alexclaber

I think Ashdown's heavier weight amps are rather nice, if they fit the kind of tone you like - they're kind of wide and warm and somewhat furry sounding, which can turn into mud with the wrong cab but be great with the right one. And they really put out some proper power, managing to sustain the voltage they put out into more challenging loads (a weak point with some lightweight amps). And if a tiny little Midget T can replace a 410+115 stack then imagine what a bigger cab can do!

You're making the mistake that of assuming that a 2x10" will be halfway between the Midget and Super Twelve in output. In reality unless you can find some neo 10"s with high Xmax and high sensitivity then the 2x10" is likely to be no louder than the Midget when both are driven to their limits. For instance a Midget will play louder than an RS210, whilst an S12T is lighter than an RS210! You're already on the limits of what current technology allows and if neodymium continues to rise in price then cabs will be going up in weight again as they revert to ferrite magnets... Pull the guitarist's volume knob off his amp, rotate it 90 degrees clockwise, then push it back on. He will now think he's playing louder than he really is and the volume will go back down!

Although you can try to use an inductor as a passive speaker level low pass filter, the problem with using one that low down is that you're very close to the box resonances, so the theoretical low pass transfer function based on the nominal impedance is nothing like what you really get due to the interactions with the impedance peaks. It will however successfully cut off higher frequencies but in the process it makes the low frequency response go a bit haywire. That's a pretty big coil, no wonder it cost so much!

You'll need twice the Vd to get similar LF output from a sealed cab as from a well designed ported cab.

You could design a neo motor to have much the same non-linearities as AlNiCo or ferrite motors by changing the steel parts, you could even stick some steel in to get similar eddy currents but with the tiny magnets and lightweight frames of most guitar speakers there really isn't much point to the extra cost. This is an interesting read: [url="http://www.choruscars.com/Chorus_NEO_WhitePaper.pdf"]http://www.choruscars.com/Chorus_NEO_WhitePaper.pdf[/url]

[quote name='muttley' post='1286462' date='Jun 29 2011, 02:26 PM']I've been out of the game for a few years now...[/quote] Yes, you can tell! There are a lot of 'crap' speakers out there, though in most cases it's either because they're too compromised to get them down to a certain price point or they're being inappropriately used. Both Eminence and Celestion make speakers that I wouldn't use if they paid me but conversely they both make some decent drivers that I like, though for our needs Eminence's Kappalite range perform better than anything Celestion currently makes, regardless of cost. As anyone in the industry will confirm, the price of neo is going through the roof and looks set to remain very high for the forseeable future. If you want to build a cab with a neo driver or want to buy a cab containing neo drivers, do something about it now or you could pay a lot more or not be able to get the neo products at all. I don't envisage Barefaced cabs using neo drivers for much longer and I'll be surprised if anyone else in the bass cab market can do so. China has almost all the supply and they can use most of it themselves, so they're taxing exports heavily and have more than halved the annual export quota. The back story behind this is quite enlightening: There used to be neodymium refineries in the USA and Australia but China undercut their prices so much in the 1990s that they closed down. Now Chinese wages are going up and they're starting to try to do something about the nasty environmental impact of producing magnets (of any sort), so the cost of production is going up. Furthermore the growth of the wind turbine and electric/hybrid car industry has massively increased the demand for neodymium. And now, as neodymium isn't the most pleasant thing to produce, China are taking the view that they'd like to only produce the neodymium for the products they consume themselves but the rest of the world has almost zero ability to produce neodymium for their own use and it takes a good few years to re-open a mine and refining plant let alone build new mines and plants. Hence the reduced export quotas, increased export taxes and rapidly escalating market price. Fun...

I can, including on pretty complex funk grooves, although I can't sing whilst playing reggae bass. I do find it easier on stuff I've written myself. Can't read dots sadly but ok with chord charts.

Although I'm a big fan of using technology to help you design a better product, that doesn't mean that gut feeling, intuition, lateral thinking and inspired creativity (much as used when writing songs) aren't all critical factors in the design process. I've never once done what a computer program has 'told' me to do. You could say that some of these tools are like knowing basic music theory whilst others are like having the tools to compose and arrange an entire operatic score. Even with those tools your brain has to do the bulk of the work. But that doesn't mean you can't take the punk approach to cab building if you prefer cutting and glueing wood! I believe those JBLs aren't vastly dissimilar to the speaker we use in the Compact (though with lower power handling). That's a world of tone away from the Dubster though!

