alexclaber

Nope. The original plan with the Vintage was to tune it higher but it sounded better with the same tuning as the Compact, and net volume per driver is near identical. We've discontinued the Vintage because although there's demand for it there's much more demand for the other cabs, so it's a question of rationalising the product range. Plus the name is really confusing as you can get all the other cabs (bar the Midget T) in a 'vintage' look!

Hi Tom, Just listening to your MySpace tunes! I think the Compact is the way to go, as it'll give you more of that big ska bottom with your 500W than the Midget can (doubling the enclosure size gets you another 3dB in the lows, like having twice as much power). The onus will be on your to keep control of those lows by how you play (muting particularly) but if you really do find the Terror/Compact pairing too big in the lows then we can swap it for the Midget. I don't think you will though. Btw, if that's you playing on the MySpace recordings then I think you need to update your sub-avatar quote unless Gloucester is a hotbed of bass talent! Not sure if you'll be able to get as much grind from the Terror as on your first clip, partly that depends on how hard you can drive the front end which in turn depends on how loud your basses are and how hard you tend to play. Also a lot of that is from his pick attack - tone is indeed in the hands (and what they're up to) But you can always add a boost or overdrive pedal out front, and picks are cheap! Best regards, Alex P.S. Regarding the SP210 suggestion, it can only handle 600W thermally, it'll be excursion limited to less than half that. And because it's an isobaric design (using a pair of drivers acting as one driver with twice the cone mass, half the suspension compliance, half the Vas, half the voice coil resistance, and 3dB lower sensitivity compared to one) although it's a 2x10" it has the same maximum output and low frequency extension of a 1x10" of double the net volume (the doubling of power handling gets back the 3dB sensitivity loss, and note that the net volume is the volume behind the rear driver in the isobaric so you also have to add the space for the front driver and the isobaric chamber, and the port (which has to be three times as long if you halve the net volume to maintain the same tuning)). Compared to a normal 2x10" an isobaric 2x10" has 6dB lower max output. End result is that the SP212 can't play as loud as the Midget, let alone the SP210 getting anywhere near the Compact.

Hi Tom, The Compact is fine with that sort of power. 200W-600W into 8 ohms nominal is what we recommend - you can use more if you're sensible and less if you're in a quiet band. Tone-wise - probably, but here's the stock questions to make sure: 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 clips, Amazon samples, etc helpful)? (it's much more useful to hear what you deem to be 'slightly gritty aggressive thump' than hazard a guess based on the adjectives!) What bass(es) do you play? What kind of gigs do you usually play? Best regards, Alex

Unfortunately it only just left Scotland so it wont be back until it's visited the rest of Great Britain!

As stated on the website, we have a policy of continuous improvement. If anyone wants to contact me directly then I'm more than happy to discuss anything. We will not be changing to any kind of tolex or carpet covering or offering it as an option in the forseeable future.

The extra loudness from a 4 ohm version of the Compact is too marginal to be worthwhile, especially as it removes the option of adding a second cab (be that Midget or Compact) for a useful increase in output.

Huge difference between the two cabs, the only similarity being that (in my clearly biased opinion!) they're both most excellent designs! Regarding the other choices, none have comparable quality drivers so expect more mid-bass boom and less true bottom. The Midget will go as loud as any two of those 12"s and three of the 10"s before the bottom gets dirty. The UL112's driver is in a higher echelon than those others but still a good way behind the Midget's. Regarding the Acme, are you playing a 5-string? What sound are you going for? YouTube links or Amazon samples needed! Is there anything you'd change about the tone of your B2? To give you some perspective on the max output difference, a Compact can play as loud as two B2s and the Midget isn't much quieter than the Compact, just leaner in the lows. A Midget can move as much air as a B2 so with enough EQ you could definitely get as much fatness in the lows but what you won't get is that extra half-octave of extension due to the Acme's super-low tuning frequency. That extra extension doesn't really change the sound so much as the feel, which transitions from 'tight' to 'big'.

