Jack

True enough, and I'm not one to shout at a waiter when they haven't cooked my food either but the companies clearly don't really care. I've had these two corkers in the past few weeks alone.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of it like that. Are cheaper things just somewhat harsher and rougher around the edges you think? That's a little different I think, the Noble (and the REDDI, RNDI, etc) make a point of "we will make you sound good", rather than a passive DI which tries to be pretty much a perfect replica of the input signal. Very interesting that you can't hear much difference at home though, I need to listen back properly loud through a good PA. I've got the FR800 that I monitored with, my PJB headphones and my Microlab Solo 9C computer speakers. Both the headphones and the speakers are really nice, but they make no pretensions at being studio-grade monitoring. I wonder if better speakers or using hem live like you suggest might show more differences.

Act one: Me sitting on the sofa the other day, lights on, music playing, lots going on that's very visible through the large front window. Act two: DPD van pulls up, I stand up to walk to the front door (what, 10 seconds?) and I get there to him pushing a 'sorry we missed you' card through the letter box. Act three: I open the door and he says 'sorry mate I knocked and rang the bell, been here ages'. I pointed to the camera above the doorbell, he practically ran back to his van to fish my parcel out without saying a word. He must have practically written the card out beforehand, as he hadn't even bothered to get my box out of the back of the van.

Hi everyone, I'm about to spend ~£335 on a Fender Rumble 2x10" cab (the black one to match the 800). To be honest, I can wait though. Do online retailers really do sales? Is it a good idea to wait until after Christmas? Thanks, Jack

Differences. LBP is blue, Millenium is pink. The LBP has a little more going on in the super lows. Exactly the kind of stuff that you'd normally want to filter out! Do I feel stupid for spending more than an order of magnitude more on one DI than the other? Yes and no. Obviously this test is very superficial in many ways. It doesn't test build quality, reliability, interference rejection, input before clipping, ability to drive long cable runs, how well the ground lift works, how they sound with just a passive bass and no buffer and other high-impedance sources or plenty of other things that you might actually need. There may be more noticeable differences working with hotter signals, dodgy electrics or a boatload of stage wireless units and wifi signals. Of course, there may not... The other thing to bear in mind is that this is one cheap and one expensive DI. Would there be more noticeable differences if I had, say a Behringer DI400 and a Telefunken? Lastly, Thomann own-brand products are known for punching well above their price point and being awesome generally, so maybe a different cheap DI would have been more appropriate.

I did a quick recording shootout.

No matter what I do I an't delete that last rig photo at the end. Oh well, enjoy the picture twice.

Hi everybody, Talking about passive DI boxes in this thread, we were wondering if there was any noticeable difference in sound between cheap and expensive passive DI boxes. Obviously, with active boxes there are big differences, especially with those that aim to purposefully colour the sound, but what about passive boxes that are just transformers in boxes? Radial (and everybody else) make big shakes about how Jensen transformers are amazing, and how important it is to have a decent transformer, especially for bass. Now, I like DI boxes, I have a lot. Chiefly for the purposes of this though, I have both a cheap and an expensive passive DI. Specifically I own several Millenium DI-Es, that currently cost the princely sum of £8.19. I also have what may be the only LBP Inc passive DI in the country (at least the maker tells me he's never sold to the UK before), which after taxes, shipping and such will cost around £150. These boxes are made by a one-man company in the states using the finest materials including a Jensen JT-DB-E, so it's basically a hand-made Radial JDI. In other words, you're unlikely to find either a 'worse' or a 'better' passive DI box. Testing methodology was thus: Sprained wrist > Fender USA P-Bass (DiMarzio Will Power pickup, quite dead D'Addario EXL170BT 45-107 strings) > Brightonion Router (providing a buffered output to both DI boxes) > DI boxes > Behringer XR18 > Ardour. I even went to a special effort to keep the cables identical brands and lengths. I used a pick a lot with rounds aiming for a trebley sound thinking that that might show up more differences, but there's some more mellow stuff too. There are 4 sections: open strings - pick/tone full on riff - pick/tone full on riff - fingers/tone 75% riff - fingers/tone off I'll apologize for my playing now, I fell over on the ice yesterday (I'd only popped out to get more wine, turns out that whilst I wasn't too drunk to drive I was in fact too drunk to walk) and I've really done a number on my left arm and wrist! So, how do they sound? Well, in the thread that started all of this, BigRedX said you'd be unlikely to hear any difference in a band mix and I thought that might be the case, but I assumed there'd be some noticeable differences in a recording. Ermmmm, nope. Not really. Not to my ears at least. I mean, if you open the files in a DAW you can see differences in the spectograph, but I can't really hear anything dramatic. To my ears, there's a little more distortion on some of the Millenium notes and it perhaps sounds a tiny bit darker and bassier overall, but there's less than 1% in it and I wonder how much of even that is psychosomatic. Having said that I'm only listening at home volumes at the moment, I'd be keen to fire up the recordings through a loud PA system. LBP Inc DI.wav Millenium DI-E.wav

