alexclaber

This is the peril of the internet! Without knowing how someone plays and how they describe tone you can totally end up misunderstanding each other. I'm not quite sure how to explain things without offending anyone, but I'll try! ;-) So if you measure the BB2 it has near flat response, even as you go off-axis. There are no humps in the lows and they roll off smoothly and don't go super low and then drop more steeply (like some cabs based around more subwoofer type drivers). It also has very fast transient response, through the whole frequency spectrum. If you put a tight punchy sound into it you will get one of the tightest punchiest sounds out that you've ever heard. If you put a sound with aggressive mids in, you'll get that out. And so on. However, it is VERY clean. It will not thicken up your sound (this is often caused by humps in the lows that slow the transients and/or by distortion in the lows adding more in the mid-bass. It will not add thump (similar to thickening) to your sound. It will not add punch to your sound (this is often caused by compression and/or distortion adding more midrange harmonics). With most bassists I manage to read between the lines of what they say about gear to work out what they need. With maybe one in a hundred I don't get it right initially. After reading on here how dave_bass5 couldn't get his sound happening with our cabs I read more about how he talked about his playing. I get it now - and each additional post about it confirms what he needs and why he needs that - but it's not typical. Just to be clear, our 12XN models are as flat through the mids (no dips or peaks) as cabs get. Our 10CR cabs have a bit of a dip in the mids - but they're also less clean sounding. Occasionally someone will do lots and lots of research online trying to work out which is the best Barefaced cab for them - sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. Regardless, I always ask the questions and tell them which is the best fit. I can't recall a time that someone was right on that front and I was wrong - it must have happened but it's not frequent (thankfully!)

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1506036032' post='3376104']Completely agree that a good speaker makes a massive difference to the volume / quality of sound etc and speaker efficiency plays a big part in this. But let's assume we are dealing with high quality cabs e.g. Barefaced or Vanderkley or Tecamp / Eich and not some general piece of pub heating equipment![/quote] It isn't just about "good" though. It depends on the design goals - some great bass cabs are not efficient but some are. With matching goals and and equally good execution then the larger cab will always be the more efficient cab. [quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1506036032' post='3376104']Are you really saying that 300W through a 4ohm BF cab will sound no louder than 150W through an equivalent 8ohm BF cab?[/quote] We don't make identical 4 and 8 ohm models. But an ~8 ohm Four10 is pretty much as loud as a ~4 ohm Super Twin - and according to one of the first Four10 owners, much louder than a pretty good quality 4x8+1x15 4 ohm stack.

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1505990763' post='3375668'] Chris in principle a BF 8ohm could be great, I agree, but the issue here is that the OP's amp will put out a lot less power at 8ohm than 4ohm and that is likely to be a key limiting factor here. 300W at 4ohm will generally = 150W at 8ohm correct? 150W is not going to leave much (if any) headroom for most gigs and would require the amp to be driven quite hard. [/quote] Wattage is nowhere near as important as most bassists think. 150W into a great 4x10" will demolish 500W into a mediocre 2x10". Speakers are very very inefficient at turning electrical power into acoustic power, they mostly turn your hundreds of watts of electricity into hundreds of watts of waste heat.

[quote name='lownote12' timestamp='1504935204' post='3368372'] Its easy with Barefaced cabs. They're programmed to incrementally distress with time. I look after mine like a baby and yet the Tolex is starting to peel. [/quote] We had some adhesive problems with early tolexed cabs. I thought they'd all been sorted. If you'd like some help then please email us.

Shipping both ways across the Atlantic costs far more than the depreciation on an as-new Barefaced cab when sold in North America!

As long as you avoid the cheap rubbish they basically all sound the same on good European power! Any differences you hear will only be once the amp runs out of headroom and that'll come down to power amp specifics, limited designs, soft clipping implementation, etc. There's definitely a bigger issue in North America because they only have half as much voltage coming out of the wall. Yay for proper 220V+ power (we have the most here in the UK).

I have a hypothesis about "road worn" or whatever you call them older instruments vs mint condition ones. If you had a few basses which were similar, you'd usually choose to play the one that sounded best. And as things like Fenders were mass produced with a somewhat variable eye on quality control, they do tend to vary in sound rather a lot. So generally, the most worn looking basses (particularly wear from playing as opposed to neglect) are likely to be the best sounding ones. I'm not saying that mint condition vintage instruments all sound bad - but do close your eyes when playing them so you don't fool yourself!