On an iPhone so quoting is a bit hard! Answers to your three questions below: 1. No, Midget/Compact is as loud as Compact/Compact, just less fat in the lower mids and leaner in the lows. Ultimate LF output is lower but it's still more than any 4x10" can manage. 2. No, none at all. You gain loudness, thickness and punch whilst the bottom doesn't get fatter but it gets bigger and deeper. 3. Yes. Put the Midget on the top - polar response is really good like that, which makes a big difference to real world performance. If your amp wobbles get some foam rubber matting or ask us for some foam tape to stick to your amp.

[quote name='51m0n' post='931117' date='Aug 20 2010, 04:48 PM']Alex and I both noted that the Berg goes deeper (port tuned lower I think) than the super12, but you can certainly eq plenty of bass into the super12.[/quote] It's not so much that it goes deeper but that it's fatter in the lows. It's hard to explain but the main difference is the motor strength to cone mass ratio, the S12 having more power to cone mass so it has more punch but at lower frequencies the cones aren't as free to resonate. The tuning frequency is probably about the same. So you gain midrange sensitivity but you lose low frequency sensitivity but by having that extra motor strength you can push a longer voice coil which means more power handling in the lows and thus greater ultimate low frequency output. Pretty much every high-end pro-sound subwoofer nowadays uses the same approach!

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' post='940426' date='Aug 30 2010, 09:49 PM']Alex, how high does the midrange unit go?[/quote] About 10kHz.

You can very clearly hear the difference between the Big One and the other two!

[quote name='dood' post='928990' date='Aug 18 2010, 07:54 PM']Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at in my comments above.[/quote] Though conversely I could probably make one cab sound like the other and vice versa by how I played the bass! It dawned on me recently that any half-decent bassist could easily make an inferior (by whatever criteria) cab sound superior in an AB test simply by playing louder/better when demo-ing that cab.

I'd be interested to hear how different the Big One sounds on the recording - can you post that one up too? Having heard all three together it was quite enlightening! One thing I would say is that you can't really tell much about the lows from a recording like this because the room was relatively small so the room modes tend to dominate, so placement of speaker vs walls/floor/ceiling vs mic will have more effect assuming the cab is running clean. If I remember rightly the mic was about equidistant from the guitar and bass amps and slightly further from the drums. And it was really rather loud in there, so you can imagine how loud the bass was to be that forward in the mix! It would be fun to do a similar thing with an even louder drummer playing a bigger kit, a more annoying guitarist and in a bigger room, so we could push the cabs to their limits and see what happens to the tone then. By the way, I can't tell which is which - I think I can, then I listen again and change my mind! If the cabs were being driven by the same amp with the same EQ I could quite easily, but then you'd hope so wouldn't you?!

I'm sorry about this but people keep buying the damned things! They must have heard the rumour that it's as small as and lighter than many 1x10"s but can play louder than many 2x10"s... Witchcraft! I was reminded of a great quote by Greenboy recently: "1x10 cabs, do they exist? - well, yeah, but JUST BARELY ...Just barely, on the live performance SPL and tone scale."

I believe the double bass was so called it would play a part an octave down from the 'single' bass instrument which was the violoncello's predecessor and part of the viol family, not the violin family (the former tuned in fourths, the latter in fifths). When the viols were superseded it seems the double bass carried on, though it went from three to four strings (and in modern orchestras usually to four strings plus extended E or five strings, so it can go all the way down to C an octave below the cello's lowest note). I like to think that we bass guitarists, double bassists, keyboard bassists (synths and all that), and tuba and sousaphone players are all bassists in our heart, mind and function. We just happen to play a guitar shaped version that can do guitarry things if we want, just as a great double bassist can go all 'cello-ey with lyrical bowed soloing and great tuba players can blow like a big jazz trumpet with a deeper vibe. Function wins over form, but function is flexible depending on form!

Ah, Mr Garcia, you are the official Barefaced Bassface 2009! Email me your address and we'll sort out your Midget. Suitably entertaining photo of the Bassface and the Barefaced together will be expected in return, and doom laden updates on gig performance (dirty top cab on a bi-amp rig in your case?)

