Phil Starr

Glad it's been cleared up that it is the Pro, looks like the cheapest solution is to buy a second hand cab. This is the replacement [url="http://www.bluearan.com/index.php?id=EMIDELPRO15A&browsemode=manufacturer"]http://www.bluearan.com/index.php?id=EMIDELPRO15A&browsemode=manufacturer[/url] You could probably get away with something like the Fane 15-500 which is a bit cheaper because it has a punched chassis but is still £80+. If you replace it with something cheaper like the Eminence Beta then you will have to re tune and accept a big change in the tone. Even this will cost you £50-60. If it is a Delta Pro (and I've no reason to doubt that it is) then there should be no trouble getting it re-coned, though that wont be cheap either ring Watford or Blue Aran for a quote then decide

Oh, Bill is spot on about all the mystic mumbo jumbo on the Big E website. I expect they also use the vibrational power of crystals to reach into the fifth dimension.

I've got a couple of six inchers that claim to go quite high, I've two schemes planned for them, to try them in a critically damped sealed cab and to experiment with different crossover frequencies and to try building a mid-horn cab to sit on top of my normal cabs. I'll let you know as soon as I make a start or you can contact me in the new year and prod me into action if you wnat to get oin with it sooner.

I'm pleased it has turned out this way for you, The bass sounds pretty much as I predicted so that is reassuring. The speaker has a pretty well controlled top end and most of the commercially available drivers have a characteristic peak in the 2-4 kHz range which gives them their character. The aluminium Hartke will be particularly characterful which is why the shape control works so well on it, basically it allows you to filter out bits of the peak. I have a hartke 3500 top on which I use the graphic to dial in the more typical bass cab sound when i want it. I'm currently using my Beymas in PA tops and can let you have details of the horns I use, which will give you more extended cleaner tops at the cost of doubling the expense of your cab. I'm also working on a 6" driver based cab to punch out a few more mids which I can share as soon as i get round to it. 10" drivers are too big to be good mid range drivers really.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1387213455' post='2309478'] Phil, I appreciate that you can put a more complex spin on it, but let’s not compare apples and oranges. Yes, you can make an expensive 15 that will have better midrange than a cheap 10 and you can even make a 10 that has no midrange at all. But it is still the case that (ceteris paribus) large cones are simply not as good at reproducing higher frequencies as smaller cones, and that the larger the cone the lower it tends to break up. By the same token, when a lot of air has to be moved you need a large cone area. It’s the balancing act that makes speaker design so interesting, don’t you think? [/quote] Hi Stevie, You're right, there's a bit of me that watches from afar and says 'you can't still be interested in all this can you?' but it is that combination of science and craft that I just can't leave alone, plus the sheer joy of making very loud music! It'll be a sad day for me if they come up with a perfect replacement for the moving coil loudspeaker. There were a couple of things behind my post. Mainly I don't think most of the people reading here will realise how much of the sound we hear is due to the cone flexing. I've never seen a discussion of it on BC. Most people I suspect think of the cone moving backwards and forwards as a stiff piston and think the sound is coming from the whole cone. You'll know it isn't but others won't and it has relevance for bass drivers in particular. IMO it is this that gives speakers their 'sound' more than their bass response in the bottom two octaves. Because of the way we work with Thiele/Small equations and the programs like WinISD that run them we tend to concentrate on this a lot, but our ears are so much more sensitive to what is going on in the 1-5kHz (midrange) and we tend collectively to gloss over that a bit. A couple of years ago I built a 4x10 as a kind of test bed for developing a bass cab, I used two different drivers in it, the Fane soveriegn 10-125 and 10-275.The first with a light cone and a smaller magnet and the second a heavier cone, larger magnet and stiffer suspension. the second one has a cleaner and slightly more extended bass response but only really extended up to 3000hz. This clearly wasn't enough without a midrange driver and they are currently doing duty in a pair of stage monitors crossing over to horns at 2k The thinner more flexible cones in the cheaper 10-125's give an output up to about 4500Hz and sound much better as bass speakers, I still use them in a 2x10. This is my real bugbear coming from designing hi-fi speakers, I'm not convinced there's a lot of design going into commercially available drive units, There's a lot of over damped, low excursion drivers where they seem to have just stuck a bigger magnet on a cheaper design without considering the use for which the driver is intended, Just a marketing opportunity with no need to re-tool. Speakers recommended as bass drivers which are just unsuitable due to under damping, huge Vas values and low excursion and of course little control over the cone's behaviour under break up, with some Eminence units having 9dB peaks with very sharp peaks and troughs in the frequency response showing little damping of cone resonance. It seems as if Alex Claber is having some input into the design of his drive units, that's a luxury I'd love to have.

