Phil Starr

That's a good bit of kit.

That sounds frustrating OK you are running the Stagepas off a mixer which is good. I'm assuming they want to go down this route because they don't want to spend too much. Is that right? So the suggestion I'd personally make and keeping it simple is between two of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234255493119 or a PA amp of roughly 300W/channel. The link is for some Laney 15" PA speakers who are selling off old stock through eBay. @Chienmortbbhas one he is evaluating so you could ask him, I've used one at rehearsal and it was good. Laney have a long history so are pretty much to be trusted. Not everything that comes out of China goes pop, it is the wild west though, ironically with few government controls and you have no idea who you are trading with when you go direct. I've had no problems with Behringer PA amps and I'd even happily buy a used one. Thomann give a 3 year guarantee on the T-amp. I'd stress the simplicity of going the active route in set up, they might even be able to offload the monitors and get something back to pay for the replacements. Good luck with your band members, it'd be much simpler if they took your advice and went for the Alto's and you'd look more professional with a line of matching monitors.

First of all the usual, if that's where you want to be why start from there? You could waste a lot of time and money bodging things to get a couple of clapped out old monitors working on stage only to eventually find out that active monitors or in-ears would have been the solution all along You've made it clear that this is not the advice you want. First of all you say Trio, who plays what, and what do they want to hear that they can't hear with the current set up? Your Stagepas system doesn't seem to have an Aux bus so you can't all have different mixes so I assume you either want to hear the front of house mix or vocals only? Is your Alto not loud enough for you all to hear it? If all you want is a bit more volume and you insist on using the monitors you have then all you need is a stereo PA amp. I've never had problems from a Behringer amp and recently sold a 20 year old EP2400 for £100, I bought an iNuke for a similar price so maybe start looking for something similar. Thomann's own brand amp looks a good shout too https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_tamp_e800.htm

So you are tri-curious then It's an interesting proposition, there are fundamentally two reasons for splitting the frequency response of any speaker and two reasons why you don't do it if you don't have to. Producing lots of bass needs a big heavy cone both to push lots of air and to lower the resonant frequency of the speaker, high frequency reproducers need to move quickly so lighter is better. The other factor is dispersion, when the speaker diameter becomes larger than the wavelength it starts to beam the sound. The arguments against are cost and the problems associated with the crossovers, they are difficult to design well, almost impossible to make flat around the crossover point with the two drivers interfering with each other and of course also add weight and expense. Of course an electric bass is not a full range instrument, surprisingly there isn't usually much deep bass because of the positioning of the pickups and not much top end because the impedance of the pickups rises with frequency so depending upon the PUP will have little signal above 5-6kHz. The pickup itself is acting as a low pass filter. The tiny horns you see on most bass designs aren't doing much good, a lot of them only give an output above 4kHz especially those horrible piezo tweeters and few of them have a proper crossover. To really usefully smooth out the response and sort out the dispersion problems for bass you really need to crossover below 2,000Hz, the lower the better. This is where the mid range comes in. If you run something between say 500 and 5000Hz then you can use a dedicated bass driver with a really big heavy cone and a horn and driver ideal for the upper frequencies. In fact do you really need a tweeter for bass if 5000Hz is all you need to reach? There are a few options you could purchase, none of them cheap. The Fearless F115 has a 6" mid and is a nice design. It's just a design though there are some licenced builders and they come up used occasionally. Genzler sell a 12-3 with an array of mid /top drivers, really just a 2 way design and you could go FRFR with a PA cab like the RCF ART745 which has a massive 4" compression driver crossing over at 500Hz. I suppose you could also look for one of the older 15/6 or 12/6 designs. The reality is that a 3-way design properly done would be way more than twice the price of a single speaker design and more than a 2 way of comparable quality. I've heard the Fearless and it sounds fabulous but it isn't small and it ain't cheap. Good modern design makes a 2 way design possible that will come close to or exceed a 3 way design at a lower price unless you are really prepared to pay silly money. Of course 'better' is also a matter of taste.

I think in one of the other threads you said you hadn't even turned it on? If so that suggests to me that the fault has to be before the mains switch on the amp and something is shorting before the power even reaches the amp. Obviously it's better to get your money back from the seller and you don't want to invalidate anything by opening her up but tripping the RCD with the amp switched off......

I love it, a new variant. we will soon have an epidemic of tiny bass speakers. Interesting that you've found that this is a really revealing speaker, exactly what we've found with the Fane version. It's really great for practice I find, not obtrusive but there is no pretending about your technique so you start to correct it as you go. Go easy on your speaker, it's basically a hi-fi speaker with a roll surround and a heavier cone. The 'spider' that supports the coil will be more flexible too. All that tunes the speaker lower, traded off for a bit of reduced efficiency. It'll probably have quite good excursion too but it won't be as rugged as the Fane which was designed as a pro PA driver. The 35Hz claim is possibly true as a -10db figure. The 200W is almost certainly a 'peak' figure and inflated by 6db so treat it as a 50W speaker and it should be OK. Well done, it looks great and I hope you'll have lots of fun with it.

