Bill Fitzmaurice

There's no problem playing active bass through any rig, if it clips the input just turn it down. The problem you'll face with the BA 330 is it's not going to be able to handle lows at more than coffee house levels.

In general the higher the excursion the lower the sensitivity, although it's not a hard and fast rule, as excursion alone doesn't determine sensitivity. It's not easy to compare apples to apples here, but two drivers that use the same motor with different excursions are the Eminence 3012HO and 3012LF, at 6.2mm 100dB/w and 9.1 mm 95dB/w respectively. They also have different response, which is related to their different excursion, but only in part, as other parameters affect the result. This goes back to the fact that be it a raw driver or a finished speaker you can't consider just one or two specs, you must consider them all. With raw drivers that's usually not a problem, as most driver manufacturers publish all the driver specs. With finished speakers it's usually not possible, as very few publish all the specs, if any.

You can only turn the volume up so much before you either toast the voice coil or slam it into the back plate. Every 3dB reduction in sensitivity equals a doubling of power for the same output, assuming the amp has the required power to give. Your questions reflect the primary problem with specs. When they're incomplete what they don't reveal is usually more significant than what they do.

-3dB at 40Hz or any other frequency is meaningless in and of itself. I can show you 6 inch loaded speakers that are legitimately -3dB at 40Hz. The problem is that they only have 85dB/w sensitivity. Search: 'Hoffman's Iron Law'.

Or not. FRFR can apply to a small 1x10 PA main. It can also apply to a 2x15/2x6/tweeter monster. Most PA mains are FRFR, but by no means are most FRFR speakers PA mains. The confusion over this explains why this long dead horse continues to be beaten to excess.

That's the fault of the room, not the speaker. Reflections off nearby walls and the ceiling create low frequency null zones. If you're standing in one of those null zones the bass will disappear. When you move away from the null zone the true output of the cab will be heard.

FRFR means full range flat response. Ideally that's what PA is, but you can't get flat response to low frequencies at stage volumes without either the cab being large or there being a separate sub.

The thermal power rating is meaningless in and of itself, just as the driver diameter is meaningless in and of itself.

You don't necessarily have to keep the volume at zero, depending how the amp is laid out. Usually if you plug in to the send that prevents any signal from reaching the power amp unless you also plug into the receive jack.

Those specs are way shy of being useful. For instance, while it may be -10dB at 35Hz, what is the 1w/1m SPL? 98dB? 88dB? That's critical information which is lacking. I can say just by looking at it that it won't have a big low end, because the trapezoid shape causes the box volume to be too small to have a big low end.

Lumping all 212s, or for that matter all of any speaker configuration, into the same performance category is as valid as saying all vehicles with 380HP engines perform the same. There's a big difference between a 380HP BMW Z4 and a 380HP 2.5 ton pickup truck.

Sure. If I was looking for a vintage head it would be an Ampeg V4, which is rated similarly for power but it's a very different animal, quite gig worthy. I'd pass on any vintage speakers, the technology there has advanced far too much. You can get the same output, or more, from a modern 212 as with a vintage 412.

You can't go by the specs, as they're far too incomplete to be of any real use. I can say that the vast majority of powered PA, even those loaded with 15s, are made to work best in the vocal range, with the lows handled by subs. They also don't have pre-amps voiced for bass. That makes them very much a try before you buy proposition.

Since the channels are Normal and Bass and there's no tremolo, vibrato or reverb it's a bass rig. It is an updated Fender Bassman, Musicman being the company Leo Fender founded after selling Fender Musical Instruments. Based on that I'd expect it to be much like a Bassman, which means it's a guitar amp without tremolo, vibrato or reverb. The head is probably OK for low volume gigs, but the speakers were always the weakest part of the Bassman, and I'd expect the same with this.

Assuming that 5 watts is into 4 ohms, which it probably is, that's 4.4 volts at 1.1 amperes. An 18v power supply at 500ma is 9 watts, so you're probably OK where the AC supply is concerned. The battery charger amp hour rating is moot, all that says is how long it takes to fully charge the battery. By the same token what the amp hour rating of a battery tells you is how much power it can provide for how long.

4 ohms requires less voltage swing for the same result as 8 ohms.

If the amp output jack says 4 ohms, yes. Using it occasionally for bedroom practice with an 8 ohm cab wouldn't bother it, but I wouldn't gig it with an 8 ohm cab.

With valves the cab impedance should be equal to or lower than the tap rated load. With SS the cab impedance should be equal to or greater than the head rated minimum load.

Where workmanship is concerned if anything the Vietnamese would be better. The drivers are the same, all that would differ there is coming out of the Eminence factory in Kentucky or the one in Dongguan. The wood one can't say for sure. I doubt that they'd import Italian Poplar to Vietnam, it's probably a local species. There are major plywood mills in Vietnam, so one of them would be the likely source.

On this side of the pond there's a saying 'it's the economy, stupid'. Americans don't vote for ideology, they vote for their bank accounts.

Probably not. The Average American Idiot would tolerate him so long as their pocketbook wasn't affected. But a side effect of C-19 that bothers them even more than the deaths is the unemployment. As that has mostly impacted the uneducated working class that usually votes conservative his core base of supporters has shrunk considerably.

For the most part, maybe. 'Made in USA' these days is mainly a euphemism for 'Assembled in USA from parts that came from Asia'. As an example of how weird things have become, one of the main sources of winter clothing, especially that made for winter sports like skiing and snowboarding, is Vietnam.

This is likely C-19 related. Sales of everything entertainment related are down, because nobody's working very much if at all. so I'd expect manufacturers to find ways to cut retail prices to increase sales. Don't be surprised to see many more manufacturers selling direct on the internet.

That's only an option if the cabinet has enough volume to work with three drivers, which may only be confirmed by software modeling of the speaker response with the available box volume net of the ports and drivers, and the driver Theile/Small specs. One must also use modeling to determine the area and length of the ports based on the most effective box frequency tuning and keeping the port air velocity within acceptable limits.

I'm getting a deja vu vibe. 😉