Al Krow

+1^^ Look forward to hearing your thoughts on it @MarshallBTB. Not currently seeing enough of a benefit on this to switch up to this from my existing (and regularly available for £50 used) Zoom B1-4 which I'm still loving and using as a standalone pedal board & tuner for gigs, instead of paying a bit more and getting something like a Helix PodGo.

Bass is very clear in the mix on that one Paul, and particularly so as it's been recorded via an iPad internal mic rather than a dedicated recording mic. You'd mentioned you'd not got the bass set particularly high at the gig I went along to (my post above).

I at least ended up with a Soundcraft Sig 12 desk in the end, even if we didn't go for the Evox 8 - was probably sub-consciously influenced by your set up, haha! But agreed you'd probably find the Sig 10 model more than sufficient for your 3 piece.

@Paul S hope you don't mind me sharing this once more - couple of Evox 8 in action in a live and decently loud(!) rock set up.

Phil - that's a different angle on the use of compressors than I've previously heard articulated. Be interested if you could you elaborate for us please - was your point just in relation to vocals or also for other instruments including bass?

Because it means: (i) she has a PA available for her solo work (she will be keeping / storing the 732As); (ii) we have a spare rig when one of us unavailable; (iii) I don't have to lug a PA to every gig ie transportation load will be shared with the other main user of the PA, now that I'm using it as my bass rig. It's something we discussed and agreed a while back, and she's now sold her solo-work PA (which wasn't suitable for a full band) in anticipation. Don't worry, I won't be on to the "next thing" in any particular rush. I mean I was content with RCF 310As for the band for the best part of a decade...😄

When you say a problem with vocals was that with your Altos? I mean, I've not quite pushed the button, still shopping around for a decent price as I'm now waaaay over the budget I agreed with our singer, haha! But I'm guessing Russ would probably recommend me getting the 732As anyway given the 3" horns.

Worth dipping into this SY-200 thread.

I thought your EVOX 8 were going to be perfect for us - I loved how well they worked for your 3 piece! Would have avoided needing to go down the IEM route for stage monitoring, too. I got as far trying out some in a local store with a bandmate, but couldn't get passed the feedback we were getting in store and, given that was effectively my opp to demo the set-up to my sceptical bandmates who didn't believe there would be no feedback, the EVOX 8 ship sadly sailed on that morning...

I sadly can't comment on your white lines as I'm from the Frank Zappa school when it comes to that sort of gear 😅 On your serious point, I'm not convinced that our previous combination of RCF 702ASii + 310A tops was better than the current 912As - if anything the 912As win relatively easily. And @EBS_freak has always been horny about the 3" VC on the 732As - and the penny's starting to (finally!) drop on that and the benefit of a 700Hz crossover point. It's never been about perfection for us - you're talking to the guy whose function band were content with 310As for the best part of a decade; my Alto equivalent story haha! It's just about having something that's going to be good enough for our needs. But if the drummer now still wants to get a heavy/expensive sub and transport them to gigs, he's very welcome to...strangely I've a feeling he'll be fine not doing that! I started this thread almost a year back thinking about getting a pair of 312As. I guess in terms of compactness I've not varied too much from that precept. But as for being "budget", well yeah, you guys have been very persuasive on getting something better than I'd planned, haha! But it's BC and this is the way.

Says the owner of a pair of QSC K12.2s...😁

Currently just the one - a pair of 912As This second set of 732AS will be kept by our lead vox So if either of us are not around for a gig for whatever reason the band will still have a PA We actually had two sets of PA tops previously - my old 310As and our former drummer's cheap and cheerful Proel V15As. You'll appreciate that that the 912A & 732As represent a considerable upgrade on what we previously had, and we also took the opportunity to upgrade our drummer a while back. But that's a whole 'nother story 😄

Hmmm, there's quite a lot of hidden wisdom in that little post of yours! It's given me pause for thought and I've managed to dig out a fuller discussion from another older 2019 thread and key points from that seem to be as follows: Vocals really will sing with that 3"VC horn. While the RCF 712A is not bad, it's really worth spending the extra to go to the larger HF driver in the 732. The extended response of the larger HF driver in the 732 brings the crossover frequency down from the 712's 1,600 Hz to 700 Hz, which makes it a peach for vocal reproduction. Not to mention a 2dB increase in max SPL. Our singer has confirmed she's ok with going for a 12" rather than a 10" speaker in terms of portability, and given that she'll also be using the PA for solo vocal work, it seems like the 732A is actually a better option than the 912A we've got, and which can then become our #2 "spare" PA set-up. The relative quality of the two I guess is reflected in the price, with the 732A still being sold at a significant premium over the 912A. Should allow us to dispense with the need for a bass rig to support the PA or additional sub for the kick drum and thereby simplifying our set up. A lot of boxes ticked. Fingers crossed, this is going to be a treat!

