Phil Starr

I'm going to guess that with a female vocalist you won't be going for silly volumes or an over heavy bass sound. The DXR's are good speakers that will go really loud and are also well protected against abuse so you are unlikely to damage them in normal use. Honestly I don't think you will have a problem though that depends upon how big a venue you will normally be playing. Certinly until you are established I'd be prepared to go out with just the Yamahas and save your money until you are absolutely sure there is something lacking. If you do find you are lacking at a larger venue then applying HPF to the mix will allow you a little extra headroom and probably a cleaner sound but in all probability Yamaha wil have some sort of dynamic speaker management in place already which will get the best out of the speakers and be almost unnoticed by you and the audience. Subs are a nice addition but not an absolute necessity in most UK pubs and clubs.

If you are combining two tweetered cabs then it is better to stack them vertically with the tweeters as close together as possible, so as you say horn>woofer>horn>woofer is not good. There are two approaches, simply invert the top speaker so the horn is now on the bottom and in some cabs very close to the horn on the bottom cab, this approximates to a D'Appolito configuration giving a fairly coherent wavefront but you'll get some phase issues in the vertical plane due to the spacing between the horns. You've now moved the two mid bass drivers further apart so you'll lower the point where the mids become directional and start beaming so this works best in speakers where the crossover is lower like the LFSys. Radiation in the horizontal plane should be good and a lot beter than a side by side arrangement. The second method is to stack the speakers but on their sides with woofer above woofer and horn above horn in a classic line array. The problem with this is that the horns are on their side and typically they are designed to radiate a wide horizontal beam which will now be narrow and high. The audence may hear less detail in the bass guitar if they are off axis but the player will benefit from the extra height which will be giving more upper mids to their ears. If you were doing this regularly then you could rotate the horns. LFSys have the horns rotated already though to direct the mids to the bassists ears whilst in the conventional position. Sometimes I bore myself

There are cabs with a round 'dimple' routed out to receive a round foot. I deliberately deleted the word better from my post though I did contemplate 'better' but in the end there are a lot of compromises involved in cab design and the feet/corners are the least of the worries. Or should tht be 'least'

I hope you don't mind me using this image but it illustrates the problem for manufacturers. If you look at the top left corner has two diagonal ridges and three hollows. Top right has three ridges and two hollow channels. When stacked the corners on the top cab interlock with those on the bottom and the riges are thick enough that the bottom panel is held clear of the floor. The corner is also the foot. The fitted round feet are obviously better than the corners in clearing the floor but will stop the cabs interlocking. If I were buying two cabs to stack I would expect interlocking corners and which manufacturer wouldn't want their cabs to stack neatly. It drives you nuts though if there is a top handle and the corners wont separte the cabs enough to accomodate the handle and the top cab rocks. You can't suit all of the people all of the time.

That is so sad, like so many I was chatting via pm with Sam. She was going to build one of the first of the new BassChat 8" cabs. I have a kit of parts here packed and ready to go and was increasingly concerned when she suddenly stopped communicating. Now we know why. I'd like to think whatever happened was sudden and quick while she was still planning for the future with new builds and new adventures. She will be missed and she touched a lot of us it seems.

