TheRev

[quote name='bassadder' timestamp='1373973906' post='2143683'] I'm fasinated with by the BigE but it's a bit of a leap of faith ordering one blind without being able to test one, I still love the Acoustic Image but it's not for this gig. Any idea on price on BigE MA45 [/quote] Mine ended up costing about £770, once import tax was added on. It worked out at Just under £600 without tax Definitley not cheap and definitley a lot of money to splurge on something you can't try. My reasoning was that if someone like Mike Arnapol was willing to give up on his existing designs and switch 100% to the BigE deisign, then it must be something good. I had the money and I needed a solution to not being able to hear myself, so I took a gamble. If your band is particularly loud, then a MA46 might suit you better?

[quote name='bassadder' timestamp='1373543087' post='2138814'] what's the Big E 4X5 like? Many thanks again Laurence [/quote] I'm very, very happy with my BigE MA45. I've done 10-15 gigs with it so far and I've since sold my Acoustic Image Ten2. My Johnny Cash-esque band isn't particularly loud, but pre BigE I was having real problems hearing myself clearly enough to be able to play in tune. I came to the conclusion that the problem wasn't necessarily that my rig (LMII and BFM Omni10.5 @ 360W or the AI Ten2 running at 500W!) wasn't loud enough - my bass would start feeding back long before the amp ran out of steam, but that I simply wasn't clear enough. The volume was there, but the sound wasn't distinct enough to hear individual notes - they just ran into each other in a big indefinable booming mush. While I was pondering exactly where this revelation left me (I was already using some very highly respected equipment in the BFM cab and the AI Ten2 - where do you go from there?) I came across the BigE cab thread on Talkbass. I swapped a few emails with Mike Arnapol, the guy who designs and builds the Big E MA45, explaining my requirements and he suggested that the MA46 (4x6" drivers) would be a good choice if I wanted enough volume to cover a big stage or if i was going to use it for electric bass as well but that the MA45 had better articulation for double bass. As I'd already come to the conclusion that I had enough volume already, I decided to go with the MA45 So, is it loud? Good question...On paper, it 'goes' much louder than my BFM Omni 10,5 (and that goes loud) - Mike reckons it will out-perform the best 2x10s on the market. In practice It's noticeably a lot more articulate and defined than the BFM, particularly when walking in first position on the E and A strings, but I'm not turning my amp up as much compared to when I was using the BFM cab - so rather than pushing lots of watts at a mushy sound, I'm ticking over nicely with a clear and defined sound. Compared to the AI Ten2 it's just leagues ahead for my purposes. Although the AI is rated at 600W (4Ohm) for me, it just couldn't push enough air to be heard on stage. At low volume (rehearsals or in my acoustic jazzy trio) it was great, but I think the Ten2 cab is designed to produce an acoustic sound in polite circumstances rather than pump out root-fifth country thumpiness. If I'm playing pub size gigs, the cab sits behing me, next to the drummer, tilted up at about 30 degrees. The whole band can hear it and I don't usually need to put any bass through the FOH unless it's a big room. For proper stages stages where the drummer has a sidefill monitor, I put the cab on a stand to one side and just use it as a personal monitor. So far I've yet to have a gig where I couldn't hear myself - although it can't completely compensate for crap room acoustics! it's also very rare that I have feedback issues - probably because I don't need to push the amp as hard. So far I haven't noticed any major differences in sound when I'm 6 feet away from the cab compared to when I'm stood right in front of it, but I'm still so excited at just being able to actually hear what I'm playing that the change over distance might become more obvious once I've calmed down a bit. I'm actually quite tempted to buy a second MA45, just to see what an 8x4 would sound like.... Dave

If the band want the 'look of a double bass' then they're going to have to turn down to accomodate it. If they want the 'look of a double bass' but don't want to turn down, then they're clearly not concerned about the sound of a double bass, in which case, you're just there to mime and look the part. If they want to hear some actual bass, but still won't turn down, then they're in luck! Mr Fender invented the electric bass for just this situation.....

For loud stages (i.e. full foldback/monitoring) I put my bass cab up on a keyboard X stand so that it's to one side of me at shoulder/head height and use it purely for personal monitoring. A DI from my preamp goes straight to the desk/FOH/monitor mix - no-one else needs to hear my rig in itself, so I stick in wherever I can hear it best.

Contra is £360 inc UK postage.