Hi all, Apologies for the lack of response but we've been really busy and this R&D takes time. I wasn't expecting anyone to send us pickups that they needed back within a fairly short timescale but I should have made that more clear. If you need yours back now then please email us at [email protected] - don't use the pm system here. Thanks! Alex

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1504777984' post='3367214'] I think the fairest comparisson between cabs i can make is the Genz Benz STL-12T and the Barefaced Midget-T, both have similar specs, similar drivers...[/quote] The only thing similar about those drivers is the nominal diameter. Seriously, they could barely be more different! And the difference between them in the cabs they're in explains the different your drummer was hearing, which is nothing to do with the port location.

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1504626354' post='3366161'] I'll give you an example to explain my POV, imagine a kick drum, stand behind it (next to the drummer) and listen to the sound. Now move to the other side, in front of the kick port, and listen to it. Isn't it different? There is some sound and tone comming out of the port, not just air, not just the tuning freqs. In practise it will add up to the rest of the cab's tone and make a (small but present) difference. [/quote] It sounds different when you stand on the other side because: 1. You're standing in a different part of the room so the reverb and standing waves are different. 2. A skin being hit by a beater sounds different to a skin resonating in sympathy. 3. A skin with a hole in it sounds different to a skin without a hole in it. If a kick drum only made low frequency sound then your analogy would correlate somewhat but as lots of frequencies come off a kick drum and only the lowest are omnidirectional then it doesn't at all.

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1503661166' post='3360054']... tidying up that bottom end can make the listening experience much more pleasurable for the average listener [/quote] "Pleasurable? PLEASURABLE?!! No no no, we want to kill them to death with bass awesomeness!"

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1503657701' post='3360008'] [/quote] Exactly! So apologies if I appear to ignore most of you!

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1503643673' post='3359838']There's a lot of love on HPF on bass amps over in some bits of talkbass - and the micro thumpinator is well regarded here. I think it's a way of taking the rumble out when playing live without cutting all the bottom end.[/quote] I like high pass filters for taking out the pointlessly low stuff that just sucks amp power and wastes cone excursion - but if a cab is well designed then it shouldn't need highpassing to remove audible lows that are part of the sound of bass guitar. I suspect a lot of the popularity of highpass filters is because bassists going tiny with rigs often end up pushing the speakers beyond what they can handle, which messes with the tone. Remove the deepest lows and that lets the cabs work as intended. I think there's also a a technique issues - you are in control of the sounds coming out, if you don't want deep rumble then don't play like that! But that woolliness that can happen, I don't think that's always (or even often) because of the presence of the deepest lows but because making those deepest lows is forcing the woofers to over-excurse and thus their transient response is no longer half as good as it should be. There aren't many bass amps on the market that let the lowest lows through anyway, almost all have some degree of highpass filtering built in!

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1503513435' post='3358880']How far are you away from releasing a Mark 1 version?[/quote] Hopefully months rather than years! But we haven't done this before and no corners will be cut so it could take a long time...

[quote name='funkle' timestamp='1503488186' post='3358607']I think an adjustable HPF is essential for a cab with a big low end... ...Which begs the question...why carry a cab with that much low end, only to have to remove it with EQ? lol[/quote] I don't recommend using high pass filters with Barefaced Gen 3 cabs except in two particular circumstances - acoustic/double bassists using variable ones to help with feedback and bassist with very powerful rackmount power amps which run flat to subsonic frequencies (most decent power amps have switchable highpass filters built in). I can understand wanting one with 3012LF based cabs because of how that driver is. I wouldn't say I'm ignoring everyone because obviously we'd like this amp to be the ideal amp for lots of bassists but the concept is solely mine, I know what I want and I hope I know what a lot of you want (even though you might not realise it). As Henry Ford said "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have said 'faster horses'" A while back we did a poll about amps over on facebook and the variety of opinions on feature sets (and the strength of opinion on them) was remarkable. Just EQ choices alone could have left everyone arguing for days... Not making an amp would be madness - I spend almost as much time helping our customers with amp buying decisions as I do with cabs but we don't get to sell any of the amps! And I wouldn't want to sell someone else's amp unless I thought it was perfect and was exactly the amp I'd design for me.

[quote name='fftc' timestamp='1503392525' post='3357769'] Most pro rigs I've seen seem to use masking tape and a felt pen! [/quote] Yes, that's the bit you can see!

[quote name='la bam' timestamp='1503333988' post='3357350'] Amp wise: For me rotary dials are best as you can make fairly accurate notes what your settings are - ie 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock etc. But what I'd really like is dials that click into the desired position and don't move easily like a usual dial once set. This ensures your settings don't move about during transportation, set up and removal, even when in a case. The amount of gigs I've done where I've had to continually check every dial when setting up and sound checking is annoying, so a good dial thst clicks into position would be great. [/quote] This is something one of our endorsers brought up - we're borrowing his solution!