Just a quick one from last weekend's gig at the Coal Orchard in Taunton. It's a bit of a barn inside, I think it might have been an old Cinema. The low ceiling looked like a cinema foyer with some huge art deco 'lumps' built into the ceiling. It had been a Weatherspoons with the huge long bar and space for a lot of people until Covid struck. The point is that it's a big, difficult space acoustically. Lots of reflections echoing the sound back at us with quite a bit of delay. This was with my duo using a couple of RCF ART310A for PA and a couple more as floor monitors with the bass on the monitors rolled back 12db and everything HPF'd at 50Hz. Mixer is an RCF M18 I'm still slightly surprised every time just how good the vocal sound is from sub £300 speakers. Bass and drums sound great too (no back line at all) The only reason I'm putting this up is that we were louder than we've ever been before. It's a big space, low ceilings and a lot of the audience were a good distance from the speakers. There was also a band playing in the pub next door and also further down the street plus my good friend @GrahamT playing with his band Bar None just round the corner. I whacked the sound up to match the levels coming from the band next door. I have to report that first of all I still had headroom with the little 10" PA, I went a bit too loud for one song so edged it back after wandering out into the FOH area to check. We were matching the sound levels of the band next door who had a 'proper' drumkit and a couple of 12" RCF speakers. (they sounded great too btw, someone knew how to set up a PA and the drummer knw how to control the energy). The moral of the story I suppose is don't underestimate what you can do with decent mid-priced point source speakers. Great sound, utterly reliable and surprisingly loud. Other brands are available

The design of the drivers in a sub differ from those used as mid bass drivers. The voice coil is usually bigger which dissipates heat and allows greater power handling. The coil and supension are designed to allow greater excursion and the cone is heavier to reduce flexing and to lower the resonant frequency extending the bottom end of the frequency range. Collectively these changes mean a 15 in a full range cab is a different beast to a 15 in a sub. What I have considered is buying a small sub for use with the 10" tops. It isn't a problem though: I really do have all the bass I want from the 310's, and no issues to date with power handling.

I'm against carrying stuff I don't need Subs are a mixed blessing, more to set up and take down so I factor that in. You get a lot of bass coming back on-stage and monitoring without in-ears is an issue. That's why a cardioid set up appeals. I'm actually very happy with my RCF 745's as they do everything I want. Higher sound levels than I ever need including kick and bass, and a fabulous sound especially with acoustic instruments and voice where the big compression driver really scores. The ART 310's I love too as I've indicated above. Integrating the 1" driver with a 10" mid/bass is obviously more successful than trying to do it with a 15 so the big horn driver would be an unnecessary expense. I think the ART932 would be a better compromise for me. The smaller form factor would help at many gigs and I don't ever use the full capabilities of the 15" drivers. I'd looked hard at the 732 before I bought but the 745's came up in unused condition at a great price as a covid era bargain so I just jumped. The 932 wasn't available when I started looking. I'm also not convinced that small subs aren't really useful. A big sub needs big vehicles to carry them. I've run PA at open mic with some old JBL Eon subs, just 150W and the sound was exceptional. I've also some friends with an FBT (another Italian PA builder) system that has a 2x8 sub and that sounds terrific, I've been meaning to write that up sometime. I just don't like that overblown bass sound, I filter at 50Hz anywhere other than outdoors anyway. Almost no-one notices the difference and half of those that do prefer the HPF'd sound. Big subs do all the things that people claim so I'm not criticising but mainly they are running well below their capabilities. When buying would a single 12" sub you took to 80% of your gigs be better value than a couple of 15's or an !* that you left at home as too much hassle? That clearly is a decision which is personal to your circumstances but something I think people should think about before they buy. Subs are great but not a solution for every band or occasion.

Don't ask My duo partner programs everything he uses soundtrap an online app, if you sign up for a months trial it seems to stay free forever. We signed up for it during lockdown as a way of continuing to play together. It's a DAW really but very simple and straightforward if not vey flexible. Having learned to drive the program Mike is reluctant to change. You have to use their kits, so using a kick drum from one kit and a snare from another is an issue for example. Also won't let you change the time signature or put in a single bar of 2/4. Sounds great though and has moved our duo a long way forwardI'm not complaining because I don't do any of the work on the drums. We are much tighter as you have to be with backing tracks but the presence of drums has resulted in people dancing at every gig now and our set list evolving more quickly.

