Bill Fitzmaurice

[quote name='M@23' timestamp='1470836822' post='3108832'] Really? They're not exactly hard to come by and seem to sell 2nd hand for the standard 60% (ish) of retail. [/quote]Wait 20 years, when valves have gone the way of the dodo.

Keep it, if only to hide it away and appreciate in value.

It won't go as loud down low as a driver with more xmax. The difference between a small vented cab and the Jack would lie in the midbass and low mids, where the horn of the Jack greatly increases sensitivity. If you want to get a lot more output down low you'd have to go to a longer xmax driver. A 3012HO, for instance, would have 6dB more output down low, the equivalent of two EVM. If it was me I'd sell the EVM, they do bring a good price from guitar players.

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1470133430' post='3103429'] Would an EVM12L work well in a JackLite 12 Bill? [/quote]It will, about the same as with a 3012HO as far as response goes, although the 3.3mm xmax is less than optimal.

The DL15x was a later version of the EVM15B. A good driver, though weighty. Specs are Fs 42Hz, Qes .3, Qms 4.5, Vas 195L. xmax 4.1mm. Pe 400w. It would be fine in the Simplexx 15 or Jack/JackLite 15 cabs.

[quote name='Huge Hands' timestamp='1469775844' post='3100925'] What, bury him in a car park? [/quote]I was thinking of giving a headsman a bit of work, but the parking lot will do.

[quote name='Dan Dare' timestamp='1469715995' post='3100599'] Good for Bill. So much snake oil in cables, especially in wunnerful wold of hi-fi (where those with the most expensive set-ups usually have Van Gogh's ear for music). [/quote]Having lots of money doesn't necessarily equate to being highly intelligent. Take Donald Trump, for instance. Really, take him, please...put him in the Tower of London and do a Richard III number on him.

[quote name='goingdownslow' timestamp='1469546691' post='3099263'] were there 100w Eminence Delta speakers at one time? [/quote]No. The Delta line only came along perhaps 15 years ago. They've had very few changes since their introduction.

[quote name='waldemar' timestamp='1469478128' post='3098701'] Hmm, interesting stuff. I emailed a friend of mine earlier regarding some of this stuff - he's pretty seriously into his hi-fi, not just listening to, but building hi-end valve amps, collecting exotic paired valves etc. - even going as far as temporary structural modifications to his house to get his WE16A horns in... In short, a knowledgeable guy with a keen ear for detail who's not shy of spending a bob or two on his passion. He had this to say: [/quote]He's bought into it. Drank the kool-aid, we'd say here. What he says is true in an absolutely worst case scenario, such as using 200 foot long cables with valve amps, but if you did damping factor would be the least of your worries, as capacitance and inductance would create much more of a problem. It's kind of like skin effect, which as I recall Monster was the first to raise in their advertising. Skin effect is real. Engineers have to go to great lengths to minimize it in cabling for, for instance, radio transmission towers. What Monster, and others who employ it as a boogey-man to generate sales, don't say is that doesn't affect the audio frequency band width. Another cable expose: [url="http://www.verber.com/mark/ce/cables.html"]http://www.verber.co.../ce/cables.html[/url]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1469461355' post='3098489'] I read somewhere that it's not just about the power handling - thicker speaker cables allow for better damping. Whatever that is. [/quote]That would be damping factor, and it's not true: http://www.diyspeakers.net/Articles/Richard%20Pierce%20DAMPING%20FACTOR.pdf Damping factor is one of the oft-quoted reasons for the need for exotic/expensive wires. So is skin effect. On the face of it the crap spewed by cable crooks seems to be legitimate, if you have only a cursory understanding of the physics involved. Since few average people posses even cursory knowledge they get away with what's literally criminal. Interesting reading: http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm http://www.avsforum.com/forum/91-audio-theory-setup-chat/2166017-monster-xp-versus-aluminum-foil-speaker-cable-test.html

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1469447950' post='3098322'] My 1.5mm melted in the speakon connector supplied by bass direct at the first gig [/quote]I'd blame that on a cheesy connector or a botched connector installation, not the wire gauge. 1.5mm wire can handle 14 amperes at full duty cycle with a resistive load. 600 watts into 4 ohms is 12 amperes. You'd only get that 12 amperes on a sporadic basis, if at all, as a speaker is not a resistive load. Throughout most of the speaker pass band the actual impedance will be far more than 4 ohms, so current will be far less than at 4 ohms. [quote]I thought I'd ask after noticing how prevalent the fat cables seem to be amongst fellow bassists[/quote]Probably trying to compensate for inadequate size elsewhere. Over gauged/overpriced/over hyped cables are the #1 rip off in audio, on both the amateur and professional level.

1.5mm is sufficient. If each cab is connected by its own cable to the amp it's considerably more than sufficient. You may go larger, but it won't work any better.

