyway. No horn but if cab is paired with 4x10" as designed is not a problem. I run it unstacked and for bass & so would appreciate the switchable horn I understand later models have. Metal grille is great but I put grille cloth over it to keep crap out. Not feature rich, but so what? It's a 15" bass cab made for a stack.

Play 4-string Ibanez Ergodyne w/ frets pulled, powered by an ancient 35W Univox U-1235 w/ 6L6GC Mullards. I use the cab unstacked. Rich, round tone was a real surprise and should improve as cone ages. Seems to complement the head's tube sustain and produces all I could ask for.

Humbuckers on my guitar make 6L6s sound almost like 6V6s in '50s Magnatones, which is my idea of tone heaven for blues rhythm guitar. If only it had a switchable horn. Can't yet say how it sounds with high-watt or solid-state heads so 8 is as high as I can go.

Well-constructed cabinet. It would be pretty hard to break. I've never taken it apart to have a good look at the soldering, so can't give full marks.

No basis for opinion.

Wish it had that switchable tweeter, but hear more recent models do. I give it the full 10 because even at twice what I paid it's a hell of a cabinet for the money. Except for the quality of the carpet (and I'm a tweed- & MOTS-loving fool), what I don't like about it is due to its design as the bottom of a stack. Guess I need to go out and find a 4x10" buddy for it, and it will probably be an Avatar too.

Cabinet bought March of 2005. Cabinet is the new model with 2x1/4 inch jacks and speakon jack. I installed my own permanet castors as this is the bottom half of a stack.

Sound is clean and focused. I have to admit that I haven't had the chance to run this cabinet full range. I am running it in a stack with the Neo 2x10 cabinet. I'm running a Peavey Max Preamp into a QSC Plx-1602 amp. So I am feeding this cab everything from 250Hz on down. This cab really thumps and handles the 500 watts ( its the 4 ohm version ) without a problem. I run it with the horn off, but since the horn is the same as the one in the Neo which I run at about a 3 then I bet this would be a screamer of a cab to use by itself.

I really haven't used the system more then a couple of times yet.

All I know is that Dave is about the quickest person to email me back of anyone I have ever dealt with.

I play the above rig with a 5 string Stringray. I do know that since I have been using this setup that I have gotten rig of my compressor pedal. I don't think I could stand anymore sustain. After so many years of using the latest and greatest rigs by SWR, Hartke and Ampeg I finally found my perfect setup. I would strongly advise anyone putting together their dream rig. Don't be fooled by the " Big Boy" names. Give this stuff a try. You won't be sorry.

see www.avatarspeakers.com

I'm very happy with this cab's low end and punch.

Input jack was broken at one point. We share practice space w/3 other bands, I can only assume neglect by one of them, since it was fine when I left practice, and broken when we went to pick it up for gig. Dave promptly emailed me and told me that all I needed to do was disconnect the broken jack.

See above.

This is my second one. My first Avatar stack consisted of a B210 and a B115, and it got robbed. I promptly purchased another one with no second thoughts. That should say a lot about how highly I think of the product.

Yet another glowing review for Avatar Speaker enclosures!!
Made in the good ol' USA - Late Summer of 2003. Quality, Solid Plywood construction for lightness. Professional Dadoed joints for structural integrity. Bottom front ported. Covered in black carpeting with black plastic stacking corners and a black diamond pattern metal grill ala Carvin. Large recessed metal bar side handles. Jack plate with 2-1/4 phono jacks for daisy chaining with other cabinets. 27"H X 25"W X 16.5"D and weighs about 68 Lbs. with the 15" speaker. I bought this cab empty (you can get this cab with a stock 15" Eminence driver). I put in a 1985 Peavey Black Widow 15" 8 Ohm woofer. This Cab should handle 350 Watts RMS and 800 Watts Program/Continuous. I would rate it a 10 if it had Speakon/Nuetrik connectors, removable casters, and an available cover but, non of these are yet options with Avatar. I put in the set of non-removable casters as this will be the bottom cab of a 2 15 stack. I did have to spray paint the lower back plywood and lower portion of light colored dampening material matte black (some manufacturers just use black insulation) before adding the speaker as they could been seen through the bottom port on this cab as well. Dave said he is considering making these improvements/options available in future production runs. He said the same about covering the uncovered cross member with carpet in the bottom port. I hope he does. I really would like to have covers for these cabs. They did send me a swatch of carpet and I proceeded to cover the cross member on both of my Avatar cabs.
Granted, most of this is purely cosmetic but, it really makes the enclosure look better and more professional.
ALL screws were tight unlike the B115H I bought just over a month ago (please see my B115H review).