[quote name='joegarcia' post='901034' date='Jul 21 2010, 04:09 PM']Ah, my bad, I thought this was just a 2x12. It has a midrange driver then does it?[/quote] Yes, all the Big Series cab have midrange drivers because their woofers are much more subwoofery than most and thus go much lower at the expense of the highs. You could cross to a BIG horn tweeter (as on nice PA cabs) but a midrange driver is much more bass guitar tone friendly, especially if you like to run lots of effects and/or distortion. And that then leaves you the option of a tweeter for true fullrange studio speaker-like response which you can then turn down if you want to get nasty with the fuzz. For those who want a better twist on the conventional 2x12" there is the Super Twelve. But as I've said many a time, I don't believe in classifying cabs by speaker configuration, max output and low frequency roll-off points are probably the best way to divide things up, but sadly accurate specs for this are somewhat rare...

[quote name='joegarcia' post='901011' date='Jul 21 2010, 03:38 PM']Reckon one could deal with my Sunn 1200s?[/quote] Sunn 1200s (nice head!) puts out ~800W into 4 ohms. Big Twin can handle 900W thermally all day long and excursion-wise 1200W peaks in the lows before compression/distortion sets in. So yes!

Get The Funk Out? It's always out, this is Funky Town!

Is just being finished off! And it has a bigger brother in the works, the Big Twin. Essentially a 2x12" version of the Big One it plays a bit louder (~3dB), goes quite a bit lower (-3dB point shifts down by ~7Hz), and offers a 4 ohm nominal load to get the most out of typical bass amps, which combined with the greater speaker area and enclosure size makes it usefully easier to drive. Big cab, BIG sound, big price (unfortunately!) Pretty righteous though...

It could take only 6 more votes to find a winner! On the other hand it could take 445 but that's the absolute worse case scenario... The maths suggests that if things carry on as they have so far then once we've had 27 more votes there will be an official Barefaced Bassface 2009 and a prize on its way!

If anyone's interested in roadtesting the first [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=94895"]Barefaced Dubster[/url] then let me know! Would be good to find what it can handle in the context of authentic reggae bands (as opposed to my weird reggae influenced rock-ish outfit).

Timeline on the ultimate reggae bass cab is looking to be about 6 weeks. Just need to finish the CAD drawings for production. Exciting!

Hello Col. Matt, It very much depends on the tone you're after and the loudness you require. So some questions for you to answer: What cab(s) do you currently use or have been using? 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 kind of gigs do you usually play? Thanks!

Hi Mark, I'm in the midst of writing a comprehensive user manual for the various Barefaced cabs which will cover this in more detail but here's some stuff to be going on with. When you place two speakers side by side they couple below certain frequencies and act as one large speaker with equivalent dimensions to the dual speaker array. This has two effects: Firstly the efficiency of the system is increased due to improved coupling with the surrounding air. Secondly the dispersion of the system changes so that the off-axis response roll-off shifts down by an octave. This coupling and dispersion shift is what really matters with bass guitar amplification. At higher frequencies the drivers act as two separate sound sources and depending on your distance from the sources the waveforms either constructively reinforce or destructively combine. This causes the oft mentioned comb filtering but it isn't a particularly big deal with bass guitar due to the signal content at these higher frequencies being fairly non-critical. Furthermore the combined direct and reflected sound we hear reduces the impact of comb filtering further. Looking at your three examples, a vertical stack has reduced vertical dispersion and exhibits consistent comb filtering I he horizontal plane. A side by side pair turns that round by 90 degrees so narrower horizontal dispersion and consistent comb filtering in the vertical plane. A side by side outward angled pair will make the horizontal dispersion worse at lower frequencies but improve it more at higher frequencies but will suffer from worse comb filtering. A cross-fired pair will perform better but without a tweeter on both cabs this still isn't a good approach due to the HF ending up further out of whack. One of the great things about a vertical stack is that it reduces floor reflections, improving coherence out front. It does mean that if you stand too close to the cab you'll miss out on upper mids but this can be remedied by offsettif the top cab by pushing it back a few inches (as the Midget+Compact does when it's stacked normally) or by tilting the while stack upwards slightly (not just the top cab). It's easy to try all this stuff for yourself by playing around. Differences will be most obvious outdoors or in heavily furnished rooms (or indeed in a small venue packed with punters).