Phil Starr

Technical answer from me, Would you expect anything else? It depends on the materials, Basically most speakers have paper cones and often the surrounds too. Glues used are usually polymer based (plastics, sort of) but may be based on latex. Coil formers may be paper in older designs but now may be plastic or fibrelass. Surrounds may be paper, rubber or cloth and the surround and the cone might be doped with a polymer coating. Flex paper continuously and it will eventually beak down as the plant fibres break and also separate from each other. Humidity even in a 'dry room' will vary from maybe 40-85% so they will also swell and shrink a fair amount. All the polymers are liable to becoming more brittle as they age as they continue to cross polymerise. the glues used in construction may also break down.Just about all te materials in the speaker will oxidise slowly over time All this is speeded up near the coil. This is because of the heat generated there where aging is basically doubled every 10 degree rise. The coil may reach several hundred degrees when the speaker is working flat out. So, yes time will cause speakers to deteriorate. They probably drift out of spec slowly and I doubt if they sound as they did when new. However there are plenty of 20 year old speakers out there still doing a job and I've heard 60 year old speakers working in old valve radios still going. You can sleep soundly.

Fun song. Do you all do the vocal grunts I've been told Bruno Mars was a drummer, which makes sense, given the strong rhythms in the song.

Your bass frequencies will be very different in different rooms. Nearby solid surfaces, like walls, will reflect the sound and reinforce the bass. There will also be lots of room resonances which will differ from room to room. You will have to re set your eq for every new room you come across. It is also a great idea to get out as far away as possible from your speaker when setting up the eq. out in the audience if possible. Up close you won't hear the upper frequencies so well and will get a false impression of your sound.

where in the SW are you? Andy in Axe Music Axminster has a good repair man.

[quote name='Marty Forrer' timestamp='1465443697' post='3068254'] Ha! All this talk of TS parameters and tuned cabinets is largely hogwash. [/quote] I don't want to be too hard on something well meant but this isn't helpful to the OP. The use of T/S parameters is the science behind matching the cabinet volume and the tuning of the cabs. It's widely known by plenty of people on this forum and the idea that nobody at GK knows this or that any other manufacturer would manufacture a speaker without using computer modelling software or listening tests is just wrong. Of course there may be cost based restrictions on the quality of the drivers or the extent of the woodwork for speakers engineered to meet a budget. There are a couple of risks in swapping speakers willy-nilly. Primarily that you might not like the sound much and your money is already spent, but if the cab is a significant mis-match in volume or tuning then there is a risk that the bass response will be significantly compromised or in the extreme that the speaker will be liable to over excursion. This will limit its power handling significantly and may lead to the driver being destroyed when played at gig volumes. All the OP needs to do is to measure the volume of the cab and dimensions of any ports and we can check if it is indeed a good match for the speakers he is looking at.

I couldn't play the clip but something which makes a noise and isn't affected by the volume control sounds like a power supply fault to me too. If the sound is a very loud buzzing I'd suspect the power supply capacitors. If it is you shouldn't mess around with them unless you know what they do. They can give you a nasty shock even with the amp unplugged/switched off.

I'm just a little more optimistic than Bill. Most cabs are a similar size and are tuned to similar frequencies so that whilst he's right about the T/S parameters but there's a decent chance there's a speaker out there that would work in your cab. If you can measure the cab someone here will run the data through a program which will tell you if a speaker will match your cab. Don't expect it to sound like your cab any more though, the voicing will be different and maybe very different.

First of all the technical advice is good, rear ports won't make a difference unless you are hard up against the rear wall as the frequencies they radiate are non-directional. hard up against the wall the air mass trapped between the rear panel and the wall might come into play but moving the cab forward a few inches would prevent that, and to be frank I don't think it is your problem. Any attempt to block your ports is going to stop them doing their job properly. You say two things that may be relevant. You've achieved your sound, and that it sounds good out front but not on stage. The first point is that you have changed your sound and you describe it as 'warm' so I assume it contains more bass energy than before. The solution to this is to roll off some of that bass. What sounds best in practice often isn't the best solution for working live. You all have to compromise your sound a little in a band to help out the other guys. However you also say the sound for the audience is good so maybe there is a balance to be struck there. I suspect the problem may be resonance caused by the acoustics of the rooms you are playing in. These room resonances are being excited by your new sound. This may be further muddying the sound if you are getting bass feedback through the mics. So many venues ram the band into an alcove at the back of the room which have particularly bad acoustics. I find low ceilings a particular problem. you may just have had a run of bad luck with room resonances. Try the following. Filter subsonic bass with an HPF like a Thumpinator or turn down your bass a little if the mud is a particular problem. Apply the bass filters to all your mic's if your mixer allows this (apart from the kick mic if you use one) Keep your bass cab out of corners and move it away from walls as far as you can. If your PA can take it put some of your bass through the PA and turn down on stage. If you do this one trick is to roll off the bass a little on stage and boost it through the PA to compensate, so the audience hear a balanced sound but you reduce the bass energy on stage.