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1387116529' post='2308304'] The other factor that I've never seen anyone mention is that smaller cones have a superior midrange performance to larger cones - given an equivalent technology level, of course. So at mid frequencies (say 500Hz up) a 10 will always have lower distortion, fewer delayed resonances and a higher natural breakup frequency than an equivalent 12 or 15. I think this is probably why many bass players like 10s. [/quote] Hi Stevie, to be fair it is a little more complex than this and a bit more tricky for designers. A 10" speaker will only normally operate as a rigid piston up to 1200Hz above this the beaming starts and the weight of the cone becomes harder to accelerate and decelerate causing all the problems you mention. To deal with this most if not all bass speakers operate with some (hopefully controlled) flexing of the cones. If you wanted to cover from 500 up to say 5000Hz you'd need a tiny 6cm driver like the dome mid-ranges in hi fi speakers. To get the 500Hz energy involved in bass applications you'd have to have a driver this size horn loaded.. All the things you say are true of a lighter cone but once the cone starts flexing it depends upon where it flexes, and it is possible to design a 15 with the right flexure and cone damping to reproduce better mids than a 10 that has a beefed up, thicker and heavier cone designed to go down to 40Hz. This flexure means also that the radiation or dispersal pattern for large drivers isn't always as poor as stated, A 15 may be radiating most of the mids using the central few cm of the cone. For me it seems that if you want lots of deep bass you are better off with a large diameter cone, if you want good undistorted mids and good dispersion then smaller lighter cones are a better starting point but you can make a small cone go deep and get good highs out of a big cone by making compromises in their design. Nearly all of these compromises have been tried by somebody at some time.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1387069801' post='2308013'] I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying, though I could have worded it a little better. But maybe a good thing as you then went on to explain quite a few things. What I meant was that a driver's diameter doesn't mean it has a particular sound. It's down to lots of factors. The 2 15" Marshalls that I had in the 80s had nowhere near as much bass as the 2x10" Makbass that I use nowadays. Though this is most likely a mix of better designed drivers and better designed cabs. [/quote]That's all fair, I hope you didn't think it was a personal thing I'm an ex science teacher and I can't resist my instinct against the unqualified statement. My wife is an English teacher and can't resist correcting my grammar. Hope it opened up the debate though.

Yep, it's working again now. My computer is almost as ancient as I am so I do get odd glitches

Sorry, but this simply isn't true, though it has become the received wisdom on BC. Size matters in a number of ways and the radius of the cone is an important factor in predicting it's performance. It occurs in a number of the calculations designers use. The other factor in speaker cones is their mass, and bigger cones are heavier. Heavier cones have a lower resonance and can reproduce deeper notes as a result. You can make a small cone go deeper by adding weight but this will make it quieter, or by loosening off the suspension but this will affect it's sound too, again in complex ways. For example a thicker cone with a loose suspension is more likely to act as a piston and not flex, this will reduce the high frequency content and probably lose the mid-range hump which gives the characteristic sound of many bass speakers. It also isn't true that a 10" speaker travelling twice as far will be as loud as a 15 or two 'ordinary' 10's. speakers produce very high energy high pressures at the cone, Sound is normally spread over a large volume and the pressures are much lower, there is an impedance mismatch at the point the speaker meets the air and energy is transferred inefficiently. Horns act to match the impedance of the cone and air and that is why they are louder, They aren't making energy they are simply converting it more efficiently. Increasing the cone area will do this as well, doubling cone area and will give you a 3db increase in sound level for the same electrical input. Of course size isn't everything and there are many other factors, the electromagnetic motor and the detailed design of the cone. Alex Claber explains this perfectly fairly (from memory as his site is down) in saying there isn't a sound of a 15 or a 10" speaker. There are so many variables it couldn't be, but it isn't insignificant either, if you wanted a loud, efficient speaker driving down to 30Hz you wouldn't start with a 4" speaker.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1387014944' post='2307384'] Cone size makes no difference to the sound. It's all down to how the driver is made & cab design. So to put it simple, the more air you can move, the louder you can go. [/quote]

