alexclaber

Computer leads will work but usually have the wrong size fuse for more powerful amps - definitely something to check before you have a mid-gig nightmare!

Cordless kettles are all well and good but they're a right pain the neck when you've lost your amp lead...

[quote name='stefBclef' timestamp='1345548920' post='1778620']Just trying to understand this mate. Are you saying that the two decent 15's was the key to the rig sounding how it did (of course coupled with the room acoustics and other things) and a rig with a 115 and 410 would not yield similar results? But you also say that the view that larger speakers favour lower frequencies is wrong. So couldnt a 410 do just a good a job as the 115?[/quote] I'm saying that all the components contributed. You were liking the tone of the rig through the mids and high and that also is affected by the dispersion. That Peavey 4x10" doesn't sound like those Peavey 1x15"s, and the dispersion isn't as good, so the tone will be different. It will move as much air so the bottom may be similar, assuming the two cabs couple fairly well. I'd recommend stacking the 1x15" on top of the 4x10" and that should get you closer to the tone of the 2x15" rig, than the traditional 4x10" on top of 1x15" arrangement. Suck it and see!

I may be there - I'm not very good at thinking that far ahead...

You had enough volume displacement (two decent 15"s), the cab positioned in a good spot acoustically for the lows and a dispersion pattern that suited the cab position and room acoustics. I wouldn't bet on the 4x10"+1x15" stack replicating this experience. [QUOTE][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Trying to answer the original question regarding speaker sizes, I cocurr with the generally held view that 15's tend to favour the low fundamental frequencies & the low mid's which we associate with warmth/fullness/roundness. 10's tend to favour the higher mid's which we interpret as punch/attack/clarity. 12's favour the mid's & hence are favoured by lead guitarists.[/QUOTE][/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]If you stopped concurring with these generally held but incorrect views then you'd have more of a chance of understanding! [/font][/color]

So far two Barefaced cabs have been stolen, both Midgets! I hate to think how many micro-amps vanish before/during/after gigs...

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1345189907' post='1774655'] Remember, lightweight cabs are just helping the thieves I actually NEVER worried about my Line6 as it weight in at 96lb iirc. Any poor git tried to nick that they'd be in for a shock and i'd probably find it less than 100m down the road [/quote] I felt the same about my trusty Peavey combo! Phil, if you maintain (or increase) stiffness through bracing, whilst lowering mass, you raise the resonance of the panels to the point that they are no longer excited by pressure but instead excited by the backwave, and the backwave and the resulting panel emittance can be damped effectively, unlike pressure changes which you don't want to damp (as they excite the port). In the process you also reduce the backwave reflection which exits through the cone. Personally I consider panel resonance in a loudspeaker a horrible thing unless it's being used to cancel unwanted energy - the last thing I'd want is significant acoustic energy radiating from a panel, with particular consideration being given to how it screws up transient response.

I remember a lot of bassists getting paranoid about the older SWR amps which had no fans and relied on the aluminium casing acting as a heatsink/radiator, thus causing the casing to reach temperatures which would otherwise indicate imminent failure in a conventional steel-cased fan-cooled amp. I don't know if SWR changed their approach due to this paranoia or for cost reasons but I suspect it was a bit of both.

The biggest pitfall I see with any kind of blind testing or having multiple person's opinions on one person's tone, is that you're not dealing with a hi-fi system. The bassist who is playing has control of their volume and tone by what they do with their fingers. They will naturally do what they need to do to get the tone and loudness they want where they're standing. Unless you can then take that bassist and make them simultaneously stand and listen in multiple spots around the venue then all you're getting is a bunch of different opinions as opposed to anything objective.

If you're going to try to do an actually useful and representative scientific test then you need to make it as much like a gig as possible, with all the interesting acoustics, noisy bandmates, variable audience, etc. I've thought about this stuff a lot and have yet to think of a better way to honestly test a cab for yourself than to play some gigs with it. It's nice that people want to understand what's going on and take an analytical approach to bass cab performance (it's how I ended up doing what I do) but it is incredibly complicated and to get a test scenario that produces valid and realistic results would be nigh on impossible. Anyway, who cares whether a panel of other bassists say that cab X is better according to their tests if cab Y works better for you?

Better reading skills there! The Compact is probably no better but the point still stands for the Super Twelve.

I don't think the term punch is nonsensical at all btw. It does have a habit of getting confused with thump though. But a little 2x10" with low volume displacement might sound nice and 'punchy' in quieter situations, push it a bit harder and the cones start overexcursing and all the thump and punch vanishes. It's a bit like the thump in the back you get from accelerating hard in a fast car. When you crank the volume up and the cones overexcurse it's like putting that car on snow - suddenly all that current generating a magnetic field from the voice coil has very little magnetic force pushing back as the voice coil is no longer in between the magnet's pole pieces - just like the tyres trying to push against the tarmac but getting no push back because the snow is in the way. I'd say the Compact's is more of a low hook to the stomach whilst a Super Twelve has a much wider repertoire, including the Glasgow kiss should your guitarist be getting ideas above his station...