I wouldn't gig with anything I hadn't tried, so borrow the Peavey and use it at least for one rehearsal. Most Peavey stuff is reliable and sounds OK but is just sooo heavy. I'd also find out a bit more about the PA before you get there. Then you know what you are preparing for. I always take more stuff than I need to an unknown gig. It usually sits in the van unused but I'd rather carry all I might need than put on a poor show. On the plus side the sound in a marquee is usually great.

I've been gigging for about a year with the 12" design I've done for basschatters. It's fairly unexceptional in sensitivity but the design uses a long throw speaker so it handles bass well at high power without distortion. It's been plenty loud enough to cope with one, though I've taken two to larger venues once or twice. These were mainly pub gigs with a few larger functions including Exeter Chiefs. We play 70's rock with a fairly full on drummer. My tone is set fairly flat with the bass rolled off below 40Hz. One 12 is enough to overpower the drummer most of the time. With both I could drown him out pretty comprehensively so no need for any more than that. The only situation where I think a single 12 wouldn't cope would be outdoors or if you set your tone with a lot of bass boost or use an octaver. That's with the proviso that you have plenty of power in the amp and the speaker is good enough on excursion to cope with that power. Obviously if you are going out with 6dB of bass boost then you need four times the power so that might be problematic.

It's actually very simple and the science explains everything. The op compared the amps through the same speakers, so they aren't the variable. First thing is that the advertising teams at most companies are lying gits. You are far better off going to the manuals to find power figures you can compare. For clarity I'm only talking about rms or AES measurements. It's the simplest thing to measure amp watts, and completely clear so long as you describe your measuring technique. Two people anywhere in the world using the same technique will come up with the same answer. The thing to understand is that the sound you hear is made of waves that the speaker driven by the amp is tracking. The power of the amp is only important at the peak of the highest part of the wave in the loudest part of what you are playing. What you perceive as the loudness is to do with the average power in the section of music you are listening to. Your 300W amp flat out is probably only running at 15W if it isn't distorting. It's the behaviour of the amp at these levels which determines part of the difference between amps. Valve amps distort nicely, over driven is a compliment when you talk about a valve amp. This means you can drive a valve amp harder and you might well get a pleasing sound from a 100W valve amp running at 15W average power. To you it is as loud as the 300W transistor amp and to all practical purposes it is just as useful, but it is still a 100W amp, there aren't any extra Magic valve watts. You are just pushing it harder and loving what that sounds like. The other factor in the box you call your amp is the power supply. You might all have the same class D output module but different manufacturers use differently rated power supplies. The amp might be 300W but the power supply might only be able to provide enough current for half that. If you only reach that peak once every few seconds then the power supply will be fine but if you start to get too demanding of current the voltage in the power supply will drop and it won't be a 300W amp any more. Beefy power supplies cost more than weedy ones so manufacturers wont normally provide you with a full spec power supply unless you pay a lot more for your amp than you would be happy to pay. And to be fair most of the time you wouldn't notice anyway, few of us run our amps flat out at gigs, just when we are messing around at home to see what they can do. The last factor in loudness that isn't to do with watts is tone. Bass amps aren't usually neutral sounding. I'd bet the the tone of the OPs three amps are different. If the peaks in output are at the bottom end then they demand more power and the amp will demand more power. But, if the peak is in the midrange then our ears are really sensitive in that area and the amp will sound louder for the same power. If I designed an amp to sound loud in the demo room I'd design in a mid boost. That's how your transistor radio sems louder than its one or two watts would suggest. I also know that a 'smiley face'frequency response sounds nicer to most people, so cynically I might design that in to an amp. If the OP had used a graphic to dial in a similar frequency response I suspect the two solid state amps would have been similar. The difference between 300 and 450W is only just over 1db so barely noticeable.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1464511056' post='3059891'] No, I'm up to speed on the above - I'm more interested in the makes and models that people are actually using when they say they are playing with PA support. [/quote] Ok, it would still be good to have more detail. Is this just curiosity? Is it for your band? Assuming it's some sort of Rock band with a drummer playing at volume then I'd say you'd sensibly need tops with subs and something like 300W RMS a side going to tops and the same going to the subs. There are other systems out there but this is the most usual route you'll see. Not many tops will handle enough bass on their own to do bass duties without a decent bass rig. I've two PA's. My old passive system is the Yamaha club series S112V tops and S118V subs driven by two Peavey 1600 amps. My active system is Wharfedale EVP 12" tops and 15" subs, which I'd recommend. It wouldbe worth looking at JBL, EV, Yamaha's new stuff, Mackie, All of which I've heard sounding great. If you had a decent budget then RCF or QSC would be an upgrade or the dB mentioned above. If you wanted a cheap system I personally wouldn't go for the old Peaveys. Solid and reliable though they are the vocal sound lacks detail. The old Yamaha club series can be picked up for next to nothing nowadays and are just as reliable. Nothing wrong with peavey amps, mixers or bass bins though, it's just the tops..