Can you put up a link to the EBS article on power requirements please? I've been looking for this sort of information. I use the Hartke kickback10 for this sort of gig though only with mains, It's an awkward thing to carry due as much to its shape as it's weight. My 2x10 is lighter louder and a lot easier to carry. I'm really not convinced you need 300W though, It is going to drain the battery pretty quickly and you will have to carry a correspondingly heavy battery. to reduce weight overall I would start with the speakers. Moving from Hartke's 92 dB/W to something like 102 dB/W would give you the same sound level with a tenth of the power. If you are prepared to compromise on deep bass you could easily use short throw speakers like guitar speakers which are much louder because more of the coil is in the magnet at any one time making electrical efficiency higher. There are drivers out there with intermediate characteristics that would give higher efficiencies too. My 2x10 built with ceramic magnet drivers and 18mm ply weighs only 17kg and has a sensitivity of 98dB/W and I'm sure I could achieve better if I designed for lightweight. This alone would give you the same sound output with a quarter of the power than using a less efficient speaker. I haven't measured the output from my KB10 but it is going to be around 112dB, in any case this is limited by bass excursion as i can hear it distorting if I push it hard. If the Hartke is loud enough for you but just too awkward to carry then you only need that sound level. Using a 100dB/W speaker would only need 12db of gain so 16W of amp. A 30w amp would be louder and save your batteries, and you wouldn't be driving the speakers beyond their excursion limits so your bass would be cleaner.

OK it has been explained before but here's the technical bit. Amps are really simple to measure, Their wattage is just a measure of the electricity they can pump out. Connect them up to a resistor, turn them up to the point of distortion and measure the voltage and current. There are variations but the 'RMS' wattage is basically that simple. Speakers are more complex, their failure is caused three ways, By overheating, by over excursion and by wear and tear. The ratings of speakers are based on over-heating only. The measurement technique is simple enough, plug a few samples in turn up the power and see if they burn out, then try higher powers until they do. the last power at which they all survives is the rating. the trouble is that it tells you little about the real world performance. Your cab will have a different rating in Kyoto in the summer to Reykjavik in the winter for instance. The amount of stuffing in the cab is probably more significant in affecting cooling but the biggest factor is the type of music you play, Gaps between notes reduce heating, lots of sustain and distortion increase it. Compression is a particular killer. The heating effect is about the average power you are using. If your peaks are 100W and you have 40dB of dynamic range between your quiet and loud bits your average power is only 1W (yes one watt) with a more realistic 20dB range it would be 10W. (this all assumes you don't have any gaps in your playing so in reality the average would be less) Extreme compression can bring the average very close to the peaks, though of course it will sound louder and you would probably turn down. Used normally though it is unlikely that the 10W average power is going to burn out your 100W speaker. Much more likely is damage through over excursion, here bass is a problem just as much as power. If the coil moves out of the magnet it won't cool efficiently. If it moves too far in some designs it will hammer against the back of the magnet. The more power and the deeper the note the further it moves. The air in the cab asts as a damper on the movement but if you have a ported cab there is another complication, below the port tuning the air doesn't damp the movement and your 400W cab might only be able to handle 40W. So practically what does all this mean? Firstly that no-one can definitively say whether your cab will be safe, we don't know how you play. Most people don't regularly blow 300W speakers with 300W amps. If you use a lot of bass boost and fx pedals then you probably ought to be more careful than if you go for a clean sound. If you only match the acoustics of the drums then there really shouldn't be a problem with this level of amplification, you almost certainly aren't going to turn these amps anywhere near full up. If you are trying to drown out two Marshall full stacks then beware. for one thing you won't hear a farting cab because of your hearing loss. Finally don't rely on hearing the speaker distortion, for one it is often already too late by then but mainly because, although that sound is really clear in your bedroom or a rehearsal room, on stage it can be really tricky to realise it is your rig that is making the awful noise.

