Rivera SilentSister Isolation Cabinet

Friday March 6, 2009. 03:22 PM, by Nantho

One of the greatest challenges to home and studio recording is how to get a great amplified guitar tone at a low level. Introducing the Rivera SilentSister recording speaker cabinet.

With the new Silent Sister, Rivera claims that they have solved the major faults of all of the other Iso Cabs in existence today. First off, they all have the microphone residing in a sealed compartment with the sound pressure from the speaker moving the microphone diaphragm like a plunger sucking water in a sink with a clogged pipe. Instead of the microphone diaphragm existing in a free air environ, it is severely distorted physically in this sealed compartment-with the result that the recorded tone sounds terrible.

Secondly, the speaker feeds into this sealed compartment, as well as being mounted with the back of the cone in a sealed compartment. This means the speaker cone is pushing into an air wall, as well as pulling back into an air wall. The result is a severe distortion of the cone shape, heat builds up in the voice coil as the motive energy cannot be released, and all of this results in a short life for the speaker as well as dreadful tone and a non-linear frequency response.

Thirdly, is the square and perpendicular angles of the internal surfaces that create substantial standing wave issues that are reflected into the sound that is recorded. All in all, there is much to improve upon.

Rivera devised a way to relieve the air pressure issue by building an air labyrinth into the rear of the SilentSister cabinet. This labor intensive solution substantially attenuates the sound level while relieving the sealed compartment air pressure drawbacks. Also, each of the angles of the panels inside of the SilentSister are critically designed to relieve standing waves and reflections.

Rivera SilentSister cabinets come standard with two pre-wired microphone goosenecks that have a panel fitted with two Neutrik XLR connectors on the back of the cabinet for easy signal connection. They also fit a Celestion G12T-75 speaker (8 Ohm) as standard, and it is pre-wired into a jack panel at the back of the cabinet as well. Ruggedly built with hardwood-core plywood and finished in black Nyflex carpet for years of road abuse.

SilentSister Isolation Cabinet is now shipping with an MSRP of $999.