stevie

Anyone tried the Vintage Stingray copy? I bought one locally via eBay because it was cheap and because I love the Musicman tone, and it sounds stonking to me. I'm not in a position to compare it with anything else, but I'm impressed. The finish is nothing to write home about. I can get a piece of paper in between the neck and body joint at one side. The varnish on the neck is thin and the frets are not as flush to the side of the neck as they could be. I took the top off the cover plate to tighten up the loose jack socket and discovered piles of wood shavings that hadn't been brushed out and also noticed that the earthing wire was hanging in mid air because it hadn't been soldered on. On the other hand - it's light, and it has that punchy, growly Musicman sound that I can't get out of my Yamaha BB. I find that I'm playing it more than my Yammy now, which is very strange because I've spent lots of time and effort getting my Yammy to sound just so. Comments, anyone?

[quote name='M4L666' post='549461' date='Jul 23 2009, 10:19 PM']is this good/bad? am i using this efficiently? when talking to my guitarist, should i say i have a "475W rig"?[/quote] No, you have a 700W rig.

[quote name='ray_6ao7' post='548782' date='Jul 23 2009, 12:08 PM']Steve thanks for all the help...spoke to celestion this morning and they're giving me 8 for £350.00 and i get added to the celestion artist roster [/quote] Wahoooooooo!!!! Result! See what a bit of persistence can do? Well done Ray! Sometimes Basschat makes you feel all warm inside.

[quote name='Spartacus' post='547947' date='Jul 22 2009, 06:25 PM']Its specs look pretty dire though (2 mm Xmax???) but wouldnt surprise me if that was the speaker theyve used as the cheapest option.[/quote] Good point. With eight speakers in there, every euro they save gets multiplied by eight, which gets multiplied by 4 (or so) to arrive at the retail price. In other words, every extra tenner Warwick spends on the speakers for this cabinet puts £320 onto the rrp of the speaker. There is therefore a great incentive to go for the cheapest. I'm sure Warwick would supply a replacement but Ray clearly wants to put some decent drivers in there. I have to say that putting good drivers in your speaker cabinet makes more difference than just about any equipment upgrade you can make, although in this case the expense is multiplied by eight.

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='547875' date='Jul 22 2009, 05:30 PM']Anyone think I'm too cynical here?[/quote] You can never be too cynical when buying off eBay. The week's delay has possibly allowed the seller to move his money out of Paypal. Same thing just happened to me but I managed to get a Paypal complaint in just on the seven days. I'm seriously considering jacking eBay in. Ten percent commision on sales is a ripoff.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='547809' date='Jul 22 2009, 04:37 PM']As far as what I'd use it would be the Eminence Basslite S2010, which is one of the least expensive neo tens but has low frequency output capability equal to anything in the Celestion line. It only has a 150 watt thermal rating, but with eight of them that's of no consequence.[/quote] The Basslite is cheap for a reason: it's a pressed steel chassis built down to a price. It doesn't compare with the Celestion NTR10 for quality or for low frequency output. Nor would anyone expect it to given the price difference.

[quote name='ray_6ao7' post='547711' date='Jul 22 2009, 03:30 PM']hmm no luck here's the response: [i]Hi Ray, we have no Celestion NTR10-2520E…according to my files you should have a WCA 811 ND cab and in it we use T5404[/i][/quote] Bum! The Germans are known for their efficiency but not for their flexibility. T5404 must be an OEM product code. I think it might be worth getting back to them and explaining that you want to upgrade all the speakers in your WCA cab to the NTR10 at your own expense, but you would like them to facilitate an OEM price for you, as the NTR10 is a very expensive driver. My guess is that they are importing directly from Celestion UK - so it should not be difficult for them to place an order with Celestion to be delivered directly to you from Ipswich. Do they have an artist relations guy at Warwick? He would be the guy to talk to, I think. You are not exactly asking them to move a mountain, logistically speaking. Alternatively, ask them to contact Celestion to explain that one of their endorsees wishes to upgrade the speakers in their Warwick cabinet and would they please offer him their best prices. Then order them from Celestion yourself.

[quote name='ray_6ao7' post='547640' date='Jul 22 2009, 02:53 PM']Thanks for the info! Just emailed Warwick now so see what they say [/quote] Fingers crossed! If Warwick won't play ball, you could probably persuade Celestion (with a bit of namedropping) to sort you out a blistering deal. PR rules nowadays.

Celestion's best 10-inch is the NTR10-2520E, which is certainly one of the world's best of its type. They retail for about £100 each. If I were in your shoes, I'd see if Warwick would get Celestion to send you eight for you to fit yourself. I think it's the least they could do for one of their endorsees. The speakers will probably cost Warwick about £35 each at OEM prices, which you should offer to pay because you will be able to recover a large chunk of this by selling the old drivers on eBay. You would then have a 2,000 watt cabinet that will piss all over anything you can buy in a shop. Seriously.

M6 is best, but won't fit the holes in every speaker. M5 will normally fit. I believe Screwfix is cheaper than most for t-nuts and bolts. It might not be too expensive to order some of both sizes - your delivery charge will probably cost you more than the nuts and bolts.