This cab also sounds pretty darn good with my 15" Black Widow. Nice, clear, focused, and punchy bass response.
Let me tell ya, 2 separate 1 X 15" cabs are much easier to lug around than my old Peavey 2 X 15 BW cab. This really gets more and more important the older I get :O]

Avatar cabs are quality products at very fair prices. Just check out all the other unsolicited reviews here. You can bet this cab will still be around and pissing off the neighbors when I'm 70! She is built to last.

I said it before but, when you deal with Avatar you deal with the owner. What you get is superb, A-#1 service from the head of the company. As you can imagine, this is rare and getting rarer every day. Dave is really great. He is quick with an answer and very friendly. Just pick up the phone or shoot him an email. He will do "ANYTHING" to help! He even threw in the screws for my woofer and some extra carpet to keep everything pretty and all I had to do was ask. It doesn't get much better than this!

I have been playing longer than I like to admit. The Avatar line was the biggest and best priced enclosures I could find. I liked the B115H cabinet purchased earlier this year so much that I bought this B115. How's that for a testimonial?
I highly recommend AVATAR!!

Made in Summer 2002. Basic cabinet with Eminence 15. Two 1/4" jacks on the back.

I play mainly metal and hard rock. I use an Ibanez with active pickups and this cab sounds great. Very crisp, clear sound for clean, and sounds great distorted too. I use two of these speakers with my setup and it's enough to make your chest thump.

Very solidly built. I haven't had a problem with either cab.

Customer service is best there is. As you read above, Dave is very helpful.

These are the best you'll find for the price. They sound and look great.

Single-15" bass speaker cabinet; we have 4 of them purchased between April and August 2002. Two were regular Avatar B115's, two were "speakerless" cabinets, which Avatar will sell you if you ask nice. The complete cabs have Eminence Kappa speakers, 3" voice coils, 80 oz. magnets. The drivers alone list for $185 each and sell for $100 or so just about anywhere you look, so this is a great deal in my humble opinion. Since we have used them for other things successfully, and have abused them terribly with a high-power bass amp without failure, I'd give them the highest rating here even though they are basically just a box with a big woofer in it.

Ours are the model B115, not the B115H that also has a tweeter horn, so they are good for bass and bass only, although they will reproduce pretty much the entire range of a bass guitar, which is their design purpose. We generally use 1 or 2 of them (depending on the size of the gig) in tandem with an Avatar 2-10" cabinet (see other review) for bass guitar, with a BBE preamp and Peavey power amp in a rack. We have used the other 2, loaded with various speakers, as PA subs in a biamped arrangement.

We have never had a failure, in relatively hard use. We do use a compression circuit in the preamp, and an amp with built-in clipping protection, so even though we push these things pretty hard we do have some regard for their design limitations, I guess. The cabinets themselves are built very well, of thick plywood and with quality corners, handles, carpet etc. so short of dropping them off a building or throwing them in front of a semi, I wouldn't expect to experience much more than scuffs and dings. We wouldn't use ANY bass speaker on a gig without a backup, or rather renundancy. If you are going to do that, at least get one with multiple speakers so one blown speaker doesn't end your gig.

See my review of the B210 cabinet. In fact, see any review anyone has written in here. Dave is a great guy and Avatar is a great little company.

We have a pile of stuff that pretty much fills a truck, and the 5 of us collectively have been playing for longer than the average human life expectancy, and we have no complaints about the cost or performance of any of our Avatar stuff. If I were going to play bass with a single cab, I'd spend the extra 50 bucks and get the Avatar 4-10" with the 4 Eminence Deltas, just to have all that voice-coil area to dissipate power and heat. And unless you are a lot younger and/or larger and stronger than me, you will want to put casters on cabs this size, or at least on the one that will be on the bottom of the stack. These are 25" square, 16" deep so check your trunk size before you decide you can haul one of these around in your Toyota.