[quote name='obbm' timestamp='1469091544' post='3095599'] I've just had a look inside my Prodigy and the mains transformer is most definitely 220/230/240 only. There is no primary connection for 100/120 so it looks like they have different transformers for different markets. [/quote]I can't tell from the picture, but in any event there would be no primary connection for 110 versus 220. There would be dual sets of input wires to the transformer, allowing it to be wired like so:

Any decent techie would be able to tell if it has a dual primary winding on the power transformer. For that matter you could probably tell as well. Most amps do, rather than to have to use a different transformer for export models.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1468666274' post='3092487'] I'd read much about the de-coupling effects of casters and was left with no expectations either way, but once applied they made a big difference with boom-in-the-room, [/quote]FWIW casters will have no effect, unless they stand a foot or more high. That's because there's no such thing as mechanical coupling, and it takes that much distance from the floor to audibly impact acoustical coupling. OTOH adding damping to a under-damped or un-damped cab can have a major effect eliminating midbass boom.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1468432159' post='3090914'] The mat was there more to damp the panel vibration a little, as there was a bit of ringing going on from the back, despite all the bracing. [/quote]It won't help that, not enough mass.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1468425701' post='3090857'] The panel lining made from a cheap yoga mat I bought at Lidl! [/quote]Assuming that's a typical yoga mat made of closed cell foam it won't work. Foam must be open cell.

[quote name='hubrad' timestamp='1468335197' post='3090224'] I've heard of this in other fields too.. buy up the competition just to close them down. [/quote]More often the buyout is used to acquire manufacturing facilities and/or technology more cheaply than building/developing your own. That's an especially attractive option if the company is acquired for a bargain price because they weren't doing well. The situations with respect to GM and SAAB, or Ford with Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover are similar, and they didn't work out well either. Those auto brands only survived because GM and Ford ended up needing the funds that they got by reselling those brands more than they needed manufacturing facilities for their own brands that also weren't doing well. Of course, SAAB is still in a state of limbo.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1468180061' post='3089085'] But no, you won't blow up your bass amp by playing guitar through it. [/quote]You might make it puke, though.

[quote name='taunton-hobbit' timestamp='1467989028' post='3087895'] I've got Mackie C200s(passive) which have Neutrik xlr............ [/quote]They have Speakon, not XLR. The one marked 'send' is intended for sending the signal to another passive speaker, not to a power amp. Guys, you're bass players, you're supposed to be the smart ones in the band. You should know this stuff. If you leave it to drummers and guitar'd players who knows what kind of mayhem might ensue. [quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1467989275' post='3087898'] What sort of wattage is an xlr designed to take?[/quote]None. They're intended to carry low current signals. For that matter the same applies to 1/4" phone connectors, which never should have been used for speaker connections. They were only pressed into that duty because Leo Fender was too cheap to add another SKU to his parts bins. One could call Speakons better late than never. For a time in the 60s and early 70s some did use XLR for speakers in an attempt to reduce the possibility of plugging an input into an output, but that was before XLR became the standard for microphones and line level sends.

A passive speaker should not have had an XLR out at all.

[quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1467964501' post='3087554'] I remember we used to speakon out of the power amp to the the passive tops and then xlr daisy chain to the active subs [/quote]I can't imagine how that would work, and by your results I'd say it didn't.

There's no reason for active subs to sound any better with passive versus active tops. Whatever difference heard indicates that you didn't set the system up correctly when using the passive tops.

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1467916280' post='3087327'] I'm thinking that the Fender Bassman proved to be really popular with guitarists, so in theory I should be okay? [/quote]Bassman of 50s-70s vintage were popular as guitar amps. The reason why is that they basically were guitar amps. Other than at very ow levels they were horrid for bass. By the same token a good electric bass rig won't sound good with guitar.

[quote name='skychaserhigh' timestamp='1465555331' post='3069177'] I just made the point about the 410 shape which was they said was wrong for several reasons. [/quote]If one is actually aware of 'the low pass thing' then they'd be aware of how it cures most of the ills created by the 410 shape. I wouldn't want a 410 myself, I'd rather a pair of vertical 210, being easier to transport and it places the drivers high enough for the mids to be heard close to the cab, the one ill that low passing two drivers in a 410 can't cure. But if you're bound to the 410 format for whatever reason the least you can do is to use the only one I'm aware of that is correctly engineered. Not that I would take all of the credit away from Alex, but I was posting about the benefits of low passing one driver column in 410, 610 and 810 formats long before BF existed, and there's no way that he didn't read at least one of them, so I'll accept some. But he's hardly the only designer/manufacturer to peruse bass forums, which begs the question: Why has no one else bothered to fix the errors of their ways? And why doesn't the marketplace hold them accountable? Starting with anyone here considering a 210, 410, 610 or 810 from anyone other than BF? No, that doesn't make me a BF fanboy. It makes me a fanboy of proper engineering. If and when someone else does the right thing I'll give credit to them as well.