Phil Starr

I think you'll find what the experts are saying is that there is no reason for them to sound different. Neo or Ceramic they are just magnets and you can shape the magnetic field how you want at the design stage.

I used to repair stuff for people and with old amps you could source all the components and often get circuit diagrams that speed the process of repair. Most of the gear was UK made and there was infra structure to support repairs. Now a lot of the chips are customised and components surface mounted on multi-layer boards so even de-soldering becomes tricky. Companies differ in their support too. I've recently repaired a Wharfedale PA and they were great, components in stock and supplied return of post. Behringer came up trumps too with a brand new amp board at a really good price. I've got a broken MB here and it's defeated me. It's possible it is something simple but not likely from the symptoms and it is switching on so not just a fuse. If the OP can find somebody who will open it up and look for £20 I'd take their arm off but for £40 I'd be thinking nah... How much is a second hand Blackline worth? The boards may be cheaper for one of these, it might be worth getting a quote from Real Electronics.

Markbass stuff isn't really repairable any more, they don't provide any circuit diagrams and use some hard to get components. Most repair shops won't touch them for this reason. All repairs have to go through Real Electronics who have a monopoly and behave accordingly. Repairing amps incurs their fixed charges and almost always a board replacement. It does mean your amp comes back new except for the case but will cost you upwards of £200 as you have been advised. A new amp is £220 at GAK with a three year guarantee so don't bother.

It's really hard to tell the extent of the damage from your pics but it looks as if the metal speaker baskets might be bent, distorted. If that is the case there is no economical repair and you need to replace the drivers. If the baskets are OK then a re-cone is a possibility if you/someone can identify the drivers. That may cost something approaching the cost of new drivers so it would make sense to price both before starting that process. Replace like for like if that is possible. The speakers will have to match the existing ones and also the cab which is clearly ported. Steaming involves having a controlled source of steam which uses heat and water to soften both the treatment on the surround and the paper pulp of the cone. For the cone at least the combination breaks down the bonds that bind the wood fibres together and is also used to bend wood into curves. I've successfully steam ironed paper back into shape and made a wooden hoop for a banjo but trying to do this with precision on a speaker cone would be.... interesting. Getting the cone wet would be likely to cause it to distort more. If you want to take the damaged drivers out and give us a better look we'd be in a better position to advise but I suspect identifying and replacing the damaged drivers is the only route liable to be successful. Aged horse will be giving you good advice. FWIW I can see no way that damage was caused in transit

Watching the news on Al Jazeera with the usual round of misery we got to discussing the politics of the day until I was distracted by the sight of someone carrying a mic stand rather than a Kalashnikov. This is just a lovely, inspiring film in rural Rwanda confirming musicians everywhere share so much more than they don't. The point where people who don't share a language start to harmonize.... Anyway 15 mins of pure pleasure Sounds of Home: A Musical Odyssey in Rwanda I Documentary | Africa Direct - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onHzJHWrTiU

Ignore the insane ratings. The engineers designed a 200W cab then the advertisers doubled the power on the outside of the box and then doubled it again in some of the far fetched advertising. It's sadly normal to measure the power handling then claim an extra 3db as 'music power' and an extra 6db as 'peak power' 200W is the continuous power handling. If you don't run into distortion it means the speakers are happy but would you be able to detect the distortion? It's really unlikely that you will drive the speakers too hard at home and you almost certaily are going to be fine. 500W into 400W of cab is probably going to be ok too unless you use a lot of bass boost or a lot of distortion/overdrive. This set up wouldn't worry me but just be careful if you end up with a power crazed guitarist who won't turn down or a particularly loud drummer. Four little 8" speakers might just struggle.