I just bought this cabinet (June, 2002) and have used it on one gig only so far. This is exactly what I was looking for.

This cabinet can produce deep clear tones easily, including the low B. It's perfect for my needs.

No problems yet - it is brand new.

Very easy to deal with. When you buy the casters, you do have to put them on yourself though.

Incredsible price for a superb product.

Made 12/01/02. Good looking speaker cabinet w/ Carvin like Grill. Actually fits almost perfectly under my Carvin 2X10 RedEye Combo. Looks like they were made for each other. 2 Bass ports on the back for reflective bass. Best bang for the buck speaker cabinet I've seen and/or played. When I bought this I honestly felt bad that I was ripping the company off because the price was so low. (Casters would have been nice)

Sounds great w/ my Tobias 5 String Bass w/ Active Eq. I run this bass through the Carvin 600 watt combo in conjunction w/ 2 10"s. Handles the lows very well. Reproduces the sound very well. Compared it to Audio Centron 18" Sub and this goes just about as low without farting out. Excellent for Biamp configuration.

Have played it very loud vs. guitarist Line 6 200Watt head and two cabs and a Mic'ed Drummer. Give it a ten as I have not played with it at a Gig. I know the cab is built very well and strong. Looks like you could drop it off the second floor without it breaking.

(Avatar did not pay me to say this.) I called to talk to Dave and he is the answering service at Avatar. Gave me multiple ways to get a hold of him. Really nice and very honest sounding man. Got the speaker out and sent me tracking numbers like he said. If this is any indication of later customer support I give a 10. The speaker was so inexpensive already compared to other manufacturers, I think I would just buy another one than even use the customer support.

I've been playing around for 13 years now. I have already recommended the speaker to my friends. Compared this to Carvin 15" speaker (also mail order and a very good company). Can't go wrong for $100 less. Bass players on a limited budget, get a Carvin head and Avatar Speakers.

Made 11/2001. Being a 1x15" it does what it is made for. But like promised by the company it matches up great to my 4x10" from them. It sounds great hooked into my biamp'ed system. This speaker enclosure holds my Hartke mdl 5000 heads output VERY well.

No distortion on my clean settings very crisp low end sound. The cab is vented very well and the size of the cab allows the 15" to do what it needs to do (Move air and put low end to the floor). I run a Conklin bass into a Tech21 RB-1(overdrive unit) then into a Hartke 5000 head then to my 4x10" then into my 1x15"

Just like my Avatar 4x10" this thing is made to with stand Nuclear fallout. Maybe not that but it could hold up pretty well. Being made with 3/4" plywood I figured it would be pretty heavy but it's surprisingly light weight. I depend on this cab to bring the chest thump to the stage with me which it does !

I wish every company was as customer concerned as Dave at Avatar is. I asked him for a new grille for my old cab to match my new 1x15" and Dave happily included one for me. Dave also helped me to find replacement parts for other items I own.

In my 10 years of playing bass and getting burnt on big names with poor quality I'm really happy to find a company which took the time to listen to me and what I wanted then he made suggestions to me. Dave is putting together VERY well made cabs and putting great speakers (Which everybody else uses) in them for about half the price of other big names. Avatar is great value on great products. I just wish Dave had bumper stickers so I could put them on my bass case!

15 inch eminence bass cab with 2.5 inch vented voice coil... i think you can find the features yourself @ www.avatarspeakers.com . Go to the bass/guitar cabinet section. No tweeter, so I give it a 9.

Great for anything. Great speaker. I play mostly metal, but I am also able to get a jazzy sound out of it if I so desire. Handles 300 watts (for real) without any problems.

It's built with plywood, which is solid as a rock and has the carpeting on the outside. Steel grille protects the speaker. I can't imagine it breaking on anything short of a fall from high up or a sledgehammer hitting it.

Originally I was sent a different speaker by Avater, and it must have been dropped from some rediculous height. The Speaker was sent back and I got a new one at the manufactureres expense and all that was wasted was my time... GREAT people to deal with... a real person picks up the phone... and TALKS TO YOU!!!

I haven't been playing bass that long, but I know what a good sound is with my 15 years of musical experience. I don't think anything can beat what I got, especially at the price. You get awesome, professional speakers, at an entry level price. Once again, professional quality, NOT entry level.