alexclaber

There's nothing dangerous about your preamp clipping or distorting, and therefore if you can't hear it then it doesn't matter!

Lawrence, if I honestly felt that most of our Big Series customers would be better served by typical active PA speakers then I'd say so and we wouldn't bother making them - the rest of our range has far outsold them to date, anyway. I appreciate that you have a good understanding of the technical side of things but I think there's a fair bit that you don't realise you don't yet know or fully appreciate the importance of. Every loudspeaker is a balance of compromises and it's how you balance those compromises that is critical. Personally, for musical instrument speakers I'd rather leave any processing up to the player, so they can choose both the tone and the feel they want - playing an instrument is interactive, you play with the amp. We're not as open about what we do as we used to be - our R&D and resulting ideas and designs are our own intellectual property but would be very hard/expensive to protect. Hopefully in the coming months we'll have stock available for the first time in two years and then bassists can easily find out whether our cabs can move air in an aurally aesthetically pleasing manner or whether all this typing is just metaphorical hot air. The truth will out...

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1372898065' post='2131504']For Alex, an uncompressed bottom octave is obviously very important - as I've said, for PA that's not usually an issue in a 'full-range' box, and from a FoH perspective I think it's not always the most musically appropriate thing either for backline.[/quote] I think you're misunderstanding what I meant by 'uncompressed high SPL tone and bottom'. I wasn't just talking about the lowest octave of the tone, I was talking about everything, up into the many kHz. And in particular, I don't mean trying to get the F3 of the cab as low as possible because that causes a lot of compromises in other respects and as you say, is not always the most musically appropriate thing for backline.

Luke, FYI the Big Series cabs are far less coloured than the Midget you heard and the bottom goes much deeper. Interesting to hear the K12 vs Baer and Audiokinesis comments - I know where we stand vs them so all is good here!

I'd be very happy using a big expensive active PA cab for bass. The Big Series cabs are simply a way of getting that sound in a package that you can bothered to haul to gigs on your own and that works well with most heads so you aren't restricted to outboard/rack preamps or carrying a duplicate power stage which you can't use. I've yet to come across any PA cabs of comparable size and weight which can compete at producing uncompressed high SPL tone and bottom but if there are any I'd like to check them out!

[quote name='iceonaboy' timestamp='1372439304' post='2125825']I fancied a Barefaced cab, but what put me off was the mic'ing up the cab problem. With each speaker separated, you would need three mics, and that just aint feasible for moi [/quote] You definitely don't need three mics! Live I'd point the mic at the middle of the middle speaker on the left hand side (one of the full-range pair), with the '69er.

It's nice that people are taking notice of sensitivity specs but, to be honest, most of them are even further removed from reality than power handling specs are!

I'd be astounded if the CL410's sensitivity is anywhere near that low or indeed if the ABM410's is quite that high.

Biamping is not going to be beneficial with those cabs. The 15" may go lower than the 4x10" but the 4x10" will move more air and so be better at the lows. The 4x10" probably goes higher than the 15" but has worse dispersion through the mids so will be harder to hear around the room. So neither cab is a specialist at either lows, mids or highs.

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1371726166' post='2117359']I think Barefaced and the like are great, but people often get too worried about a cab's response below 100 Hz without recognising how little of their 'sound' happens down there compared to the midrange.[/quote] Ironically (or is it?) I'm pretty sure I've written a ton about that already! [quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1371726166' post='2117359'][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Dropping drivers into cabs - there are a few combinations that won't play well, but I think most of the time (given that most cabs and drivers are really quite similar), what comes out will do the job.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Given the low cost of replacement drivers, it does highlight how bad some of the OEM ones are that come loaded in the cabs![/font][/color][/quote] And how the original cabs and drivers often weren't actually designed to work together anyway!

The HA3500 has plenty of power to drive a Super Twelve loud, even if it wouldn't be enough for a Midget in the same scenario because: 1. The S12 is more than twice as large as a Midget and has twice the cone area so has greater LF and broadband sensitivity. 2. It is a 4 ohm rather than 8 ohm load so the amp puts out almost twice the power. 3. It has twice the thermal power handling so will exhibit little or no power compression so you'll get full power from the amp.

Does it sound good? If so, quit worrying about it. Your amp is having a much easier time pushing your 2x12" than the 1x12" you had before.

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1371145252' post='2110525']But I look forward to seeing and hopefully hearing what you've come up with, I'm sure it'll be a worthwhile step up. (In the meantime I will carry on quite happily with my non-Eminence drivers for bass guitar, while the Eminence ones sit on the shelf waiting for a new use, and shockingly I shall do so despite the knowledge that they have been judged to be objectively inferior and my taste is evidently defective). [/quote] You're still not understanding what I'm trying to say! I'm not talking about any of those drivers, I've been talking about my search to find a motor that allows me to design a driver based around that magnet and pole pieces that does what I want. This is nothing to do with different brands, companies or factories, it's about specific castings and machined parts which have a certain geometry.