Is it worth thinking differently then? You want a compact PA because your current PA is too bulky but the Evox is fairly compact, those subs aren't a lot bigger than a 312. You want a relatively low cost solution becuse you are about to buy an expensive Evox system but the £1000 for your compact PA could be used to bring forward the purchase of the Evox. Have you tried the 310's as a PA? They are pretty capable and you'll only be using it for the smaller venues. If you aren't using backline or in-ears how are you proposing to have monitoring on-stage?

In-ears?

Hi Al, just for context we currently use ART310's for small gigs and rehearsals and have a second pair as monitors. For most gigs we use QSC'S but I have subs for the bigger gigs. They only get a run out once a year probably. My duo go out with no backline and the combination of the floor monitors and ART310's are more than adequate for bass. It's worth looking at the maximum output for the RCF speakers you are only getting 1db extra when you move to the 312 and 2db for the 315. You'll get a better low end of course by going for bigger speakers but it's not a big increase in sound levels if you stick within the ART 3 series. Something like the ART 912 promises an extra 3db as well as a better bass driver. I take the output figures with a pinch of salt of course but within a manufacturers ratings there should be enough consistency to make decisions. That makes your 'budget system' £1,000 but that's a saving over QSC's or ART732's. Is your plan for no backline or is this just going for a fully mixed system?

I've found the same with Thomann. they had a short hiatus when Brexit happened but sorted it and are back here. Obviously that was a local problem that wouldn't apply over there.

As the OP of the 'more problems' thread I'll try and save you the bother of reading it all. This was at the beginning of our self-inflicted departure from the EU trading area arrangements. I ordered a number of parts from DV247 in three separate orders. There were problems with all three separate orders but i did eventually get what I ordered (more or less anyway). I think it's fair to say that Brexit played it's part, their customer service has always been poor and there was an earlier thread about this hence the 'more problems'. I took the attitude at first that the big box centres are bound to have more complaints even if statistically the proportion of mistakes was the same as a local store. I'd just been unlucky. However they repeatedly lied to me and made promises they broke. It became apparent that their tracking systems were almost non-functional and their staff demoralised. The honest ones were pretty honest. My experience was that delivery could be great but if anything went wrong there was no system in place for correcting it. the UK base was helpful but powerless to affect any German response if the computer said no. It may all be fixed now as the immediate pressure of Brexit has diminished but my belief is that there was an underlying management issue with their staff and customers being kept in the dark and fed horse manure. If there is an issue between the UK and the parent company I suspect there may be the same lack of care between the USA and the parent. I have no evidence of this but personally would be careful. Dealing with warranty issues may be problematic.

Fender basses are known for their variability and that is especially true of the MIA ones. Mexico seems to make them with better consistency. Some of the American ones are great and others not so good as the Mexican ones. In fact most of us seem to think that a good Mexican Fender is a great gigging bass. If you have a bass you love and which plays well it is almost priceless. You love this one so cherish it. £576 for an American P is a good price, I'd buy it at that price. MIA basses over here have extra value when you sell because of the USA connection even if the MIM ones are just as good. I love my two basses both US Fenders I won't sell them whist I can still stand so the re-sale value isn't important, I just love playing them and that is where their value lays for me. You've found a great bass, you are a lucky guy.

Do you have a budget in mind? If it is a back up only you have quite a few options. Tiny size, Cheap or a real second amp would be my first decision. I bought a Peavey Minimax as my first choice backup. It is way nicer sounding than my Mark Bass Tube IMO so it became my gigging amp. It was cheap at the time but the Bugera and the cheaper TC amps are still avaialble around that price. I then bought a Warwick Gnome to use for acoustic gigs. With efficient speakers it's more than loud enough for a stage monitor in an emergency and the DI out is good so putting something through the PA is simple. It fits in my gig bag or a (large) pocket. That's my backup to carry to every gig as it takes no space. If you are going for some of the full fat options suggested then you might as well choose the one which will give you the sound you like best. The output stages are all very similar so you are really looking at the tone options which suit you best.