[quote name='warwickhunt' timestamp='1344005384' post='1758606']That is based upon the fact that you think that the GB cab that you have lacks 'punch' (a term which I'm sure AC, BFM and many others will say is nonsensical and meaningless) and that you play in a rock/blues band.[/quote] Use the right head and bass and attitude and a Compact will 'out-punch' an STL210. A Super Twelve will absolutely slaughter it and dance on its grave. Fact. (Edited for better metaphor).

I should add that I heard his band and it sounded good and he's a decent bassist and I liked his tone on the recordings. But the combination of factors didn't work, and the main problem was that bloody SVT3!

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1343839155' post='1756143']Obviously there's some kind of history and connection between the two of you, & I've read back as far back as I can be arsed to to see where this exchange started. But this is a genuine question and not a dig; do you usually discuss your clients' requirements, what they asked for, where they went wrong etc on a public forum? As I say, genuine, I'm not accusing you of blame, it may not be you that "started it".[/quote] The history was that back in 2009 we had two Barefaced Compacts which went out for Basschatters to try. Lots of people used them and reported back. Gareth was the first link in the chain with one of those cabs and I asked what amp he had and said that it should be fine for his band and the gig he had coming up. He then used someone else's amp for the gig and that amp was the SVT3 which I knew wouldn't have been suitable. And since then he's posted a few dozen times on talkbass and basschat about the deficiency of the Compact when he gigged it. So no, he's never been a customer, he's one of the many basschatters that tried a Compact during the 'Barefaced on tour' thread. Apart from the initial pm or email exchange about what address to send it to, what's your amp and what's your band sound like exchange, everything since then has been open on the basschat or talkbass forum.

Pete, we have a one month trial period and we don't want to waste people's time or our own time selling them an inappropriate cab, or waste their money and our money shipping it back and forth. Our smaller cabs (unsurprisingly) can't handle certain bigger gigs in certain styles and ones without tweeters won't do certain tones etc etc. Our Super Twelve T does everything you'd expect a great 4x10" to do (but better in other ways). But if you're chasing smaller and lighter than we wouldn't want someone to end up with something that can't do what they want because they're pushing the envelope too far. [quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1343837802' post='1756113']I think the main problem is, people don't like being patronised, (which tends to be the approach that the guys who just cut and paste from the internet do). In addition, people don't like being told what is right and wrong when some of it is theory. They don't like being told their gear is wrong, when they've been happy with it for years.[/quote] This all seems much more of an emotional and psychological issue than an amplification one! For the record, we ran an offer last December which was a pre-Xmas offer and it was clearly stated as such. Gareth emailed me in February and again in May asking if we could repeat the that offer or do another discount. We don't do discounts or endorsements unless there's a really strong business case (like Flea saying "I want a cab!") because it wouldn't be fair to everyone else, many of whom are working bassists, who are paying full price. Others ask as well. I'm sorry I mentioned it, I'm just getting tired of hearing the same things over and over and over and over again from the same person!

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1343836699' post='1756082']My playing and my bass?! The same bass and style of playing I used in the same band for years?![/quote] The COMBINATION of your playing, your bass, the amp and the cab. And the strings come to that. That's why every time you email me asking if you can have a Compact for cheap, I email you back asking a whole bunch of questions like this: "What amp do you use? What cab(s) do you currently use? What do/don't you like about them? What music do you usually play? What kind of bass sounds are you into (links to youtube etc clips helpful)? What bass(es) do you play? What strings do you use and how new/old do you like them? What kind of gigs do you usually play?" It is all interactive! Last year someone persuaded me to sell them a Compact even though I said it was the wrong choice - and it came back. Nowadays people get the cab (or one of the cabs) that I say will suit or they don't get anything. There's no way I'd have suggested you gig with an SVT3 and a Compact doing the music you were doing back then, no way!

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1343836095' post='1756060']Original thread idea was discussing why a cheaper 4x10 still does the job.[/quote] I used a Fiat Panda hire car on holiday. It did the job (and was quite fun in a comedy little car way). I wouldn't want to drive it every day (and my current car is a 100k+ Honda Civic so it's not exactly posh). I'd be perfectly happy moving an Ashdown 4x10" around though the tone would drive me mad. But if you like it then use it. What's the problem with that?

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1343835950' post='1756052']Here is another thing to add to the thread. When testing the Compact at a gig, (early version, but same 'spec' im guessing) why could I not hear myself? The band said 'well, there is bass and we can feel it, but we can't hear it'. I didn't like the amp, I admit, an Ampeg Pro 3 which wasn't mine, but the mids were boosted. I am quite heavy on mids if necessary, but we couldn't hear the bass notes. Just felt bass. Discuss! I am happy to be wrong, but I want to know exactly why![/quote] I've told you a thousand times why. The amp wasn't powerful enough for your band, the tone of the amp and cab and your bass and your playing wasn't suitable for your band (bear in mind you said you were going to use it with a different and more powerful and less muddy amp but then didn't) and the only output that was loud enough to cut through the mix was down at the bottom. If you use an amp you don't like with one of our cabs then the cab is only going to show off why you don't like it! And if it's not very powerful then it's going to be even worse because you'll only hear the bits that are out of the range of the other instruments, i.e. below the guitars and in between kick drum hits.