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1371143689' post='2110498']You do like a bit of the salesspeak nowadays Alex 'Best' doesn't mean much unless you set other rather more specific parameters! Everything's a compromise[/quote] "Best balance of compromises for the job in hand" is what I'm alluding to. More will be revealed in the fullness of time but not everything because considering the work we've done on this front I'd rather the competition had to work things out for themselves!

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1371134112' post='2110267']That's interesting, thanks - I'm surprised it's such a deal-breaker...[/quote] I started working on new driver designs about 2.5 years ago now. It has been a very deep learning process! Note that I wasn't just referring to what you see available as stock versions but also what can be done in terms of OEM redesigns, keeping the hard parts and changing everything else. Our target parameters/sound are simply to make the best bass instrument speaker it's possible to make! That's a different beast to the best PA top or subwoofer.

The main issue I've had with the OEM versions we've tried with various European manufacturers is that most of the high-end drivers are very strongly split into PA main and subwoofer use, the former having lower moving mass but being incapable of achieving high excursion (so they're sensitive but can't do big high SPL lows) whilst the latter have very high moving mass (and thus low broadband sensitivity and peaky midrange response) and on the whole they tend to have very low Qts. We've tried all manner of things with different moving parts but kept running into the same problems.

Lead-free solder plus whatever you're desoldering may be heatsinking off to the board/components too quickly for you to get enough heat in for the required temperature rise.

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1371069847' post='2109543'] The 3012HO is a 'better' (more powerful) driver [i]on paper[/i] than the Faital 12PR300, which would be more directly comparable to the Deltalite (2.5" voice coil, similar rated excursion, wattage, broadband sensitivity). But I've not heard the 12PR300, however I have been doing a lot of reading about driver design as well as a lot of listening to speakers, and I think the paper doesn't tell you as much as it seems especially if you go by the usual measures of xmax, wattage, T-S specs and f-response charts. Xmax is an especially over-simplified/over-used measure, that seems to be touted in basscabland as the be-all and end-all when it comes to judging output at high power. For one thing, some drivers behave a lot better beyond 'x-max' than others, and I think that how they start to misbehave differs a lot in audibility/objectionability as well. Smoothness isn't all about the f-response chart either, you can EQ a speaker 'flat' but a good clean PA driver will still sound less coloured than one with poorly suppressed resonances. Comes down to the usual old cliche that you have to let your ears be the judge [/quote] The key thing to consider with any loudspeaker is that its performance at a given SPL depends upon its frequency response, time response and spatial response, and whichever it's worst at will dominate your perception - it's only as good as its weakest link. And then the performance with increasing SPL depends upon its linearity, for which BL and Le variations dominate. We've spent some time working with Faital on drivers and a particular point to be noticed is their specifying of Xmax: They use ((coil length - gap length)/2 + (gap length /3), whilst Eminence use 10% THD which is very close to (coil length - gap length)/2 + (gap length /4), for typical motor geometry. The Faitals tend to use longer gaps with lower flux density as well, so both these issues skew their Xmax spec quite a lot higher than if they were specified like for like.

Yes. They work great with them. I wouldn't say Class D amps work best, I'd say that good amps work best regardless of topology because they'll be less likely to have their deficiencies shown up by the cab. A 30W all-valve amp will work as well with the S12 as with any other cab that size - it'll go pretty loud as long as you don't expect it to stay really clean.

[quote name='grandad' timestamp='1368649733' post='2079870']I wouldn't be comfortable if I had to push my i/p gain or master volume much over 5 at a gig. I like to know I have plenty of headroom. That's for SS amps.[/quote] The position of your gain and master volume tells you nothing about the amount of headroom at a gig. Both knobs are gain multipliers and are designed to handle everything from low output instruments with soft players to high output instruments with hard players. When I dig in on my old active bass I can drive most amps into clipping at way below 5 on both gain and master.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1368637021' post='2079587']All this talk of clinical tone makes me think no one wants a personality![/quote] Did you post on the wrong thread? Not a single person has mentioned 'clinical tone', apart from you!

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1368625073' post='2079353']He may have been very protective of his Bergs and was wary about scuffing the Bergs up at the local jam night where all the knuckle draggers abuse the house band gear.[/quote] Touché!

[quote name='Iana' timestamp='1368620984' post='2079257']Not for tone, fit, and finish.... [/quote] Or something you haven't seen yet! And like you say, tone is down to personal preference - one of our earliest Big Baby T customers had a fault with his cabs and they had to come back for repair. He said: "[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]Been having nightmares about having to use the [/size][/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]Bergantino[/size][/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]'s , that must [/size][/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]surely say something for your creations !" [/size][/font]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1368617284' post='2079174']Yes, they could.[/quote]

[quote name='Barefootbassplayer' timestamp='1368521976' post='2077885']I'd also previously spoken with him about cabs so didn't get the phone call after paying the deposit...which is fair enough[/quote] I can't remember phoning anyone after receiving a deposit - having worked in telesales many moons ago I have a bit of a phobia about making telephone calls, it's like I already used up my lifetime allocation in a few very looooooong years... Expect a response by email but don't expect it quickly at the moment, we're all trying to stay away from the computers and keep all hands on actual manufacturing during the working day.