That's a good question. I have a cheap Thomann DI an a very expensive LBP DI here, I wonder if there'd be any noticeable differences. Not many DI boxes will take Boss-Style power supplies, so watch out. The preamp style ones (like the Sansamps) and the guitar specific ones (like the Mooer) will though. If you have some sort of a buffer on your board then you'd be fine with a passive DI anyway.

D'oh. I'd have had a pair of the 1x10s, but there's only one left.

I bought and then sold one on the marketplace here. Lovely bass, really enjoyed how different it was. Sounded great. In the end it only went because there's other basses to try and only so much space to store them.

In the same vein as Stewblack, I've recently being toying with one of these. If you're happy with your foh tone and you don't need the eq section of an actual amp then a wedge would be the way to go IME.

Especially considering the way that the Line 6 Spider and the Yamaha (who own Line 6) THR amps integrate with the wireless bugs so easily.

That was less than £300? Stunning work, sir.

Well, now we've fallen out. I hadn't seen that before. 🤑

Why those heads with those cabinets? Thy not the Eich with the 210? Or the other way around. Both heads are very modern and very full and clear sounding. So is the super compact. Not quite as much as as something like the Big Baby, but it still tends towards uncoloured and full range. The 2x10 that Barefaced do (or any of their 10" cabs) have a much more coloured, old fashioned sound. There's probably not much to chose between the heads and it'll come out pretty equal (Eich is more powerful I guess) but the cabs are pretty far apart. Depends on what you want to sound like I suppose.

Indeed. I didn't mean to besmirch the PSA2 at all. Hell, I still really want one! And the Stomp isn't the be all and end all for every bass player that some people claim it to be. But it's undeniable that Stomp's been a bit of a paradigm shift really, and it's pretty hard to best in terms of it's features:size:price ratios. My point was simply that a bass player with £400-£450 who wants a versatile pedal preamp will likely look at both units. In that case, the Stomp can probably do a pretty decent impression of all the sounds the Sansamp can do, with a lot more besides (if you want the other sounds I suppose), they're about the same size, trade blows pretty evenly on I/O, presets, control, switches, etc. It's basically much of a muchness, but the Stomp has a tuner and loads of effects on top. Even if you really don't want ANY of the effects or other amp models then you look at it as a PSA with a free tuner. I'm of course assuming that the Stomp can cop a decent imitation of most of the sounds that the PSA can do, maybe it can't. Anyway, enough of this. I still really want a PSA (as I don't have a Stomp, I have a Helix rack and I still use a portable board helmed by a Paradriver) and I think I'm derailing what was a very good thread. I just wish it was £300-£350 rather than £425 as that would better represent it sitting somewhere between £200 pedal preamps (like the BDDI or MXR M80) and £500 pedal modellers/multifx (like the Stomp or the Vped) which is where it belongs IMHO.

The inputs and outputs on nearly every PA cab are in parallel, so unaffected by volume or DSP changes. Or the new PSA 2, which would sound equally sublime on both.

True, but the PSA 2.0 not having XLRs at that price is kind of my point, I think it's quite over the odds compared to other Sansamps (which as you mention are much cheaper) or other preamps that cost >£400 that have way more features and sounds. The Stomp doesn't strictly have XLRs, but it has two balanced TRS outs which are as good as.

I've got to be honest, it's a full-on deal breaker for me. I couldn't care less about superficial damage to the body or electronics, but anything on the neck or the headstock that's under string tension is a no for me. There's enough other used basses out there. Maybe, maybe, if it's either a super rare bass and I'm unlikely to get another, or if having the neck/headstock repair takes a bass I couldn't usually afford down into my budget.

Thomann have it pre-order for about £425. Ouch. The HX Stomp is also very versatile, also sounds great, also has 3 footswitches, also has midi and is a freaking Helix.

That's the one I've been wanting to try myself, I just don't have any cabs at the moment! And I share some (not all) of Dan's concerns.