I'd be looking at the Midget rather than the Compact unless you're going for a very big wide bottom-heavy sound (*not because the Compact sounds like that but because it's not short of bottom and its smooth on top, whilst the OTB has very big lows and not a lot of top, so the sum can tend towards boom for some players) and the Midget will still play quite a lot louder and fatter than the SP212. There are quite a few very happy Barefaced + OTB customers, some of whom were previously using the SP210/212 cabs. Email me for more extensive enlightenment based on your exact needs! If you want to try one, you have to buy one (unless you happen to find a kindly existing owner) - but if you don't like it it costs about £20 to return, so less than £1 a day if you keep it for the full one month trial.

Our honest and accurate sensitivity specs are all here: [url="http://barefacedbass.com/uploads/barefaced-cab-specs-jan2011.jpg"]http://barefacedbass.com/uploads/barefaced...ecs-jan2011.jpg[/url] The LF sensitivity of the EMS cabs is inline with expected sensitivity for a high quality cab of that size (not weight). The LF sensitivity of the Big Series cabs is lower because they go lower. The broadband sensitivity of the EMS cabs is higher than usual for a high quality cab of that speaker configuration. The broadband sensitivity of the Big Series cabs is slightly lower but their strong off-axis response means they're louder than an on-axis measurement suggests. So to put things more clearly - the Big Series cabs are designed (not merely tuned) to produce unusually deep lows without being proportionally larger, hence they need more power to reach a given volume. However because they can handle this power you can use a single Barefaced 2x12" to produce as much output and more bottom than a single normal 4x12". The EMS cabs absolutely do not need more power - they're designed to have similar response to more typical bass cabs, similar LF sensitivity, greater broadband sensitivity and vastly greater power handling, so you can use fewer/smaller cabs and take full advantage of the high power amps which are everywhere (like 300W+). Clearly if you wish to go smaller then you will need more power to reach a given SPL in the lows - that is an inescapable law of physics! Power is cheap. Many bassists have more power than their cabs will actually let them use (despite what the thermal power handling specs suggest). Our cabs let them use that power.

I'd probably get the GS212. The SVT hasn't enough power for excursion limited power handling issues to be a problem and the dissimilar impedance curves will result in an easier load for the amp and thus longer valve life. I'd also buy some ER15 earplugs.

Close but not quite! 3dB is twice the power. But adding a second cranked Marshall stack to your first cranked Marshall stack wouldn't be this, as by adding a whole extra stack you're not jus doubling the power, you're also doubling the speakerage, with the end result being twice the displacement - or 6dB. 3dB difference would be going from a 100W Marshall head cranked into a big pile of cabs (so that the cabs aren't the limiting factor) to a 200W head into the same stack. 6dB is indeed twice the SPL, so that's twice the physical sound pressure level. 10dB would be perceived to be twice as loud if our ears were perfect. However they aren't, so only at 1kHz does a change of 10dB give you a doubling or halving of perceived loudness. It isn't that far off but it does mean that gaining ~6dB in the lows by adding a second matched cab for a doubling of excursion limited power handling, improved sensitivity (through coupling) and reduced impedance (thus more power from the amp) can result in your lows doubling in loudness (a 10 Phon increase). Regarding the importance of sensitivity specs when trying to work out what will be loudest, that would be quite correct if the specs were accurate. Unfortunately very few are! To further complicate matters we're all using different bass tones, so if a cab has a hump in response where one player likes a big part of their sound to happen but a dip in response where another player likes to punch through the mix, the former player will think that cab is loud whilst the latter player will think that cab is quiet! Which is why all anecdotal evidence needs to be taken with a further punch of salt... Indeed, Lozz's "104dB" Eden vs the 99dB Ampegs is most probably a case of that. Likewise chrismuzz's example of 6x10" Ampeg vs 4x10" Markbass. The cab with the loudness where that player wants it is the louder cab - but only for them!

I think your eyes are playing up Geoff! A Super Twelve has better performance than a dual Midget stack and in practice sounds more like a Midget + Compact stack due to the greater weight in the lows.

