alexclaber

Everyone's idea of what is deep bottom is different. From a purely quantitative sense the TC amps have been shown to not have seriously deep bottom, especially under heavy load - in other words they wouldn't work well driving subwoofers. However that doesn't mean they don't sound deep and fat to many bassists. A bassists idea of "masses of low end" is often an octave or more removed from what a subwoofer needs. Having to wind the bass knob back doesn't mean that the amp has tons of deep lows, it means it sounds too bassy for you - and that encompasses about three octaves. I'm talking about the bottom bass octave - not the other two which are the ones that you're finding too strong. If you get to use a clean flat preamp into a big power amp you'll understand what I mean. If you haven't then you don't have a good benchmark to make qualitative assumptions from. Read this too: [url="http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/Huge-lows.htm"]http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/Huge-lows.htm[/url] The TC amps are good - we have enough happy TC+Barefaced customers to know that. But I'm still disappointed.

I've said this so so so many times in many different ways: 100W into a 4x12" will be loud. Get a 1x12" that's one quarter the size but has a cutting edge woofer which has four times the excursion (ie one woofer can move as much air as all four in the 4x12") and you'll need 800W to reach the same loudness. So very high power amps aren't just about playing huge stages in very loud bands - they're about being able to physically downsize your rig with no loss of tone, loudness or bottom (as long as you have a cab that can leverage that power). If you're going to test high power amps, especially on the USA's weedy mains power supply, you need a stabilised power supply. That was the fall-down with the Genz test. I'm glad they've improved their method!

[quote name='Musicman20' post='1352027' date='Aug 26 2011, 09:21 AM']It definitely outperforms the Markbass 500W amps and the Genz Shuttle 6.0 in terms of volume.[/quote] Just because some bassists think that doesn't make it true. If you like what the TC amp does as it runs out of power then you'll think it's loud. If you don't then you'll think it's overly compressed and lacking in deep bottom. It's just like how a lot of people think 300W valve amps are really really loud but personally I find them lacking in clean oomph. We have lots of happy customers using the TC amps but I don't recommend them universally because of the sound of their APM system. Clever technology by TC. Disappointed by their marketing. The main frustration for me is that we make cabs that can handle (and do good things with!) huge power but because everyone else is making cabs with much lower power handling and max output (the TC cabs being a prime example) no-one is really making a lightweight head that can get every last dB out of them. The end result is that we're working on launching a lightweight head ASAP that really does have huge honest power output...

Mike, you're welcome to borrow my rack power amp for a gig or two to see if it makes a useful difference. My gut feeling is that you'd need an amp with a good limiter and highpass filtering so you can use the extra power to its full extent, in which case 2-3x as much power plus nice compression at full tilt could feel like a 6dB gain. But the proof is in the pudding!

[url="http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/mythbusters1.htm"]http://barefacedbass.com/technical-informa...ythbusters1.htm[/url] I'll add some valve specific stuff when I have some time! Valve amps sound louder than solidstate amps for a given power rating but are no harder on the speakers than a solidstate amp of the same power rating. Same reason those TC Electronic amps sound like amps of about twice their actual power rating, because they use DSP to simulate valve amp behaviour.

[quote name='flyfisher' post='1345280' date='Aug 19 2011, 11:44 AM']I think of 'punch' as meaning how quickly the speaker cone can react to the signal from the amp. Because there is mass involved, a smaller, lighter speaker cone should be able to move faster than a bigger heavier one.[/quote] Two articles about transient response and 'punch': [url="http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/speaker-size-frequency-response.htm"]http://barefacedbass.com/technical-informa...cy-response.htm[/url] [url="http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/what-is-punch.htm"]http://barefacedbass.com/technical-informa...at-is-punch.htm[/url] Remember F=m.a And there's inductance to think about too!

As the Peavey is louder, if you also prefer the tone of then why not just go back to it?

If I were you I'd get something like a little secondhand Peavey or Trace Elliot combo (something sub 50W) and some kind of DI which interfaces with your recording system (Whirlwind passive DIs aren't expensive, sound good and are bombproof). That'll all cost about £100. Keep the other £700 for when you have more idea of what you want (note that a little 1x10" combo can work really well for studio micing and many great bass tracks are DI'd, so the rest of your budget could be entirely wasted from a recording quality context) and/or need something louder for gigging. Another choice would be the Line6 LowDown Studio 110 which will deal with the DI and micing side of the recording process in one box.

Yes I can see that. But if someone tells you that it sounds different because of the different wood density/thickness/weight then it tells you one of two things: 1. They don't know what they're talking about. 2. Their cabs aren't properly braced. Fortunately it's more often the former than the latter. If I cared about our cabs being 'extremely lightweight' we wouldn't use heavier (and more potent but more expensive) neo woofers than everyone else!