Building a cab for a speaker isn't really very high tech. If the box is well made and the right size and shape, and tuned properly if it is a ported design, then it is pretty much going to sound like a commercial cab. There are lots of designs out there you can copy too so you can do this without much technical knowledge. Just like DIY repairs to your house some people are better at it than others though. No secret to this either, they just take more care, don't cut corners and get better the more they do. Even designing cabs isn't difficult. It's roughly A level maths/physics sort of standard. You do need to work at it but most reasonably bright people will get on top of the basics in a year or two. You can get in at the bottom end by letting the computer do the number crunching but it helps to understand what the computer is doing for you. The joy is that you can then apply your knowledge in so many ways, the perfect speaker doesn't exist at any price. They are all compromise designs and each compromise leads to a different sound. Not all the compromises are built commercially and there is a tendency for most of the manufacturers to do me too copies of the currently best selling designs. I've been designing and building speakers since the 1970's and am still learning how little I know and how much more there is I want to try. So go ahead and use DIY speakers, then get into building them yourself.

In bridge mode you are connecting the output of the two amps together pushing in the opposite direction to each other with the speakers connected in between. If one were turned right up and the other not then you are directly applying an electrical potential across the output of the amp which is turned down, which in turn could cause it to fail or trip some of the protection circuitry depending upon the exact design of the amp. The problem with setting volumes half way is that the potentiometers in the volume controls may be a poor match and combined with any inaccuracies you introduce this may cause a mismatch. the afest thing is to turn both up full and put up with the high sensitivity or to buy a little mixer or pedal to cut the volume somewhere earlier in the chain such as in the fx loop.

If you can afford just over £1000 then it would be worth looking at the AER Amp One. They are genuinely astonishing for their size and portability. They come up here for discussion but I can honestly say I have been blown away by the sound of these little combos' [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/157525-aer-amp-one-the-best-amp-i-have-bought-evar/"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/157525-aer-amp-one-the-best-amp-i-have-bought-evar/[/url]

You would be doing two entirely different things for different reasons and you would need different speakers, at least, to achieve either. Taking a mono signal and using a crossover is about sending the signal to more capable speakers. Bass needs a big heavy cone, a long coil, high power handling,a particular magnet design and so on. Highs need a small cone for dispersion, lighter so it moves quicker, excursion isn't a problem so you can make the coil shorter and the speaker more efficient (louder) so saving on power handling. This will usually give a cleaner sound all round and if you like the sound of DI'd bass from a stack it could be the way to go. Another alternative might be to use a guitar speaker to give you a desired distorted sound but protected from the bass with a 100Hz crossover and then to fill in the lows with a sub below 100Hz. but essentially most people would go this route to get a cleaner sound. Having said that a better way of doing this technically is just to DI and use the PA sound and set up monitors on-stage. your problem here will be finding someone who makes a really good 'satelite' top for a bass. Feeding two signals to two stacks is a bit odd. As Synaesthesia (nice to see the dipthong) said the joy of twin pup's is blending them to get phase cancellations or 'mid scoop' and you'd lose this capability for something less predictable by separating the pups output. What you would gain is having two stacks with different sounds so you could use either or both during a gig for different songs and get a range of sounds you couldn't get otherwise by 'blending' the stacks. It wouldn't matter that this is unpredictable because you could hear the results. The trouble of this for me is that I would probably not want to feed the two stacks from different pups. The old way of splitting signals and feeding to a 1x15 and 2x10 makes no sense, unless you want that particular old school sound, as modern drivers are so much more capable. You really couldn't get decent power handling and bass from anything with high frequencies back then. If you want a super-clean on-stage sound then go for the crossover. You might need to look to unconventional speakers though. Barefaced sub with Phil Jones tops? If you want to try splitting the pup's find a fellow bassist who fancies some experimenting and try his stack/combo with yours in various combinations rather than spending a fortune on extra amps and speakers.

go to the doctor. Even if everyone here was medically qualified you need to have someone examine your finger, it is probably nothing to worry about but it needs checking as early as possible especially if you need to be ready for the gigs. Make an appointment this morning. Good luck

Too harsh on drummers guys. The OP asked how much power, and the answer isn't to be louder than the drummer can possibly ever be. The other thing is that the volume control isn't the only way we have of playing louder, we should have dynamics too. I set to the drummer at the beginning of the set and if he plays harder so do I and vice versa. Of course a drummer should use the appropriate dynamics for the song but shouldn't the rest of the band.