Another shout for Lemonrock.com it is strong in the Herts area. There are also ads for bands looking for members so you get two bites at the cherry. It's mainly a site for gigging bands so you don't get so many start ups or hobby bands only there. I'm more positive about open mic/jam sessions. I've heard great singers and musicians there as well as people just starting out. Not that there is anything wrong with starting out either. I'm between bands and I wouldn't be averse to sniffing around the open mics to meet people and network a little. The guys running it are usually pretty well connected in the local music scene and worth talking to. good luck, hope you find what you are looking for.

There's really two approaches to PA assuming we are loosely talking about some sort of rock band rather than something less noisy. The simplest approach which works well for smallish venues is a PA which deals mainly with vocals. The other approach is a fully mixed system where the sound the audience hear is all coming through the PA. This has lots of advantages but not simplicity portabiLity or cost. Effectively it means the PA has to be louder than all the stage amps put together and have all their capabilities. As a bassist this means that the PA must handle all your bass just as well as your bass stack plus all the bass from drums etc. Your bass stack becomes an on stage monitor for you and the band. Step up to a touring rig and you might even do away with the bass amp and have all your monitoring through in ears or a floor monitor. So, PA support doesn't realy have a technical status but would normally mean that the PA can safely provide all the bass you would want to throw at it. It has big speakers or more usually bass bins and plenty of headroom. that means you can take your smaller amp as you won't have to fill the room with bass on your own. In practice I'd always check each time to see what they mean though and I always take my own bass gear unless I know and trust the system and the engineer. One bad experience where the sound engineer cut my monitor mid gig and another where they had a noise gate which cut the first second of every bass entry would make me very reluctant to play without any monitor of my own. I hope this was the question you wanted answering

The problem with singers and wireless mics is that they will walk around with them I'm sure a lot of the problems of feedback could be solved with some technical knowledge, simple things like putting it back on the stand when she is not using it and not accidentally pointing it at the speakers or into the corners of the room (usually the most resonant points). However the mic probably isn't that great, if you buy the £500 Sennheiser system the mic itself is only taking up about £150 of that so your £150 system probably is using a £50 mic. AKG are usually pretty good at feedback rejection though. One consideration is the mic itself. The E945 is a super cardioid (quite directional) good at feedback rejection but demanding on vocal technique. If your vocalist is non- technical and is used to a cardioid like the one you are using then a system based on say the Shure Beta58 might be better for her. It isn't an SM58 and although described as a super cardioid it is very forgiving of mic technique http://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Shure-BLX24RUK-B58-Beta-58A-Rack-Mount-Handheld-Wireless-Mic-System/TUC?origin=product-ads&utm_campaign=PLA+Shop+-+Shure&utm_medium=vertical_search&network=google&adgroup=2+-+Brand+Level+-+Shure&merchant_id=1279443&product_id=38676d1&product_country=GB&product_partition_id=85063544839&gclid=Cj0KEQjwvZq6BRC9kfq2zKfQ_94BEiQAOeUVC-lqUOKQvqhTwNsvPgQqMMhuyKoYbzpPqOowfOpjuP8aAnAa8P8HAQ If you can go to £500 then this is a bit of a bargain [url="http://www.pmtonline.co.uk/shure-glxd24uk-beta87a-digital-handheld-wireless-microphone-system?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&gclid=Cj0KEQjwvZq6BRC9kfq2zKfQ_94BEiQAOeUVC4HoC62XnXaRi27Du83FofoQsOSWwhcjfMDEpqEoOkkaAje08P8HAQ"]http://www.pmtonline...oOkkaAje08P8HAQ[/url] the Beta87 is a fabulous mic.