That is extraordinary! @Ashdown Engineeringoffering to repair an amp that old for free! Your local repair shop would charge you more than 30 to open it up and look at it. I'd definitely factor the after sales Ashdown offer into the mix. I've no real criticism of the Bugera but it's a totally different beast. Very clean sounding, cheap as chips and no support or reparability past the guarantee period.

I think you'll be fine, speakers and amps aren't rated the same way so just looking at the specs only puts you roughly in the right place. In this case your amp will put 350w into an 8ohm cab but that is maximum real music puts out a lot less average power than test signals. Your speaker is rated 300w so they are a good match and loud enough that you probably wont crank them right up ever. Is it possible to destroy your speaker? possibly but you'd have to either be very determined or rather stupid to do it Honestly people have been using this sort of set-up since forever with very few problems. Just relax and enjoy playing.

Yep I remember seeing them on Jools and being blown away. Really interesting voice, committed performance and the band tight as a duck's...... I guess the dad dancing and vocal tricks put him into the 'uncanny valley' for a lot of people. Personally I'd love to see them live. As ever you can't see much of the bass but my Jazz started making that noise last night, I swapped out the pups for the new noiseless ones I got for my birthday and they are a lot darker than the originals and with everything set up for the old pup's that's pretty close to how they sound.

My post was really meant as a bit of fun and a stimulus for debate but I think at least four people have responded to it and it's lunch time for me I'll confess to being a biologist, born 200yds from where the Origin of species was written so I probably have an oddly literal view of evolution. Have these changes amounted to a speciation event or is this just an example of genetic drift? Have the newly evolved species moved into different niches which they dominate or displaced the old species? My main birthday present this year was a set of noiseless pups for my J-bass. Very nice Is changing the pups for humbuckers changing the bass or just am improvement? Is adding a fifth string a dramatic change which made all 4-strings redundant? If I go to see 100 bands how many will have a version of the P or J or a very close copy? Which is the bass that has totally replaced them? Don't get me wrong I love threads like this and hearing other peoples opinions always sets me thinking, usually about spending money I'd love a bass with all the bells and whistles but like so many I still take the Precision to gigs especially the bigger ones. I don't sing through an SM58 though or play through a 2x15 or use a valve amp which does make me think that the design of basses has been stunningly stable over the years.

QED

Light the blue touch paper and retire eh? I suspect all Barefaced are trying to do is to protect the horn drivers from their customers so they don't have too may repair claims from crazy amp mis-matching. Playing with a heavily distorted sound passes much more energy to the horn so Barefaced seem to use OEM Eminence drivers. Nice speakers but still subject to the laws of physics. The driver is rated at 250W as the result of a test where filtered noise is driven through a sample speaker for hours at 250W. If it can take the heat it passes. That doesn't mean it can handle all the power at all the frequencies. For the bottom octave of a 4 string I doubt that there are many (any?) 10" speakers that could handle 250W and indeed Eminence state that their 250W Neo bass speaker should be de-rated below 80Hz in a medium sized box. That's because those power levels at low frequencies ask the cone and coil to move beyond their excursion limits. Let's be fair about this, giving advice on reasonable use isn't simple for any manufacturer as you have no idea what a customer is going to do with the speaker. Since the amp is only rarely going to get anywhere near it's peak output which will only be for a fraction of a second the heating limit of the speaker will rarely if ever be reached. Fortunately most bass guitars don't pump out much fundamental so the excursion limits are rarely breached. Bass guitars don't have a lot of top end to trouble the horn driver either so you can usually get away with an amp which is higher rated than the speaker. Obviously the seller has to balance the extra sales appeal of calling their speaker 500W against the chance of somebody actually doing that and making the speaker fart out by boosting the bass or blowing the tweeter with lots of distortion and having to deal with returns and a reputation for failures. The clincher is usually that you can't sell your speaker if you don't make the same claims as your rivals so in the end they all give in to over-claiming

Am I the only one thinking that the remarkable thing about the electric bass is that it hasn't evolved? Leo did a good job and Fender style basses are still the dominant species.

