alexclaber

I should add that most of what is perceived as differences in transient response is actually: 1. A lack of treble response (as this is where transients really happen). 2. Excess 'overhang' so not that the speaker starts moving just fine but that it stops moving too slowly, usually due to underdamped motors and poor enclosures with resonant peaks which ring. Technically this is transient response but it's the second half, not the first half!

But the thing is, as long as you don't block a rear port or place it so close to a boundary that the effective port length is extended, then whether the port is at the front, rear, side, bottom, etc will have no bearing on how the cab interacts with the room. Larger speakers don't react slower than smaller speakers, in fact cone mass has little effect on transient response until it gets very high - transient response is much more dependent on voicecoil inductance. How low a speaker goes depends on its combination of T/S parameters (RIP Neville Thiele, the T of that, who died on Monday) and how they combine with the parameters of the enclosure. Our current models use various 12" and 15" woofers and the two models that go lowest use 12"s, and the model that goes least low also uses a 12", the 15" models sitting in between. The deepest responding bass cabs I've ever used contained 10"s but they couldn't drive that bass loud enough for my liking. The least bassy cab I've owned contained a 15". The one constant is the sensitive (i.e. efficiency or loudness per watt), small (enclosure size, not woofer diameter), deep (low frequency extension), pick any two, rule, also known as Hoffman's Iron Law. Note that speaker diameter isn't part of that law!

That's as may be but Wiggy wouldn't be the first sound engineer who misunderstand some aspects of loudspeakers! This statement suggests a knowledge gap: "[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As for variances between venues, again it depends. Reflex cabs are much more reactive to their surroundings than close or front-ported cabs, that alone would make a lot more difference than the size of drivers they contain. But surely that's what the EQ is for?[/font][/color] [font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]Is 'reflex' cabs referring to rear-ported cabs then?[/color][/font]

Andy, there's a Dubster down in Devon. Email me - [email protected] and I'll put you in touch!

Yes. If you're using mismatched cabs, always put the one with lower power handling on the top so you have a better chance of hearing it complaining and thus backing off before it dies! The only reason traditional 4x10" + 1x15" stacks get away with the reverse is because they're usually either oversized rigs in small venues so not being pushed that hard, or on big stages where much of the sound is coming from big PA monitors - so not being pushed that hard.

I've always been aware of that! We're going to need to be a much much bigger company before that's financially viable but I shall be a happy man when we reach that point.

Some updated info for anyone generally curious (and email sent to you, Will): http://barefacedbass.com/ordering-and-availability.htm

Following some detective work to establish your real name, yes you are!

Are you in my current list of 28 emails to reply to (down from 50+ this morning)?

V sad. That might have caused the jam to continue but it was an oil spill by junction 10 that closed three out of four lanes which caused the earlier chaos...

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1349033463' post='1820956']Sorry I don't know the name of the other guy.[/quote] Whoever he is, he needs a haircut...

I'm glad I didn't spot that Status Electro - I liked Sean's amazingly musical hunk of firewood Wishbass too much as it was...

Great as ever! Good to see the familiar faces as well as some new ones (and lots of familiar looking cabs!) I left Brighton at 0940 and arrived at 1410, having listened to El Camino about nine times whilst stationery on the M25. Vanished into the jam room (my favourite place) to try out the prototype cab and play on the electronic kit (taking on my regular role of official best bad but keen drummist). Changed the V-drums to running through a Big Baby T instead of the wedge monitor that was there - Paul almost fell over when he hit the snare with the volume up full! Had great fun playing and hearing others play through the little prototype with my Shuttle 6.0, Nik's HK Bassbase, my Avalon U5/PLX3002, Mike's V6 and Russ's SVT7. I think it did pretty well considering its size, although Russ found its limits with 1000W from a cranked SVT7 (having switched over from his 6x10" to this 1x12") with the lows boosted and a grindy tone - no magic smoke was released but bad smells were... If you're geographically convenient to Brighton or willing to pop down, I'd like some beta testers to gig these prototype cabs, so email me if you want to help out! Si(bob), I had the speaker for you in the car but when I remembered it you'd already left - with turning up so late, my mental timings were rather confused... The four car convoy home was amusing, thanks for getting us out past the jams (W)Al (man)- 5i(mon) I seemed to lose you throwing ye olde Honda around that last roundabout!

What a delightful part of the M25 this is! I've often thought how nice it would be to spend a couple of hours enjoying that two mile stretch by Leatherhead, especially instead of attending one of those boring bass bashes...