The weight or density of the cab has absolutely no bearing on the tone or the bottom end [b]if[/b] it's made properly. All that matters is having sufficient stiffness to raise the panel resonances high enough that they can be effectively damped. It astounds me how many people in the industry* still think that a bass cab resonates like a bass guitar or double bass and thus the weight affects the sound. There are two upsides to making cabs heavy - it's cheap and it impresses people that still believe heavy weight = heavy tone. * I totally understand bassists thinking this when they've been fed so much misinformation for so long!

[quote name='Musicman20' post='1337487' date='Aug 12 2011, 12:14 PM']...."for sheer output and lowend, the NY122 wins hands down, because its made with thicker wood..."[/quote] And Usain Bolt runs fast because he has big feet. I despair...

It's a common assumption that the midrange driver on the Big Baby will make it 'punchier' than the Compact. In reality the Big Baby actually sounds much wider and bigger, going deeper and higher and being smoother and cleaner throughout its range - more like a big hi-fi speaker than a bass cab. For those that like the Compact but want yet more punch (and handily greater voltage sensitivity and power handling) the Super Twelve is the cab to get.

The reason you've found neos to have more punch and better highs than ferrite is because it's easier to get more flux through the magnetic gap. But it all comes down to the design of the magnetic system and voice coil. If I wanted to I could design a neo guitar driver that performs almost exactly like a ferrite or AlNiCo driver or a ferrite bass driver that performs like a neo bass driver. A lot of guitar and bass speakers sound the way they sound because that's just how the parts come together to produce a result but that doesn't mean you can't be much more prescriptive in the design process.

I'd expect your old rig to sound quite a bit louder and fatter than the new one when both are pushed to the limits - you have more power now but you don't have the volume displacement to take advantage of it. If you reduce cone area you have to get the volume displacement back through increased cone excursion or you'll lose out on the max LF SPL front. The magnet material doesn't really have any effect on the sound - it's way way down the list of things that affect the tone/performance of a speaker.

Turn the knobs as high as you need them to get the loudness you need. If that doesn't get you what you need then you haven't got enough power, power handling or sensitivity - the speakers are likely to be the limiting factor. Realistically you're looking at under 200W excursion limited power handling from the 2x10" enclosure and under 97dB sensitivity so 120dB at best, more like 116dB - that certainly isn't quiet but it'll struggle in a rock band without considerate guitarists. Add more speakers if you need more loudness.

If it's a real 300W with good dynamic power and a good limiter then more power won't do anything useful for your, bar the psychological benefit...

[quote name='bassman7755' post='1328565' date='Aug 5 2011, 12:13 PM']Would now be a good time get in my personal shopping list of features ?? [/quote] Well there's no harm in that!

[quote name='aldude' post='1327815' date='Aug 4 2011, 09:20 PM']Question is, do I get a Barefaced Compact to go with the Super 12 giving a 2.7ohm load to my RH450? Some input from Alex would be useful here. And what are the signs that this arrangement would not be treating the amp so well?[/quote] If you need yet more output and more bottom than that'll work very well. TC states that their amps can be used with three of their own 8 ohm cabs and the impedance plots shown by Bass Gear Magazine show that their 8 ohm cabs have a perfectly typical impedance curve for an 8 ohm nominal cab. Therefore by deduction this confirms that the amps can indeed run a 2.7 ohm nominal load! They'll definitely run three Barefaced 8 ohm cabs or one 4 ohm and one 8 ohm without any problems. I'd strongly bet that this is true for any correctly rated 4 or 8 ohm cabs but without seeing measurements I can't guarantee it - some cabs are a more difficult load than others, the old EA ones being notably challenging. In the very unlikely event that there are problems the amp will go into heat-shutdown mode and will show an H on the LED display. Once it cools down it will start up again and run as normal. But it's very unlikely unless you block the cooling vents or play a very loud outdoor gig with it in strong direct sunlight (i.e. not with our feeble British sun!)

Exactly. Some people find the TC amps sound very loud to them because the APM does its stuff in a way that's pleasing to their ears - I know I wouldn't because I don't like that kind of compression etc - and I'm used to hearing what real clean uncompressed 1000W+ power sounds and feels like courtesy of my QSC PLX 3002. The RH750 really shows the value of this APM DSP because it has the performance of a real 450W head plus APM - in other words what the RH450 should be like without such games being played... The upside is I can tell customers who want maximum volume from minimum size to buy the '1600W' Blacksmith and crank it into a Midget with impunity! The downside is getting a properly high power Barefaced head sorted is more urgent than ever.

As the impedance plots in Bass Gear Magazine have shown, the TC heads run down to a 2.7 ohm minimum nominal load, whoever's cabs you're using.