It looks like you may have solved your problem. If not then your question is about whether the 130W from the TC will be enough. I use the similar Warwick Gnome for rehearsal. For me it is enough. We aren’t as loud at rehearsal as we are live but our drummer is still fairly energetic. For me having an amp that fits in my guitar case just makes life so much easier.

Facebook is hopeless for things things like this, their search engine is utterly useless turning up open mics in India and down in Southwest England but nothing in Wales. There are a couple of dedicated open mic sites turned up by Google but neither of them do any maintenance so they are advertising OM's in pubs that closed down two years ago. I did find one FB group but the last post was 2014. Round here I know where to look because I know most of the local musicians and can tap into that network. It's their individual pages that are useful not FB as a system. I'm hoping someone here has a bit of local knowledge. On the plus side this is living proof that the metaverse has no idea of what I might be interested in

Anyone know of any open mics down in the Swansea area? We are down for a long weekend staying in Mumbles and I'm being allowed out on Thurs night. Inevitably all the internet is serving us up are pubs that closed down their open mics two years ago.

you've had some great responses so no point repeating them but a bit of recent experience. I've never used a click track live but recently my duo have added programmed drums. Where the drums come in late you absolutely need a click track and we have left the click track on for a lot of the new songs whilst we get used to playing with backing tracks. Playing to strict tempo is a revelation. It's total liberation for the bassist where too often we are left trying to hold tempo when everyone else is slipping. Actually it has shown up how lazy we all are, slipping the tempo constantly to keep the band together has become my norm when the singer and drums get out of sync. We all do it so naturally we think it doesn't notice and I habitually follow the guitarists time in solos, the singer when they are singing and the drums the rest of the time. That's with the band, the click tracks with the duo mean we are so tight all of a sudden and much to my surprise it all sounds so much more natural. I can relax knowing exactly where the next beat will be and can put in a bit more variation into my playing as result. I've started to play a stricter tempo with the band too and the drummer has responded to that. Strict tempo is more natural, who knew?

There re two problems here. not only are they the authorised agent but they are the only agent , a monopoly. Certainly for Mark Bass they do not provide circuit diagrams or spares It seems that TC are offering the same deal. I would imagine that Real are paying licensing fees to be the 'authorised' repairers and the manufacturers save the entire cost of support or their products in the UK. You can't go elsewhere because the normal repair shops won't really touch something for which specialist parts are not available. As stated the only real repair is board replacement, there isn't a lot of testing and diagnosis going on and there have been reports on BC of gear being returned with the original fault still there. An hour's labour charge to 'diagnose' isn't of itself unreasonable as just opening up the amp and closing it can take a lot of that time. Since just about everything is on the board and they don't repair boards the diagnosis is inevitable. The board replacement is £280 and the amp costs £199 so you are effectively being charged £35 to be told to buy a new amp. You can pay an additional £18 to have the amp returned but at that point it is just junk. The manufacturer can claim an after sales service is provided whilst accepting no responsibility. Real have a monopoly and are under zero pressure to provide a better service. The second effect is environmental. If cost effective repairs aren't possible then every am becomes disposable. To an extent that is our fault, we all buy by price and modern amps are cheap and by and large super-reliable. Mass producing with specialist chips and surface mount components certainly cuts costs. Ironically Music Tribe who own TC do provide cheap spares for at least some of their own Behringer gear. I bought a replacement amp board for one of their active speakers for around £70. When it came it was already mounted on it's heatsink and the repair took under an hour. Behringer may well have made 100% on the 'board' but I repaired a £200 speaker for £70 so I was happy. It can be done. It would be interesting to see how this is managed in the States where I think monopolies are not viewed as lightly as here. The EU are legislating to make manufactured goods economically repairable on environmental grounds. It'll be interesting to see what the UK govt. does. Not much on recent performance I expect.