Probably the best advice you have had

I think you can tell that for bands this is an immature technology; just by the sheer range of differing approaches. I was listening to an RCF demo on Monday and that one had four 10" drivers in the column plus horn and 15" subs. it sounded fabulous but was around £6k. This if you are going all the way from 2" drivers to 10" then you are having vastly different engineering decisions and results. I'm really attracted by some of the theoretical advantages of this sort of approach, @stevie and I were discussing a bass speaker design along these lines before Genzler brought out their version. One thing we haven't mentioned as an advantage is that you can cross over much lower than you have to with most compression drivers in the typical 12/15 plus horn PA cab. Human hearing is most sensitive in the 1-4kHz range so having a crossover away from the frequencies we are most discriminating in is a definite gain. I think where we are at these systems have great potential and they look good, save the need to lift a heavy speaker onto a pole, offer a simple set up and can offer superb sound in a convenient package. However the cheaper systems are struggling to get to high sound levels and pound for pound you still get higher sound levels out of a conventional two way speaker. I've looked at these really hard recently for my own use and was really tempted by the Evox but to get the sort of sound levels which would cover all our possible gigs that meant the Evox 12. I've gigged with a pair of Maui's and they sound good but can't be pushed. That's £3500 for a pair of Evox 12's. Thomann are offering the ART 710 plus 705subs as a package for £2500 and would have a similar performance. In the end I picked up a couple of used ART 745's which was my first choice before I started looking. I think it's fair to say that for like for like performance there's probably a 30%ish increased cost in going for the columns. I guess it still depends upon matching your kit to your needs.

The moral of the story is don't believe the store guys or You Tubers. There is nothing magic about these line source/column speakers They've been in existence since at least the 1930's and knowledge of them since pretty much the invention of the loudspeaker. It's part of the physics of sound that any sound producing object starts to beam the sound as the radiating diameter approaches the wavelength of the sound. Basically low sounds are omnidirectional and high sounds are beamed. That's one of the reasons why tweeters are little and why some purists don't like conventional 4x10's. Putting lots of tiny speakers in a long line means that they are collectively small in the horizontal direction and the mid's/ highs will disperse evenly around the room, and because there are lots of speakers they can be loud. In the vertical plane they cancel off axis and behave like a big speaker. The net effect is that they radiate a predictable flat but wide beam into the room. For most venues that's pretty ideal. Horns work differently but basically they can be shaped to funnel the sound in a predictable way and you have a lot of control of direction. there are long throw horns with a narrow beam and short throw horns and every shade in between. A typical PA speaker will have a 90x60 horn, fairly short throw and fairly wide angle horizontally but more restricted vertically, you don't want to waste sound bouncing off the ceiling. Beaming is a thing, but it isn't good or bad, just appropriate. If it's too narrow you will only hear a decent mix in line with the speaker, too wide and the sound disperses quickly and you get multiple pathways to your ears and muddled sound. If your mic is picking up the sound from the speakers it will always eventually feedback, the question is when. The early Bose systems just weren't very loud but their ads made a feature of being able to put the PA at the back. Like the 'drink 2l of water a day' some daft advertising campaigns just take off. Drink when you are thirsty guys! A wide flat dispersion and a smooth frequency response helps avoid feedback but keeping the speakers away from the mic helps more.

Yandles in Martock have stocked it. Might be worth a ring.

It's interesting isn't it about how people can get the sound so wrong. Especially in a world where you can get degrees in music technology as opposed to the world I started in where the blind led the blind. The first job of setting up a PA was to build the speakers! The thing is that whilst there is science or engineering and it is certainly useful to know your theory there is also skill and care involved. A couple of years ago in Hyde Park I heard the Killers, Elbow and Tears for Fears all using the same PA, Elbow sounded great, Tears for Fears out of this world and the Killers awful. Killed (sic) by the kick, distortion from the subs being overdriven, bass mud and the guitarist barely audible. This went on for the whole of the gig with no-one apparently noticing at the desk which must have had half a dozen people there. Meanwhile on a side stage a young band came on, no sound check. The young engineer (sorry John) in his very early 20's started with the overblown kick and one note bass but tamed it about 60secs into the first song. 5 mins later the sound was just glorious and he stopped twiddling and sat back to let the band do their thing pretty much. All this achieved with easing the sliders into position so that no-one would have noticed the gradual changes as he made them. He can't have been more than 23 but it was a total joy to watch/hear. I'm sure age/experience helps as does learning about sound systematically but you can't teach a good set of ears and an understanding of music, or a willingness to listen and an understanding of how musicians work.

Brief bit of modelling and I didn't enter the BP102-4 manually trusting the WINISD figures. The eminence is Green and the Celestion in Red. Both with a 33V (roughly 200W) signal as the Celestion is 8ohms. The Celestion is more sensitive (louder) despite being 8ohms with the Eminence giving more output below 50Hz. The eminence has a smoother response but only a little that I wouldn't worry about.