Interesting stuff. Based on those impedance plots the only logical conclusion to come to is that the RH450 and RH750 are both comfortable down to 2.7 ohms (i.e. three 8 ohm cabs or one 4 ohm and one 8 ohm, in parallel). Disappointed by their specsmanship - I had assumed that the RH450 was a real 450W and the APM made it feel like ~800W. Still, lots of happy customers prove it works but it's a shame they're playing those games... On the other hand I'm impressed with Orange Terror Bass's bench performance (glad to see the 4/8 ohm switch actually works!) whilst the SP cabs measure out pretty much exactly how I thought they would based on the design and customer feedback (sensitivity is very low and midrange uneven).

When it comes to the specifics of loudspeakers and acoustics I'm essentially self-taught. But I have a BEng from Bristol in Mechanical Engineering (and obviously the relevant A-levels before that) and the general principles of engineering apply directly to the specifics of loudspeakers. I find car suspension and chassis design curiously fascinating too - a complex resonant system like a loudspeaker and a structural challenge like a cabinet. And just like good speakers can best be designed by those that are good at listening as well as analysing (and I'd argue that bass cabs are best designed by those that are good at playing too!) so too cars are best designed by those that can drive them well and feel how on paper differences translate in the real world - Jaguar's (now retired?) suspension guru Mike Cross being a fine example. Charic, if you understand mics, just reverse them and you'll understand speakers! An oversimplication but there's a very close correlation. I've yet to see anything definitive on group delay but my current feelings are that well designed ported cabs are so much better at high SPL that they make far more sense for pro sound, even if at small signal levels sealed or TL cabs perform better. Few things are more frustrating to me than seeing a great loudspeaker designer produce something that performs really well at low levels in test rooms when in reality it'll be used in much louder situations in rooms with difficult acoustics - what a waste of effort and ability, like making a large family car that is really safe and comfy at low speeds but that wobbles and feels unstable at motorway speeds. However for studio/hi-fi designs I've been leaning towards sealed, TL and open baffle designs for some time now. Mr Meyer and Mr Linkwitz are both high up on my list of loudspeaker designers well worth taking notice of!

It does sound like there isn't enough power (low voltage caused by the current draw down a long cable or even current supply issues) for the main SMPS to start up - there's usually a small power supply that powers up first and then regulates the powering up of the main SMPS. The 4A trip will be a slow blow to avoid problems from switching on or transients. Not much you can do other than bring a huge heavy gauge extension lead with you!

Sounds like an under-voltage issue due to the chained extension leads. Approximately how long was the total run of leads between mains sockets and power amp?

[quote name='JTUK' post='1322441' date='Jul 31 2011, 08:07 PM']Interesting..but I have my doubts that you could drive that hard with a 500watt amp. I think I am close to the limits with 2x210's for 550w..??[/quote] For many 2x2x10" rigs you'll be well past their limits of clean power handling in the lows (i.e. excursion limited power handling) with 550W - however it isn't the cone size that determines the real world power handling, it's the volume displacement, and that depends on cone area multiplied by cone excursion. If you keep cone excursion the same and double cone area (i.e. going from 2x10" to 4x10") then you double the volume displacement, thus gaining 6dB of max output. Doubling cone area increases sensitivity by 3dB so the extra 3dB comes from a doubling of excursion limited power handling. Alternatively you could keep cone area the same and double cone excursion (for instance going from 4mm to 8mm) thus doubling the volume displacement and gaining 6dB of max output. As the cone area hasn't changed there is no change in sensitivity (assuming you've kept moving mass constant) so the 6dB of output comes from a quadrupling of excursion limited power handling. In that past both Bergantino and Euphonic Audio have sold 2x10" cabs with high excursion woofers (the HT210 and VL210) which exhibited an amazing ability to handle power in the lows compared to other 2x10"s. The reason was their very high volume displacement and thus excursion limited power handling. If this cab is of this ilk (it looks like it is) then it will handle plenty of power. Interestingly enough the Bergantino HS cabs take the opposite approach, with low excursion limited power handling but high sensitivity, so they get more clean output from low powered amps, but you'd need about twice the cone area in HS cabs to match the clean bottom from HT cabs. Comparing cab performance by grouping them due to speaker configuration is about as useful as comparing car engines by grouping them due to engine capacity - and the variance in speakers in current production in bass cabs is like comparing a modern cutting edge 5.0 V8 to a mid '70s mainstream production example - the new engine manages to produce more than twice as much power whilst using far less fuel and producing fewer nasty emissions - indeed there are plenty of 2.0 4 cylinder engines on the market which will more than match the generic smallblock V8s of the '70s in terms of power and torque curves.