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1385666411' post='2290971'] Fight your ground for your opinions on ported or sealed cabs. Which is tighter? Which has more 'thump'? Does it change tone? In a fight....6X10 sealed (eg, Matamp) or 2x12 ported (eg Barefaced)? Which one is best for Metal? What do you think? [/quote] Great question, there are differences some of which are down to the type of cab and some down to just differences due to the actual speaker in question. Now the physics isn't really helpful on the above. mainly because 'thump', 'tone' and 'tight' mean different things to each of us. I'm not a fan of metal but even my superficail listening tells me that metal bassists don't all sound the same, though big cabs seem to have the image needed [quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1385666411' post='2290971'] Fight your ground for your opinions on ported or sealed cabs. Which is tighter? Which has more 'thump'? Does one have more bass/mid/treble? What differences does it really make? How does the same driver react in sealed and ported cabs? [/quote] There are differences which Lawrence has talked about, They are all in the bass region so no, they don't make any difference to mid or treble. Yes in hi-fi speakers some midrange sound can be reflected off the back panel of the cab and come out through the port though this isn't really relevant to bass cabs as it isn't going to be noticed unless you are miking up in a strange place. The main effect of the port is to give you extra output at the frequency around the ports tuning point, About 3dB or double the output which you can see clearly on Bill's graph, Most bass designers can't resist this 'free' extra bass so most modern style cabs are ported designs. Older cabs with walls of cheap drivers were filled with speakers that couldn't work in ported designs so tended to be sealed getting their extra bass from sheer muscle, a bit like American sports cars. The other advantage of porting is that sealed cabs always raise the resonant frequency of the speaker so the bass output starts to fall from a higher starting point in a sealed cab compared to a ported cab depending upon which drivers you use. (it's a bit complex here but this holds true for most commercial cabs IMO) There are disadvantages coming from the port though, below the resonant frequency of the cab the speaker unloads very quickly. The air in the port acts like a plug at high frequencies, like a tuned bass string at resonance and like a big open hole below resonance. This has lots of consequences because the cone flaps around under little control from anything. First of all it is likely to exceed its excursion limits and the power handling can be reduced to a tenth of its rated level as it starts to hammer against the back of the magnet. The bass output falls very rapidly in a ported cab (at 24 db/octave) so if the cab was tuned to 60Hz the bottom note of a 5 string might easily be 1/200th of the power of B an octave above. (you'd still hear plenty of harmonics, just not the fundamental tone) You also get problems with phase at these frequencies. If you are using a ported cab and want it ot go on working then you really need to cut all the bass below 40Hz or even higher with some designs With the sealed cab the bass falls off at half the rate of a reflex cab at 12 dB/octave though it will do this from a higher point because of the raised resonant frequency. Because the cab is sealed it acts on the back of the cone and reduces the excursion at low frequencies, this means you can often use a little bass boost safely to bring the level up to that of a ported cab. At some point the ported cabs more quickly falling output will cross over the slowly falling output of the sealed cab. Bill gives one example where it crosses over below any bass note we play but there could be any number of examples where it is higher than this. Sealed cabs can be designed easily to either give a big hump in frequency and a slightly woolly bass or a flat response or a really tight well damped bass simply by changing the size of the cab. This makes it easy to design in 'thump' or 'tight, fast bass'. You can do this with ported cabs too but I would say with less flexibility. The other factor is room resonance, you can easily get an extra 6dB or more of bass by the sound being reflected off the floors and walls, I find myself cutting the bass more often than boosting it when I play live so a slow bass roll off might be something between a curse and a blessing. It is hard for an engineer designing a speaker to turn down the advantages of the extra bass of a ported design and most sealed cabs have really cheap drivers in them so you aren't comparing like with like quite often. No-one I know of has taken the Barefaced approach of putting the best modern bass drivers into a well engineered lightweight sealed cab yet, though someone will correct me on that. I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with the idea though.

[quote name='steve-bbb' timestamp='1385716898' post='2291377'] definitely this unless the guitarist is doing something rhythmically tight i tend to ignore the guitar and just focus on the drums and then the keys in our band - the guitar can be sort of left to its own devices to a degree because as long as drums and bass are locked together it gives the guitarist room for a bit more fluidity im always telling our singist (much to her amusement) that i havent got a clue what she is doing - its not so much wilfully ignoring her but my ear seems to zone out the vox when i focus on the drums and the structure good luck with the gig tonight [/quote] Yeah good luck. This is getting interesting, I've always seen it as my job to knit the band together. I learned to play with a drum machine when I started so timekeeping wasn't an issue but I was shocked when i joined a band to find most singers and guitarists can't play to a drum machine or indeed any steady beat! I try to control the tightness of our songs by defining the first note of a chord change and if i hear someone drifting or making a mistake I'll try to emphasize those notes a little to draw everyone back in, Actually once a song is secure you can pretty much relax and concentrate on performance but I always try to listen to everyone, I always thought this was my job. In practice I mainly concentrate on the singer and the drums. My pet hate is singers who think phrasing is singing out of time. Obviously there is more than one way to be a bassist, so do i have it wrong?

