LukeFRC

Read this and got me wondering about poplar ply ...according to the web my local Woodyard stocks something called Banova plus which is balsa plywood with hardwood outer -designed for lightweight furniture and trade stands it seems - no idea how much it costs of if suitable but sounds light! Edit: not as stiff as poplar ply, but stiffer than mdf https://d371dyuip757b1.cloudfront.net/downloads/Banova-Technical_Processing_Guide_V.online-download.pdf

So if you had to get a powered speaker for bass guitar (and we ignore the super super high end PA stuff) would you get the RCF745 which is a pretty good mid range PA speaker, or the bare face FR800 which is designed as a bass cab tweaked as a PA option? Note your own designed cab cab isn’t an option at this point!

But you have tried them, I think it takes some people a while to get there... I found the beauty of basschat is I could sell/trade something I had and then reinvest the money (and some extra) into an instrument I was more excited about playing. Not counting the great jazz bass spree of 2012 and the random extras, my Status Shark went to a Warwick SS1, then another SS1. My Fender Japan 57ri turned into a JV squire 57ri into a early Thumb bass into a Sadowsky Will Lee. And the Yamaha SG guitar I found in my aunts bin was traded into a Yamaha BB1200 and then into a G&L L1000. Best thing I’ve ever found in a bin All 3 are probably worth over the £1k mark but often the upgrade trade for me included me adding only small amounts over many years.

So I was looking at this thread... Which is really interesting thread where a load of our more engineering experts, semi led by @stevie are designing and building a bass cab - it's all quite good stuff... anyway the discussion is about how the hf driver they are using is fairly high end and retails at £80 or so, lots of discussion on high end drivers, the one on the Barefaced stuff and so on. I look up the one on the RCF Art 745 that's been mentioned as a very top end FRFR solution.... apparently that compression driver retails at £200+ ... So I keep looking at the specs - that speaker puts 500w RMS to the low end and 200w to the high end, with all the cleverness of the DSP and claims max SPL of 133db (ie loud). Costs a fair bit at £1200. But then compare that to bass gear - and the Barefaced FR800 goes a tiny bit lower, costs the same and claims a max continuous SPL of 127dB (which is different to peak SPL so wouldn't know how to compare) The Big Twin claims continuous SPL of 133dB and costs the similar £1200 - and you would still need to get an amp. Now given that the figures don't seem to be directly comparable, and I've used Barefaced as an example as the top of the market in terms of custom, well engineered bass guitar specific stuff that I would happily own and gig.... but it seems to me that going FRFR isn't even a particularly expensive option. And thats comparing to the big old top end RCF speakers folk have been talking about. It was the comparative retail price of the compression driver that made me think, that providing the PA speaker can handle Bass guitar type signals, that FRFR is possibly not the most stupid move. I'm tempted. (but I also don't need to change and my walkabout does me fine, though how much are they fetching secondhand these days? )

Do people still do that with 5 strings?

“Sounds like” as in “from the spec I imagine” .... I’ve not actually heard it!

So that RCF speaker that folk in the FRFR thread are saying is pretty good has a : 1.4" Titanium Compression Driver, 4.0" v.c. Neodimium Which sounds like it’s pretty high end!

It’s really interesting meta question of what basschat “is” - is it a forum with a marketplace, or is it a marketplace with a forum attached. When I first found basschat the only reason I joined was to sell a pedal that was too specialist for me to have confidence selling on eBay - I stuck around for the chat and forum side- when I realised as a new bassist it gave me a way to sell my first bass and get a bass I really wanted at a good price I got more involved. The forum side is great and I’ve met some fantastic folk, but honestly my primary driver for a lot of the continued involvement is having the opportunity to buy and sell stuff and try out pretty much my entire GAS list. It’s really so much better to buy a bass from someone who you know looks after your gear. Basschat is great. I get the funding model, I have no complaints, I pay my dues if I want to sell something and it’s not unreasonable - but it very much thinks of the site as a forum with a marketplace attached, where my experience has been the opposite... and I wonder the effect on young bassists getting on here, as the fees will be act as a barrier- longer term what will the effect be? Less young folk selling lower value stuff, and less of the same folk buying slightly higher value stuff ... market slow down a bit and focus more on the high end specialist stuff where the fees are a neglible amount of the value ...

It looks awesome - for those who have lost track... which driver is this?

When I sold my Thumb I was offered a nice bass in trade, the value given by the other fella was “30% off the new price” ... which was a bit odd as that valuation was about £1k more than he had bought it for on basschat six months previously. (Presuming he paid the advertised price) i honestly think the slowdown down is that folk just have that little bit less cash in their pockets than a few years ago, it doesn’t take much before dropping £1k on a nice bass you don’t really need isnt as appealing. In a normal market the prices would drop to match what people can afford, and in some cases they are, but I think a lot of people don’t have as much cash, but aren’t doing so badly that they want to drop their price to get a sale... so it feels more stagnant.

Electrical tape works too

.... and he’s back!

Put your money down on the table and ask again when they will be available

That my old one by any chance? My first ever bass if so! (Yep jammy me managed to go from a borrowed Stagg that had been a failed CDT project to getting a Status as my first bass! it wasn’t *quite* as crazy as it sounds but still sounds jammy)

Yes - kinda - but read the manual - they describe it properly

HPF is affecting the signal into the amp, damping is affecting the way the amp interacts with the speaker in interpreting that signal. In a car the HPF will be affecting your right foot and how hard you put it down. The damping is if you’ve got your car on eco or sport mode. The manual is supposed to have s good discription about it in it.

Damping is how well or not a power amp can stop the cone from moving

I tried the walkabout and the m- pulse 600 when getting the walkabout - I wanted to prefer the 600 but the parametric eq on that thing was really not nice to use - I found the walkabout’s parametric far more useable and musical. YMMV But I don’t think one would apply the same logic to the more competitive world of PA - drop the active monitors and go back to passive speakers and a rack of big amps.... I think the problem is with how we have seen class D used in some in bass amps rather than the technology - yet we know that on bass forums folk really like lightweight gear ... so why spend time and money trying to solve old engineering problems? It would be like developing a new business focused app for a blackberry phone. Worthwhile, on a tech that was well liked and good - but also comnercially pointless.

@silverfoxnik - one for you? I was looking for one of these for ages.... ended up with a will lee instead but that’s a great price

I remember a bassist friend years back having a 4*10 made of ABS plastic - there’s another guy making them out of flight cases on Facebook

Is this valuable? All my basses have adjustable bridges and truss rods that mean I can set this how I like.

Yurk my least favourite question - the “I’m too lazy to even make you a low offer” question

If I went back 10 years and wanted to buy cheaper stuff I joined basschat - buying and selling, and young me helps the top end of the market move too. Now days if I were in that situation I’m unsure I would be in basschat, much less pay the subs to sell, Facebook marketplaces and eBay would be sufficient. Without that trickle of new buyers eventually the marketplace will slow.

I see your MB AC121 Lite combo and raise you one Mesa Walkabout Scout 12 (to be fair the AC combo is the only other combo I would be interested in)