I'm still looking out for a pair of RCF 910's which are near enough to collect and at the right price. Though my duo did a gig on Sat at a large pub (an ex-Weatherspoons and I think an ex cinema before that) with just the 310's and no sub. and we cranked it up to 11 to compete with other venues along the street which had bands making more noise than us. They sounded really good, startingly good out in the audience area. We have my bass and synthesized drums going through them. The drums are probably compressed and the speakers have a limiter in the DSP but none of this was noticeable. I think the 127db rating in ad-speak, 121db in real money for the 310's must be pretty accurate and very comparable with the old 12" Yamaha S112IV Club Series speakers I used for years. I've only used the ART 905 mkIII once, it sounded nice but was overkill for the venue, I had to crank it right down and it was barely on. My drummer was excited with the kick drum sound but nobody but she would have noticed mid gig. I bought it to replace my pair of Wharfedale 15" subs on the basis one of these would replace the two Wharfedales which are also heavier individually than the 905. The mkIII's also have a simple set up for Cardioid bass which is an added attraction. I only use subs once a year on average and only at open air gigs as the 15" tops I have never struggle indoors. I keep meaning to try the single 905 next to the pair of Wharfedales. The specs say they should be capable of matching each other in terms of volume. BTW worth mentioning is that the Wharfedale T-sub 15B is a good budget priced alternative sub and well proven, it is basically identical with my EVP15 subs but with a lighter plywood cab, a new grille and a class D amp replacing the class AB amp in the EVP's making it 18kg lighter! You can pick up used Wharfedale EVP subs at under £300 each in good condition so if you can lift 43kg they are a real bargain and you can still repair the AB amp or replace the speakers if they blow so a long term option if you are on a budget.

I don't think you'll have any problems at all, especially if you are operating in dual mono rather than stereo. Certainly nothing is going to happen that will stop you entertaining your audiences. In the past when I had no money we mixed all sorts of amps and speakers using whatever we could get. I won't pretend it was ideal but these are two great speakers which are essentially flat response so sonically I don't think anyone in the audience will notice. I did wonder about suggesting you buy the 932A. I think they'd be my first choice for our PA if I was buying today, my 745's are just so damn big, over the top in many venues. I recently acquired a single ART905 mkIII sub at a knockdown price and will be looking out for another, It's a great way to update and not spend too much if you have a plan and a bit of patience. Buying used when the opportunity arises means you usually get your money back when the time comes to take the next step up and sell of your old kit. Good move

We've all been there The obvious still trips me up and the adrenaline flowing when something goes wrong at the start of a gig makes it hard to be entirely rational. It's good to see a happy ending

Of course you are right, I was really just thinking of amplifier prices and did not make that clear. In the UK in the early 1970's a month's average wages wouldn't pay for a 100W bass amp. Currently an average UK week's wage would buy a 500W amp and leave you some change.

I'm not sure this is counter intuitive. A lot of what is happening is I think down to improvements in PA. Even fairly modest bands can carry a fairly capable PA system with no need to reach the audience with back line amps, bass goes through the PA for FOH just like the rest of the band. Increasingly people are using digital mixers with multiple aux sends and individual monitor mixes, often through in-ears. If there is back line then it only needs to reach the band on-stage so you don't need he same volume that a few years ago you used to reach the back of the venue. The other technical advance is the gradual development of long throw loudspeakers with extremely temperature resistant voice coils. They aren't efficient and need a lot more power than the 4x10's but amplifier power is so cheap nowadays that small speakers and lot's of power has become a practical option. Portability is an issue too for a lot of us. I can turn up with a SansAmp and a set of in-ears for most gigs. I have a 1x10 600W AES thermal and 800W amp for the odd occasion when I need backline.

Just a thought, with slap on an upright you are really whacking everything much harder than would be the case on electric bass a lot of the time. Electric bass doesn'tactually have much content below 80Hz but using an upright bass as a percussive instrument might be creating a lot of subsonic peaks. Ported speaker cabs will go into extremes of excursion just above and below the resonant frequency of the port. If that is the case when slapping (and this is just a theory) then an HPF on the amp might reduce the problem and less audibly than a really sharp limiter. Is a castrated bass a viola?