Duncan/Bassbod's cab was the first sent out using push-on connectors on the speakon socket, instead of soldering the wires - turns out they needed crimping before pushing on - first and last time we made that mistake! We use foam tape to damp any grill vibrations on all our cabs (so the tape goes around the outside edge of the underside of the grill and the grill is screwed down onto it). Since Richard encountered that rattle we've switched to thicker tape on the Midget T for additional clearance, which is what he was sent to cure the problem. I think what must have happened is that the tape at the end of a roll wasn't actually meeting thickness specs because we'd never had that issue before but it happened on a few cabs simultaneously (and unfortunately didn't happen on testing because the tape was newly fitted and hadn't bedded down). We didn't just say "oh, there's a rattle, we'll send him some random tape to shove in there and bodge it!" the tape is an integral part of the design.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='1264228' date='Jun 10 2011, 06:26 PM']Isnt it essentially very similar to the Genz Neo x212t?[/quote] It's like the Neox 212T in that the speakers are vertically aligned and the woofers are made by the same manufacturer (but are different models). But you could say the same about pretty much every 4x10" on the market (in their case they have a 2x2 speaker array and woofers made by the same company) yet they all sound different and performance varies hugely.

Short answer: No. Long answer: Read what Simon's written. For now I'd focus on actively practising your dynamics. Play a riff with your normal plucking loudness - define that as mf. Then play that same riff as loud as you can whilst still sounding good - define that as ff. Then as quietly as you can - define that as pp. Then find the in between loudnesses, p and f. Now practice playing that riff going from pp to p to mf to f to ff. Then the reverse. Then swap between p and f. Then swap from mf to ff back to mf then to pp and repeat. Then swap between pp and ff. Once you have a feel for that work through your entire set consciously switching between each of your five loudnesses depending on what the song needs at that moment. Learn to play the dynamics! Don't forget about accents as well.

Actually I'd almost completely disagree with that! See what I said about the string vibration patterns above...

I'd believe it if it wasn't for the fact that scientific blind tests always fail to prove cable snake oil works... I think you'd get better satisfaction from such cable shenanigans by being hynotised to believe your cables have been cryogenically treated rather than actually messing around freezing them!

One of the perils of fat cable is it can be harder to get a good reliable connection at the terminals as with a more moderately sized cable. Similar issue with very skinny cables too.

Historically most bassists were just trying to find a way to be heard - 'tone' was secondary! Tone is the sound of specific notes and is determined by the string vibration patterns, the pickups, the preamp and then anything else in the recording chain. The string vibration patterns are determined firstly by the player (plucking device, position, intensity, direction, and damping). and secondly by the strings and the instrument. However as soon as a note is placed in the context of a piece of music you can no longer separate it from the player's other musical decisions - and indeed that of the band, and of any engineers and producers involved...

I also agree entirely with Mr Jale!

No, it's a complete waste of time and money and any benefit you hear will be entirely due to the placebo effect. The length of cable is too short to exhibit sufficient inductance, capacitance or resistance to have an audible effect. All it needs is sufficient current handling and what you've described easily has that. If you could see the cross-sectional area of the traces on the power module or the voice coil windings you'd see why this is true!

To All, Please email me ( [email protected] ) or use the contact form. It's impossible to search through the pm system and it's v hard to keep track of stuff through there. And it was the weekend you know! Alex P.S. Greg, have replied to your email!

I started stacking 2x10"s vertically in 1999. Had two Acme Low-B2s, with a 6U rack containing SWR Grand Prix and Mackie M1400 and big tuner thing. The power amp was changed to a lighter and more powerful one, the rack to a 4U lighter one, and then the preamp to an Avalon U5. Only changed the cabs when I designed and built my own, used them for almost a decade. The only downside to such tall rigs is that if they're single cab that cab has to be rather large! With superior off-axis response you can get the same "straight into your ears" sound with an only moderately tall cab though. If you make your cabs tall and shallow with moderate width you can have an imposing stack which fits visually under a rack or large head and is still a doddle to move. If anyone thinks their bandmates are so clumsy that a tall stack will be knocked over... Well I can't see any band like that managing to get through a whole song without a cacophony of upended cymbal stands!

I'm not questioning that they sound good, nor that they're loud. But you can't claim 129dB from a direct radiating 10" mid-bass driver with a 2.5" voice coil unless you're fudging the specs!