Joyo B110 Bass Cabinet 4 Ohms

Being primarily a guitarist and only an occasional bassist, I have never been one to spend much on my bass setup. However, after years of playing through a cheap bass combo practice amp, I was finally in a position to invest in a proper home use bass setup.

After extensive online research, I decided to go for the JOYO Bantamp Badass Head, so it just made sense to me to get the matching cab (and Thomann conveniently package them together in a bundle).

My first impressions have been great - the combination with the Badass Head sounds excellent and build quality is solid. Perfect for home use and I would say it could comfortably be used for small gigs.

Joyo Bantamp Bass is a good match with this speaker for a reasonable price, and it's the cheapest option away from mains, considering you can power the Bantamp from a power bank doing 19 or 28 V.

The cabinet is really compact, unobtrusive and reasonably light. No complaints on build quality. Head on, sound quality is excellent.

One huge advantage is the very broad frequency response. Where other cabs in this price and size range only go down to 90 Hz or so, this one does go down to 57 Hz.

Tweeter hiss that I mentioned previously, is due to the amp, not the cab. With the right amp, it does great for recording. But from the top or the sides, the tweeter colors the sound badly and it gets very artificial sounding. Turning off the tweeter helps.

At 100 watts or close to it, power compression comes into play and the cab starts to go quiet. It makes sense that the dedicated head is limited to 40 watts. Considering it has pretty poor sensitivity (that's not evident from the specs), it's not very useful for anything but rehearsals and small gigs.

And there are a few niggles that need to be pointed out that you might not realize if it's your first cab (as in my case):
One, there's one handle and it's on the side. It's not possible to carry the cab with one hand and set it down on its feet. You need another hand free. The finish is smooth so there's nothing to grip. I'd much rather prefer a handle on top.
Two, the cab looks slanted, but the speaker baffle is vertical behind the grille.
Three, you can't put the cab in a kicked back position (slanted).

These two complaints coupled with the tweeter's bad dispersion pattern make the cab unsuitable for floor monitor use, you'd have to put it on top of your other cab at ear level. But then:
Four. Four ohms. The cab is 4 Ω. If you want to couple it with a 4 Ω stack, you'll get 2 ohms. If you couple it with an 8 Ω stack, you'll blow the Joyo.

Overall, it's useful for recording since it has a pleasant sound signature, rehearsals and small gigs. If you put it at ear level or fashion some kickback stand, it can function well as a stage monitor.

I did buy better cabs over the last year, but I'm not selling this one. There are a couple of unique advantages that make me keep it. I can easily stash it away in the rehearsal room and not have to carry the big guns.