This is brilliant, you have a plan and the best reason for doing it. I'll have a look at the Legend later but you might want to look at using the Celestion Pulse 10 also available from Thomann and considerably cheaper https://www.thomann.de/nl/celestion_pulse_10.htm. The Eminence speaker has a distinctive midrange suckout which you might like but the Celestion has a slightly brighter tone. More importantly we've tried the Celestion in a 30l net volume cab and it has been gigged. We also have a design for a simple horn and crossover so you could potentially add that later.

Hi John the cab is fine at 150W which is what the amp is rated at.

I think that would be a great solution. Your problem is that the ports will then be quite small and you'll have problems with wind noise in the ports. If you can fit in two drainpipe ports that will help a lot or use a single 10cm port. Two ports 13.2cm or a 10cm port 14.4cm long.

Bad luck. I'm afraid MarkBass amps aren't really repairable at component level and MB don't supply any technical data to repairers making things doubly difficult. Their service, such as it is, is done by Real Electronics https://www.realelectronics.co.uk/repairs.html who essentially just do full board replacements at upwards of £200. To be fair their fees are stated up-front and you will end up with everything inside replaced so effectively a new amp

You may be over thinking this, by blocking just one of the ports you will reduce the tuning down to about 50-55 Hz. (I'd rather they left something bigger than a 1cm gap at the back but you've said you dont want to do major surgery) That gives you a 2db peak in the upper bass and a -3db of around 60hz, both acceptable if not exactly neutral sounding. There are commercial cabs worse than this. Give that a go and see what you think of the sound and let us know. This is the sort of bass end response you ought to get this way

Warwick Gnome or TC BAM with the Barefaced would be great. I have the Gnome as a backup amp but have used it for gigs and rehearsals. The fan is quite quiet too which helps with home use. Around £130 new Generally I don't like the little practice amps, they don't have a very satisfying sound and a proper bass sound is far more likely to encourage your daughter to play more often. Also consider getting a Zoom B1-Four for headphone practice at some stage. Great sound, built in tuner/metronome/drum machine and you can mix in mp3's etc if she likes to play along with backing tracks or the originals.

Congratulations on the birth of your baby cab. It looks gorgeous. I hope the noise keeps you up all night

One of the effects of the cab is to damp the movement of the speaker cone. That is a function of both the volume/mass of air in the cab and the tuning if the cab is ported. If the cone flaps around at certain frequencies it can reduce the power handling of the speaker to a fraction of it's rated power. However it isn't that bleak in practice. Speakers designed for bass tend to hover around very similar specifications and often 'work' in a wide range of cabs. As said above you may not get the best out of a speaker but that doesn't mean nothing is possible or that you cannot tweak. As a broad guide a volume of around 30litres will suit a number of common 10" drivers. Indeed we have offered one design on BassChat BassChat 110T If the internal volume of this cab is around 30l then you could simply use your box as a ready finished cab and try out your idea with little risk of failure. If it isn't 30l then measure the internal volume and we can calculate any tweaks for you. If it helps I've gigged that cab for a while during testing and it is great for small venues (up to 100 people) and rehearsals. It's a good match for your amp too. You have to decide first of all what your aims are, You could just build our cab and use it with your Blackline which would make a fine solution. This could be done to improve the sound, to squeeze a little more out of what you have or as a fun learning experience, like me you could get hooked on building so look out. The only thing we can't guarantee is what it will sound like when it is done, you only ever really find that out when you finally plug in your completed project, but that is half the fun

The 4x8 looks an interesting buy for someone. If I was down there I'd definitely give it a punt at £110. It was called Son of Henry, made between 1994-97 with Henry VIII being the 8x8 speaker. Famously punchy apparently but looks to be becoming a collectors item.

That's the one I spotted. @SuperSeagullmay be able to put you in touch if you aren't on Facebook.

Have a look on Facebook marketplace, There's a Hartke 2x10 and Warwick 15 both £75 near you. An Eden 4x10 £225 and another Eden 4x8 for £110.

I was surprised how good the Wharfedale after sales service was. I had an idiot sound engineer and a dicky lead, in combination it resulted in one of my EVP subs being turned up full and an almighty thump from the phantom power not being as phantom as it should have been blowing the speaker. Replacement arrived return of post for £85 which I thought pretty good for a 20 year old model.

I just found out that Richer Sounds are offering the Wharfedale A15 mk2 Sub at a decent price. I went into their shop in Exeter today and had a chat and it seems they have a deal with Wharfedale who will deliver direct via Richer Sounds. this Sub is about £70 cheaper than other suppliers in the UK. Looking over his shoulder it looked like they also have access to supply all or most of their PA range. I've had great experiences so far with Wharfedale gear (I own a complete EVP PA) and it's pretty budget in prices for genuine pro quality. I've also had good service from Richer Sounds for years. It's an unlikely place to buy PA but I thought it worth putting out there. I've no vested interest in this but I'm just curious. I guess they are selling Wharfedale hi fi so it's not much of a jump to sell their other stuff.