It looks like the old BL12 rebranded. The T/S parameters are the same http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=CELBL12200X&browsemode=manufacturer

There's two issues. you'd have to choose speakers that worked with your cabs and the sound is likely to be different from the combo at the moment because they'll be different speakers. The second is that it won't necessarily be much louder. Dropping the impedance will give you a little more output from the amp but only probably a couple of dB's more than at present. That's noticeable but only just. Your extension speaker is giving you an increase in power and efficiency so you are probably getting an extra 5dB with that. However there are more efficient 10's around so it might be possible to get what you want with the right drivers, it's just a bit more complex than a straight swap of drivers. Why don't you want to turn it up more than halfway? Does it start to distort? If not then there is no reason not to turn it up so long as you have the headroom. That is what it is there for.

It's already shared. You might want to skip a few pages though http://basschat.co.uk/topic/227904-1x12-cab-design-diary/

You don't say if this is a serious band or just a bunch of mates jamming. If it's a serious band then you probably want out. If it's mates having fun then if the drummer is keen to improve then it's up to you whether you want to help him/them along. The only way the drummer will improve is by practice, so you need to find out I he is up for that.

Yes I think you should have no problems, obviously I don't have the stuff in front of me but it looks good. You'd probably get a better sound with a second amp with an active crossover. A lot of PA amps now have a built in crossover for subs but what you have will work fine and you can upgrade easily enough later if you want to add an active crossover and a bit more power.

Looks like you are in luck. According to the manual the crossover in the subs give a high pass signal to the tops and Peaveys own matching tops are 8ohms. just feed the amp output to your subs and use the high pass output from them to your tops and all should be well. The crossover means you should treat the whole system as 4 ohms each side which should be fine. Manual http://assets.peavey.com/literature/manuals/117940_12464.pdf

Two stacked look so good too. I'm not a great believer in speakers breaking in making a huge difference. I know Stevie of Basschat fame did some measurements/calculations on it a couple of years ago and there is a thread here somewhere. I'm glad you've got the flat response I aimed at when I chose the speaker for this cab. BTW Fortunate Son, what a great song.

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1463585714' post='3052587'] Yes I think I shall look into some ear protection. It's weird it does seem to only be with deep bass. [/quote]Not really, there are small muscles in your middle ear that reduce the movement of the bones that transmit sound from the eardrum to the inner ear. They tighten up when it is too loud to reduce the damage to the inner ear. I'm guessing here but I suspect since the bones move further with deep bass it is this which will trigger the effects most easily.

The dishwasher might be kill or cure! The water is at a fair old pressure and the drying cycle quite hot, you may have melted some of the plastics in there. Oh well it probably wasn't going to work anyway and as you say was cheap enough. Bad luck.

I've been banging on about this for some time. I'll probably continue until it becomes the accepted wisdom because I hate to see people ripped off. YOU CANNOT SERVICE AN AMP an amp contains no serviceable parts. There's nothing to top up, tighten up, tweak or adjust. There is no routine maintenance. your car has lots of moving parts and its reliability depends upon lubricants and filters that need periodic replacement. It also has safety critical components that ought to be checked periodically, which is why there is a list of things to check and when which makes up a servicing schedule. No such thing exists for amps, check your manuals if you don't believe me. Now things break down and wear out, just as they do on a car but your service doesn't cover that. Now if you are running vintage gear then you might want it rebuilt, all the capacitors, pots and sockets replaced or a re-valve but that's the equivalent of rebuilding a car, a major task that can cost much more than the original amp. Now I'm sure there are other amp techs out there who will do a service if you push them hard enough. They may open her up Hoover out the accumulated dust and check for scorching, maybe even spray some switch cleaner on the bits they can reach. (Though I avoid this if there is no fault because it can disturb dirt that wasn't causing problems) what they are doing is offering a bit of placebo effect though. A bit of reassurance to a nervous customer. Some smart Alec is going to point out the odd vintage valve amp that needs the bias tweaking every now and again or that you could have the valves checked but for most of us there is no point in checking an amp that is working faultlessly.