[quote name='Mog' timestamp='1385633808' post='2290385'] These "Smart Power" cabs have intrigued me for a while. The principle is sound but something in the back of my mind keeps saying gimmick. Has anyone been using one of these for a few months/years? [/quote] [quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1385647060' post='2290637'] The principle has been known for 40 odd years. Take two drivers, configure them so that only one of the cones is exposed to the air and one to the cabinet, and you get the same response curve with half the net box size as is required with one driver. That's a plus. You also get the same net output as with one driver. That's not a plus. [/quote] [quote name='BurritoBass' timestamp='1385652818' post='2290724'] Can I buck the trend by being the first person to comment who has actually been using one for years? The reality for me is it is all I need. I tend to play in a range of venues from Art Centres to pubs and in small / medium pubs with vocal only PAs it really holds up well. In the larger venues it is standard to mic up the bass so again, no issues. I get more comments about my sound now than at any other time and I've been playing 25yrs. [/quote] There you are then, not confusing at all. The truth is they are both right. The principle isn't sound, as an engineering solution it is completely bonkers. I can't believe it is anything other than one engineers daydream and a complete marketing gimmick from then on. If you want a little cab then make a driver with a bigger magnet, which will be cheaper and lighter than two drivers. If you want a portable cab don't make it so heavy! If you want it to sound nice then using an isobaric cab won't change the sound it just makes it more expensive. But these cabs do sound OK if you like that old school sound, There's nothing actually wrong with them and you'll either like the sound or not. I quite like how they sound as it happens. Just ask yourself though if you are happy paying almost twice as much for a cab to have a gimmicky extra speaker which doesn't contribute to the sound and where the money could have been better spent. If that really is the sound you can't live without and you don't mind the weight then go for it but it isn't good because it is isobaric and it isn't the first speaker I'd look at at that price.

I'll be only the first to say this; you don't need to match the guitarist who will have to turn down. Your job is to match the drummer. If you are louder than the drums they will need to be miked up and that means a big PA which you can then use as well. If the guitarist uses 50W turned right up you will all be deafened anyway. Literally. The other thing is that you don't need to specify a power but a dB level as some speakers are a lot louder than others, Drums chuck out just over 100dB or thereabouts so this is the level you will be aiming at, The loud bits will need to be louder than this average level. If your speakers are an efficient 100db/W you might get away with 100W if they are a relatively inefficient 94db/W you'd need 4x this or 400W. This doesn't allow for your tone, if you play a 5 string or like to boost the bass then you'll need a bit more power than if you like a nice clanky mid dominated sound. I'd say go for something in the 400W range and you'll cover most eventualities but 200W will probably be enough, remember that you need to double power to make a noticeable difference.

Blue Aran do a range of feet of various sizes with washers in them. I'd bolt them on if it is practicable.

Good advice from everyone, your problem is very simple though. You are in a volume war and you need to end it by talking to each other. The tone you carefully set up at home won't work in a band situation or in a different room acoustic, for you or the guitarists. Talk to each other. Good luck.

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1385480681' post='2288746'] Blimey, that week was better than i thought. Some fantastic songs there. I had my ear glued to my transistor radio in the 60s. Myself and my friends at school always listened to Radio Caroline and Radio London which both started around 1964. We also had Radio Luxemburg in the evenings so there was plenty of opportunities to listen to this music even before Radio One opened in 1967 so i'm not really sure what your point is. [/quote] My point is simply that a, there is some good stuff there but more cr** than good, unless you like Jim Reeves b. yes I listened to Caroline too but a casual listener to mainstream stations wouldn't have known of say, John Mayall just as I suspect those bemoaning the current state of music don;t really know what the kids are listening to. I'm also a little wary of becoming something I despised when I was at school [b] “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”[/b] Socrates