alexclaber

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1483351097' post='3206340']Lightweight doesn't have to mean Class D or Neo. :-)[/quote] So true! Almost half the cabs we sell aren't neo - and no-one can say a 15lb (7kg) cab isn't lightweight. Or indeed a 4x10" that's 49lbs and has drivers with ceramic magnets!

[quote name='karlfer' timestamp='1481886392' post='3195925'] This is beyond me. Most things are beyond me. Am I to understand that a Markbass LM800, run with no effects, no compressor (I never use either) all EQ points noon, VLE/VLF (whatever they call them) off, that the maximum average ? I'm achieving is around 80 watts? [/quote] Yes, if the preamp and power amp are never clipping. Sorry about that!

[quote name='Downdown' timestamp='1481895423' post='3196063']I'm struggling to understand all the details, but surely if a manufacturer designs a ported cab in which the driver could potentially be damaged by frequencies below x (or above y) then it would be sensible for the manufacturer to include the appropriate filters within the cab to ensure that these frequencies cannot be present at levels that could cause damage?[/quote] You can't filter out these frequencies with passive speaker level components, it has to be done at line level with active components. Most bass amps have some kind of high pass filtering and most power amps have switchable filters. The strange thing about this issue, is that the worst problems I've had with cone over-excursion were with cabs which were tuned to 31Hz, so you were never driving them with frequencies below the tuning frequencies. You'd think from reading Phil's original post (which is broadly correct) that these low tuned cabs could never suffer such problems. That experience set me down the road of finding out what really matters with the inputs bass guitar cabs can handle and also the sounds they're expected to generate. It's much more complicated than you think!

Clean signals are no less damaging than dirty signals if the average power is the same. The key thing is that for a signal to remain totally clean the amp needs to have some headroom left - and if it has headroom left, and you're playing uncompressed bass guitar, the average level can't be more than about 10% of the amp's power rating because the crest factor of bass guitar is so high.

This is a very complex issue but one thing I can say for sure is that if you own a Barefaced cab you do not need to worry about this!

You only need as much power as you need to get loud enough - and the basic rule of thumb is that if your rig is twice as big then you'll only need half as much amp power to get loud enough.

The tone changes quite a lot with the gauge, it doesn't just affect the tension. I tend to run balanced gauge strings, LaBella deep talkin' rounds on my 34" scale Streamer (.044 - .110) and a similar gauge on my 36" scale 5-string (with a .140 low B ). Fairly high action too. It's a fairly physical instrument to play!

I remember trying the prototype BFC in the Bass Centre in Wapping. It was fairly large! The prototype had the horns in the top corners - not such a good idea when you then fit a TE grill with integrated badge - two horns but only one you could see and hear. Ampeg made a rather cool and big oddity in the late '90s / early 2000s, the PR-1832: When Greenboy and I started designing our own cabs he was using the 1832 and I was using two Acme Low-B2s. The 1832 is an 18" in a huge ported enclosure, two 10"s in a small sealed enclosure, two closed-back 6" drivers and a horn. The horn and 6"s had passive high pass filters, the 10" were high-passed by being in such a small enclosure and the 18" was acoustically low-passed by firing diagonally downwards. You could bi-amp if you wanted but you didn't have to. Steve Bailey endorsed it and Victor Wooten endorsed a smaller version which I think had a 15", two 8"s and a horn.

[quote name='radiophonic' timestamp='1478680527' post='3170785']...if you need to adjust your tone on the amp away from flat, you have the wrong bass.[/quote] If that was true then no-one would bother putting tone controls on amps! Mind you, it's a good way to encourage people to buy more basses...

There's no substitute for serious power supplies. The lightweight switchmode one in my QSC PLX 3002 allows that power amp to put out enough real power to demolish an SM1500 - but it's still a 21lb 2U power amp, it isn't the side and weight of a paperback book! My previous power amp weighed twice as much and had a big iron power transformer - it was feeble compared to the SMPS driven QSC. There's a 'law' in cycling known as Bontrager's law - "Cheap. Strong. Light. Pick any two!" That pretty much holds true for bass amps and power amps, if strong equals having Real Power.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1476356813' post='3153561']Can you shed some more light on the thinking behind the 4 presets and how they are utilised?[/quote] We have two different presets we load depending on the use - PA and bass instrument. PA 1. Neutral (half-space) 2. Deep (half-space) 3. Neutral (full-space) 4. Deep (full-space) All presets are full-range (no sub required). Half-space is for one nearby boundary (wall, floor, ceiling). Full-space is for free air (i.e. stand-mount and away from walls or ceiling). Bass instrument 1. Neutral 2. Deep 3. Vintage 4. Fat Neutral is very accurate, Deep extends the low frequency response but is otherwise unchanged, Vintage rolls of the highs and adds an upper-bass / low-mid bump and gentle LF roll-off, Fat is a tilted response curve like on the Berg IP cabs. Many of the FR800 cabs out there are being used as active bass cabs with outboard preamps.