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1503305225' post='3356968'] Does the Barefaced Six10 [name correction] have tilt back casters? Asking for a friend... [/quote] The Super Twin, Big Twin 2, Six10 and Eight10 all have tilt and roll casters and top handles, as well as side handles.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1503061000' post='3355411'] I hope you took the string off the bass first? [/quote] I was saved from that mistake because it wouldn't fit in the pan, even dipping the headstock and neck in and waiting for it to soften up like spaghetti...

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1503057152' post='3355357']If I know that my rig is capable of a given (ridiculously loud) volume, but I am actually playing at a much lower volume, then I'm pretty confident that I'm using much less than half the power of my amp.[/QUOTE] This is pretty logical - but it fails to take into account how things can escalate as gigs progress. I don't know if you play with any other drummers but Paul is the kind of drummer who actually has proper volume control, so you may be right. Replace him with a less wise youngster and all bets are off! Usually when bassists say they don't use more than half power it's because the gain and volume knobs aren't past half way - with most players and basses and amps that's enough gain to get full power quite often... [quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1503057152' post='3355357']IMy method of testing this is to count the number of amps that I have managed to blow up so far. By a bizarre coincidence, it turns out to be exactly the same number as the number of bass strings I have snapped to date. Zero. [/quote] Amps rarely blow up from being driven too hard, they're pretty well designed like that nowadays! I've only ever snapped one bass string in my life and I beat basses to death - and that snapped one had been boiled quite a few times (in my student days with a bass that didn't do brightness very well...)

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1503005740' post='3355077'] Actually no...! All amps must be matched with [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]a cab (or cabs) with an impedance equal to or higher than the amps stated impedance.[/font][/color][/quote] This isn't true. Transformer coupled amps (which is all valve amps and a handful of solidstate amps - the only recent one I know of being the Hellborg power amp) need a load on the transformer which allows current to flow, which is why they can't be used without a speaker plugged in (infinite impedance load). The transformer transfers power most efficiently if the impedance of the speaker matches the rating on the output tap - however, as impedance is never constant it isn't that perfect. For valve amps the rule of thumb to use is that total impedance of the speaker(s) must be within 2:1 either way. If you have a choice between high impedance speaker on a low impedance tap or vice versa, then go for whichever gets you closest to matching but lean towards the speaker being a lower impedance than the tap. So basically, it's kind of backwards for valve amps, compared to solidstate amps. With solidstate amps, the amp puts out a certain maximum voltage, and the lower the impedance of the speaker(s) it's driving, the more current will flow for that voltage, hence more power (watts = volts x amps). The minimum impedance is the point at which the amp can't deliver any more current without the output devices overheating or breaking down. This holds true whatever the class of solidstate amp (apart from the very rare exceptions with output transformers).

[quote name='naxos10' timestamp='1502887391' post='3354178'] This is my 60th birthday present and the guy's at Barefaced included a happy birthday greeting in the packaging - thank guys nice touch. [/quote] Was she ok after the long journey? She didn't seem too happy about going in the box, especially with so few clothes on... ;-)

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1502885590' post='3354160'] I don't use one but I've come from Berg cabs which have very tight low end. I tried a Thumpinator with the Bergs and it made no difference to the sound at all. With the Bergs there was no muddiness or boom, even on the worst stages. As you know I went from them to a BB2 and didn't like the amount of big low end. The SC's are much better but I'd like the option of reducing the low end even more. I'm thinking/hoping that raising the "floor" of the low end via an HPF would do this for me. On bad stages I always feel that trying to EQ out a bad low end also alters the rest of the sound too much, rather than just eliminating the problem. Maybe it's my lack of ability with EQ but using an HPF to tighten up just one part of the sound might be a solution. I know I could buy a separate HPF but so far I've only seen fixed ones. I'm wondering if an adjustable HPF would be a better option. I'd also be hoping that a Barefaced HPF would be better than the competition. I might also be barking up the wrong tree. Not for the first time!! [/quote] Thanks Chris, that's a great explanation! Any other deal-makers or breakers on the amp front? Throw your thoughts down here and I shall read and think and ask questions. The amp design is already a long way along (and has come from what I want as a bassist and also what I see other bassists wanting/needing) but nothing is yet fixed in stone - I'd hope I haven't missed anything but you never know!

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1502878647' post='3354089']I agree an adjustable HPF could be a decider for me.[/quote] I'd like to know more about this: How do you already use one and when do you adjust it and why?

[quote name='largo' timestamp='1502791317' post='3353527'] I'd second both of those... [/quote] Maybe you can help explain then because I'm completely baffled, particularly by the first one! The second is a matter of opinion so I get that...