For those of you that don't think this stuff matters enough to be worth caring about when choosing a cab (or indeed designing one), what the hell are you doing wasting your time on a forum about bass amps?!

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1343823376' post='1755742']Drumkit and available space normally dictates where you are going. Yes, place your amp in the ideal space but that will probably fck up the stage plan for everybody else.[/quote] A cab with better polar response will work better in less ideal positions than a cab with poor polar response. [quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1343823376' post='1755742']OK, soundcheck. Sounds great. Now the previously empty room fills with people. What happens? Yes, your sound completely changes.[/quote] Funnily enough, look what I wrote a few hours ago: [quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1343814974' post='1755517']Good polar response means your cab sounds more consistent from venue to venue. Poor polar response means that in acoustically dead rooms your cab will sound more dull than in an acoustically live room. So if you soundcheck and get the perfect tone without the audience present, once the room fills up your tone will be too dull and boomy. A cab with good polar response will sound much more consistent in different room acoustics because the direct sound is much more similar to the reflected sound.[/quote] Using science and engineering to design better loudspeakers isn't about trying to make some theoretically 'ideal' (WTF would what be anyway?) bass cab, or making something that sounds good in theory but not in practice (HTF do you manage that unless you're some hack who doesn't really have a clue what the scientific method entails?) This isn't some kind of pure maths style playing around with ethereal bollocks, it's actually looking at the REALITY of gigging and using engineering to design cabs that perform better in the REAL WORLD, not in a guitar shop or in someone's bedroom. A cab that you know you can trust to sound as good as possible when the stage layout isn't great, when the room acoustics are poor, when you don't have time to soundcheck properly, when the guitarist or drummer play too loud so you end up pushing it really hard. f*** theory, this is about PLAYING REAL GIGS!

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1343820708' post='1755673']So it can reach the ears of the punters that giveth not a sh1t! And if the punters give not a sh1t, then it really doesn't matter if the sound is uniform around the world/room/whatever. This is coming from real world experience folks. You saw it all here first![/quote] If none of the punters give a sh1t then why bother playing gigs? Music is nothing without tone, the two are inextricably linked. The reaction a band will receive is dependent on what they sound like (and look like because we're visual creatures too). The sound of band is a combination of what they're playing, how they're playing together, what everyone's tones are like, how they interact and so on and so forth. A band that sounds better SOUNDS BETTER! If someone comes away from a gig saying "that band sounded amazing" aren't they most likely to be talking about how good the music sounded? And isn't one component of the music sounding good being the mix of the instruments sounding good wherever that punter was standing?

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1343820458' post='1755662']Well I wouldn't be too amazed as you seem to be falling into the same category as me, eg having and opinion.[/quote] I have opinions but I generally keep them to myself. Nowadays I try as much as possible to talk in facts and truth. It's a bit of an obsession of mine. It's one reason that I'm an engineer and one reason that I really can't stand the machination of both the political and legal system as they tend to revolve around opinions, presentation, precedent and so on. Unfortunately I can't think of a better solution to either system! I just want what is good (or better) and want to avoid what is not good (or worse). That remains true for anything I'm doing or buying or designing or writing and so on. If I was anti-4x10" I wouldn't have designed a 6x10" - in fact I spent quite some time seeing if we could achieve loud enough results with a 4x10" because it would have been smaller. Sadly we couldn't. But I've made sure this nx10" cab has good polar response through better design.

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1343820416' post='1755661'][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]you're better to start by getting the best sound that you can, but letting theory dictate it completely is missing the mark completely.[/font][/color][/quote] Exactly! Get the tone right and then do whatever you can to not lose that tone once the complexities of the real world encroach.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1343816834' post='1755569']I agree entirely. All of a sudden we have 'experts' sniping and pulling people's posts apart just because they have been reading something through wikipedia. It's all well and good to protest you understand these things, but I very much doubt the intricacies matter in real life gigging. Next time I see RHCP or Jamiroquai I'll be sure to tweet them/email them and say 'hey guys you can't use a 4x10 or mix speakers cabs...the world might implode'. It doesn't matter, and more importantly the FOH will change your tone anyway no doubt.[/quote] The world isn't black and white and nor is amplification. Just because another approach works BETTER it doesn't mean that a previous approach suddenly doesn't work. But ask yourself, if you can do something better without any downsides then why wouldn't you? Regarding what big touring acts are doing, don't forget that this is the music BUSINESS! If you're using a huge PA with big monitors and massive FOH speakers then the stage rig is all but irrelevant. And if the stage rig is all but irrelevant, then why wouldn't you use the rig that you're either paid to use, give free of charge or at a substantial discount? I'll never cease to be amazed by the modern human's ability to subdivide themselves into cliques of big-endians vs little-endians, or 4x10" vs 2x12", or flat vs coloured, or 29er vs 26er (MTB reference) or petrol vs diesel, or creationism vs evolution and so on. It's just silly. Jonathan Swift was satirising this folly back in 1726. We don't live in small tribes any more but most people still act like it!