The original intention was to biamp our PA cab but we simply got better sound and performance using bridged modules into the cab and the existing BB2 passive crossover. I guess if you've put a lot of work into making a high accuracy 2-way passive speaker with great transient and polar response, very high resistance to thermal effects (the main problem with passive crossovers), protection on the HF driver, etc then the usual benefits of active crossovers and multiple amps are nullified.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1475843974' post='3149164']I was sceptical about the ceramic vs. neo threads for a long time, but maybe there's something in the idea that certain ceramic drivers have some sort of characteristic colouration to them.[/quote] It's easier to make a high accuracy speaker using neo or alnico magnets than with ceramic magnets - the big difference is that the former are conductive metal alloys whilst the latter is a non-conductive sintered composite. I'd say that over 95% of the difference in tone between our 12XN and 10CR drivers is due to other things than magnet material.

[quote name='Huge Hands' timestamp='1475846371' post='3149190']Perhaps new glue on top of old glue does not give the same result?[/quote] Unfortunately that appears to be the case. We can rewrap them for you but we'll need long enough to strip, sand and cover again.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1475843974' post='3149164']Hey, if the tolex ever does peel, you could view it as an excuse to have it re-covered in red! But I'd hope it's something they've got sorted out by now. I wonder if they're using the water-based type of tolex glue which would be kinder on their staff and easier in terms of H&S paperwork than the old style solvent based stuff, but seems a bit more finicky in use.[/quote] The first few Six10 and Two10 cabs and maybe a couple of the One10s used solvent-based spray contact adhesive. We used two different adhesives, going to an even more hardcore and even more expensive version after some customers had issues with tolex peeling. That didn't solve it either. Every tolexed Barefaced cab made since summer 2015 has used a water-based adhesive which has proven far better at staying stuck (we haven't heard of any cabs peeling since then) and is nicer to work with.

That was great! Half an hour less of my rambling and thirty minutes more of Herbie's advice, playing, anecdotes and humour would have been better though...

[quote name='Kevin Dean' timestamp='1474245730' post='3136516'] My trouble is that I've had an injury & been unable to gig & it gives me far too much time to think about & find fault with equipment . [/quote] This is a common problem for mountain bikers (where injuries are a lot more common than in bass playing). Big crash = accidental new bike purchase! I had a small but painful crash a couple of weeks ago = new tyres...

[quote name='silverfoxnik' timestamp='1473877543' post='3133831'] Thanks for the Raffle Prizes Folks Any more unwanted bass paraphernalia out there that could find a new, loving home via our Raffle? [/quote] How about the original prototype Barefaced Big One? It's lurking in our business unit waiting for the day we have a Barefaced museum but I'd rather it was getting used!

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1473252988' post='3128351'] I agree with you fully about speaker service life but there are exceptions. The eminence delta series do on occasion fail at the surround not long after the warranty. I seen this happen so looked into it. There is also a vid of an audio company talking about this on youtube although they don't name the driver in question you can see what it is. Never seen this happen with other eminence drivers though. [/quote] If a pro audio speaker fails at the surround after such a short time it's due to over-excursion damage. Most of the Delta series speakers are low excursion designs so they could easily be damaged in that way, if used inappropriately.

[quote name='cytania' timestamp='1473110109' post='3127083']I seem to get 3 and a half years out of the driver before it goes harsh, raspy and lacking in volume.[/quote] The expected service life of a pro audio woofer is over 20 years before there's a chance of some of the adhesives breaking down. If an Eminence driver is not lasting decades then it's being misused (i.e. overpowered).

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1472042537' post='3117929'] That's not quite what I meant Bill, I meant the rear-facing speaker is also open to the air, just facing backwards, or even upwards or downwards. [/quote] A speaker emits sounds from both sides of the cone. With a sealed cab you get output from the front of the cone. With a ported cab you get output from the front of the cone and further bass output from the port which is driven by the back of the cone. With a sealed isobaric cab you get output from the front of the front speaker, the back of the front speaker and the front of the back speaker do nothing except move in unison on either side of the isobaric chamber, and the back of the back speaker produces no sonic output either. With a ported isobaric cab the back of the back speaker drives the port to produce additional bass output. This is not an isobaric speaker:

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1470757740' post='3108227']The Two10 is capable of a lot more low end (apparently) - of course it's not 'real' low end if you buy into the 'hybrid resonator' stuff (which I do) - and it certainly sounds like real low-end, so what's the difference?[/quote] What do you mean by "of course it's not 'real' low end"? Am confused!

One of the problems with isobaric cabs is that the smaller main enclosure volume means you need a much greater port length to get the right tuning frequency with a sufficiently large cross-sectional-area port, or you have to reduce the port area to get the length shorter - and too little port area results in chuffing noises, loss of output, distortion, compression etc. They made quite a lot of sense decades ago for hi-fi when the available speakers needed big sealed enclosures but not anymore...

I'm not sure I'd want to 'downsize' to a heavier cab without wheels, rather than not turn the volume knob as high!

[quote name='Funky Dunky' timestamp='1471641655' post='3114777'] I'm open-minded Alex! What do you suggest? [/quote] Buy one of our One10 cabs and use it for a month - if it doesn't do what you need we'll have it collected and give you a full refund waiving the usual return postage cost. If my recommendation is wrong it won't cost you anything!