I've been spending a lot of time on power handling recently and it's incredibly complicated. Something Phil didn't mention is that as a voice coil warms up, its resistance increases. This increases the impedance the amplifier sees, thus reducing the power delivered. And speakers are thermally rated based on the nominal load rather than the actual load, a cab that's rated at 1200W may only be actually capable of coping with 600W thermally. But an amp that's rated at 1200W into that nominal load may only be delivering 600W into that actual load, so one thing cancels the other (apart from the SPL being halved!)

Does anyone have a Jazz or Precision (or both!) that they're bored of and fancy sending to a new home? Think I need some more normal basses for demoing Barefaced cabs on t'interweb, don't need anything new/shiny and quite happy to have a Squier or suchlike. As long as it sounds good unplugged I'll be happy, electronics can be changed. And I'm ok with stupidly high actions and fat necks. Anyway, if you do, bring it along! I'll be interested to hear what everyone makes of the wee prototype I'm bringing along...

I'll be there! Will bring along whatever's (temporarily) in stock at the time...

Unless your band is pretty quiet I wouldn't use an SVT3 with a Big One!

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1346673590' post='1791725']I'm not sure this is right though, surely an inelastic reflection conserves energy and is the most efficient way of reflecting the sound back through the cone and setting up standing waves.. (Assuming it is parallel to the baffle) A thin flexible panel would radiate some energy backwards and lose some as heat. The best way of avoiding this would be to have no rear panel as in some transmission line cabs or by using an angled panel behind the cone.[/quote] I have a suspicion that a thin-wall but heavily braced panel can exhibit high rigidity at lower frequencies, thus giving good lows but the sections between the braces can have a degree of damped flexibility at higher frequencies which can absorb unwanted midrange, especially if those braces are positioned to give each part of each panel a different resonant frequency whose harmonics are an non-coincident as possible with each other panel section. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to scientifically test this but it makes sense from a mechanical engineering perspective and it certainly sounds good in practice!

Quite a few crossed wires here! Until you get into the realm of very expensive PA cabs, few will sound as good as a Big Baby T or Big Twin T for PA. A Midget T + Compact will sound better than typical PA cabs in some ways, worse in others. They'll be better than any el cheapo PA cabs in all respects. I wouldn't recommend buying our cabs for PA first and foremost but for as a secondary usage they'll be fine. Put the stack far enough from the dancefloor and you'll get away without elevating the Midget and it'll make the lack of stereo less obvious.

thebassman - email me! As Chris said, you've changed a lot of variables and the cabs fatten up and smoother as they're run in. Oopsdabassist, depends on how loud you need to be, how powerful the Reidmar really is and how it behaves at the limit.

If you make two 1x12"s that are each identical to half your 2x12" and stack them, you won't be able to tell the difference. If you've compared the equivalent 1x12"s stacked and they don't sound the same then they're not identical, hence the difference. Most 1x12"s are not exact half 2x12"s so they sound different. Ironically where a 2x10" is often bigger than half a 4x10" a 1x12" is often smaller than half a 2x12" so they have less depth and fatness to the bottom and more of a midrange hump. Doesn't have to be that way though. P.S. You can tune any size cab to any frequency, just change the port length and/or area. The internal volume and the port losses make up the other half of the LF behaviour (for a given woofer and enclosure stiffness). The midrange depends on the cab size/shape/damping etc (for a given woofer etc).

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1346259382' post='1787163']I am still not convinced 2 1x12s are the same as a single 2x12.[/quote] They're not. You can't leave half a 2x12" at home! But in terms of performance, if they're sized proportionately, tuned the same, same driver, proportional port area, all other details correct, then the performance will be essentially identical, with any differences coming down to minor variations causing personal taste preference, nothing absolute. The bigger folly is assuming that all 1x12"s to have similar performance and all 2x12"s to have similar performance. The best 12" drivers can do what you'd need three of the lesser ones to achieve!

If you don't see the light come on then you've bought a more powerful amp than you need!

Neither! The clip/limit light comes on 6dB before the amp clips and then squishes another 2dB of output into that last 6dB. It does a pretty good job of emulating the feel of a valve amp at its limit. So with a 900W amp it'll light at a 500W peak. If the light is turning on and off throughout your gig then it means you're using quite a lot of your amp's power but it'll be fine with that, and your cab certainly will! If the light is on absolutely constantly and you're playing a long set in a hot venue (or in the sun outdoors) then it might go into protect mode but if it does then it'll be fine once it cools down again. It would be a much more useful light if it came on when the amp actually hit the hard limiter (and/or clipped) instead of lighting when the soft limiter starts working.