We're heading down the IEM route for monitoring. But even without IEMs or a bass combo, I've found it not too hard to hear bass through the tops when standing near one (even from behind). Btw I very much take your point about best sound for the band etc. but I've come around to thinking it's also reasonable for bandmates who are primary users of a particular piece of gear to either own it outright or at least take some significant responsibility for it - so if the drummer is going to be the main user of the sub it seems fair enough for him to take it to gigs. Just as I wouldn't dream of asking another band mate to be responsible for any of my bass gear, even if there's an argument it's the audience that is the main beneficiary of that, too. And don't get me started about vocalists happy to turn up with just their mics and often asking someone else to bring a mic stand for them!

Yes I do own a CMD 121H. A bass rig with PA support is a pretty standard set up, right - so not sure why it would be a bodge? I had a RCF 702 which we used with 310A tops - it was ok, but not transformative. The recently acquired RCF 912As are fine without a sub for our needs; sounded great at a wedding we played at over the weekend and my bandmates described them as a "massive step-up" over the 310As. They did sound good! The 710As are going to be a second/spare band PA for one of my bands, which our singer can also then use for her solo work - portability will be a factor for that and they're not too bulky. My thinking is if we are using them as tops, then for larger venues I can take along the CMD 121H for a bit of additional low end support. Certainly won't hurt.

Thanks John. With regard to your second point, scalability of (b) could perhaps be achieved by using the bass combo in the same position as you'd put the sub woofer ie don't use it as backline but as part of the FoH set up? I guess if you wanted, you could put the kick through both the PA and bass cab (eg making use of a Boss LS2), but if the tops are not having to solely handle the bass, they should have more headroom to handle the kick. (Besides, if drummers want the benefit of a sub I'd be inclined to encourage them to get and store one themselves - I certainly don't want to volunteer to be lugging the thing, haha!)

The QSC's are around £975 each vs £800 for the top of the range RCFs 932A (or a paltry, by comparison, £533 each for the RCF 912As I've got). Are the QSC's a significantly better product than the RCFs?

I'm guessing that @Bill Fitzmaurice's advice wasn't necessarily intended to be applicable to bass cabs in relation to the boundary effect, though? Most of us have our bass cabs and subs on the floor precisely to take advantage of the additional 6dB of low frequency boost Phil mentioned, albeit maybe with a slight bass EQ cut or alternatively with judicious use of hpf + possibly a touch of bass EQ boost to give audiences that meaty low end thump.

Had a quick look at the specs and this unit sounds really well featured - very much Pod Go competition. 11 (GP 200) vs 6 fx (Pod Go) blocks available, drum machine (decent?) which I don't think the Helix units feature, and same number of fx patches (256). What are the filter and synth sims like - would you rate them as being "usable"?

Does that qualify them as unsound injuneers then? Just asking for a friend...

Wow - that last sentence got me to sit up and take notice!

Intuitively that all makes great sense. Interested why you prefer two 15s over say two 12s plus a decent sub? The last sentence seems, on the surface, to chime against the often repeated mantra on this amps & cabs forum that "speaker cone size shouldn't make a difference to a cab's ability to handle bass" i.e. a 10" cone should be able give out the same depth of bass as a 15" cone; it's more about how the cones have been tuned and driver displacement? But then very few of us ever end up using just a single 10" speaker, although a single 12" speaker e.g. a BF SC or BB2 or 12" MB combo are a pretty common set up. But I guess that's maybe more the ability of a single 10" to handle a lot of wattage from an amp, whereas the BF BB2 can comfortably handle the power requirements for most indoor situations.

I take your point @Jack, but my reading of the amps and cabs thread over recent years is that many folk are very happy with a 1x12" or 2x10" cab as backline. Obviously having a decent quality cab with the ability to handle reasonably chunky wattage helps, but I never found my Vanderkley 210s or my BF BB2 or SC 1x12" lacking, or having to ever really push my MB AC 121Lite 12" 500W combo to anything much above 5 or 6 /10. It will obviously also depend on venue size and how loud the rest of your band are, but I can only recall one request to play louder (plenty to turn it down, haha!) for as long as I've been gigging and that was in quite a large (long) venue and interestingly using a bandmates 2x12 PA but which was more budget / far less capable and articulate than the RCFs 310As one of my bands have been using. The 310As certainly won't produce the trouser flapping, though, that @Pirellithecat mentioned above which you'd get with the addition of a sub, or that the 912As I've recently got can deliver.