Thanks for that. It was excellent.

[quote name='Uncle Balsamic' post='542243' date='Jul 16 2009, 01:57 PM']Yeah I think they liked the Aguilar the best as it sounded about as good as the Berg, but was cheaper. I think they gave a Zoot cab the value award when it was only slighlty cheaper than the Aguilar they seemed to love.[/quote] There's no way that was a serious review. They didn't even look inside the cabs. It was like Top Gear reviewing a car by giving it a quick spin around the block.

Boneless, you will struggle to do what you are attempting with the knowledge you have. I'd suggest that you keep it simple. Build a 2x 12" cab first and forget about using a midrange unit for the time being. Align the drivers vertically. Go for a cabinet size between 80 and 100 litres. Build it from 15mm or 18mm birch ply. Brace well, particularly the back and between the drivers. The Beyma you have selected is pretty good (although it's not Italian, but never mind) but you would be better off with a neodymium speaker for a number of reasons. (In a few years time, nobody will want anything else). Beyma have a few really nice ones. Check them out. The 12MW/Nd and 112Nd/W both look good. Maximize port area to reduce port noise. Minimum 2 x 4" ports or 4 x 3" ports, but more if possible. Or a slot port like this: [url="http://www.speakerplans.com/index.php?id=gsub"]http://www.speakerplans.com/index.php?id=gsub[/url] Stage two would be to use the bottom driver to compensate for the baffle step. Finding out what this means will be part of your learning curve. Then, if you want to, build a compact top cab with a good midrange driver and bi-amp it using an inexpensive Behringer electronic crossover. I can assure you, this will be much cheaper in the long run than trying to design a passive crossover when you have never done it before. However, I expect you will probably be happy with the midrange sound of a good 12" speaker and may not even want to do this. Good luck. By the way, your speaker will be 4 ohms.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='540188' date='Jul 14 2009, 11:45 AM']What i've learned: 1. If you turn up your amp, it sounds better.[/quote] Except when playing through a Peavey combo, when turning it off sounds better.

[quote name='Deep Thought' post='532664' date='Jul 4 2009, 10:06 PM']I have a pair of ABM Minis with Celestion Neo 12's in them-same size cabinet. I'm delighted with them-I bought them from Nick Carey, who told me they were customised by somebody who does such things, whose name I forget. Drop him a PM and I'm sure he'll fill you in.[/quote] I didn't realize the cab was quite so small when I bought it, but my plan now is to fit a 12" driver into it. I would imagine it's really nice with the Celestion neo 12 in there. Great size and weight, too.

[quote name='bumnote' post='532651' date='Jul 4 2009, 09:40 PM']I understand that a company might fit the cheapest speaker it can get away with, but why not port it properly, surely that costs nothing[/quote] You'd certainly think so, wouldn't you? Actually, the porting wasn't a million miles out. I measured one bass guitar cab (quite an old one) that was tuned to 70Hz. In the Mini 15, Ashdown used a standard, moulded port from one of the usual trade suppliers: I've seen it before. It really needed to be one or two inches longer but I imagine they thought it was close enough and nobody would notice any difference. Which is the same reason why they couldn't be arsed putting 50 pence worth of BAF wadding in the cab. I'm afraid this is the kind of thing that goes on all the time.

[quote name='hubrad' post='531535' date='Jul 3 2009, 11:40 AM']We follow that same policy at the shop unless you really want to get it on Monday, but we do tell people! [/quote] Is that because stuff is more likely to get nicked or damaged if it spends a Saturday at a depot?

[quote name='alexclaber' post='531227' date='Jul 2 2009, 11:12 PM']You're not wrong about that driver! That's exactly the sort that gives 15"s their undeserved reputation for boominess.[/quote] Yes, funny that, Alex. The more I find out about equipment for bass players the more I realize that much of it is gloss not substance. I think perhaps a more critical specialist press could help stop manufacturers getting away with the things they do. I notice in Tom Bowlus' online review of 15s, including the small Ashdown, he didn't mention the fact that the Mini 15 has a 6dB peak just over 100Hz - which is a serious design fault. If he noticed, he certainly didn't mention it. Makes you wonder. Given how much bassists spend on their gear, the cost of a decent driver for their speaker cab is relatively insignificant and would probably make a bigger difference than any other investment they could make.

I've measured the Thiel Small parameters of the speaker in the ABM Mini 15 cabinet. Do you want the good news or the bad news, John? Well, the bad news is that Ashdown have clearly fitted the cheapest driver they could find that will handle 250 watts, stuck it in the box and hoped for the best. The good news is that the driver is so cheap, it won't cost very much to buy something similar. For anyone else visiting this thread with the same problem, the basic parameters are: FS 35Hz Re 6.7 ohms Qe .67 Qm 8.7 Qt .62 VAS 287 litres That should allow anyone to model it should they so desire. The driver is a Sica Z008190 - says so on the magnet. It is not one of Sica's standard models. However, its specs are similar to the Eminence Beta and Delta 15s. If you want a direct, cheapo replacement you should be able to pick up a second hand one of those for very little money that will sound fairly close to what was in there before. I would warn you, however, that those cheap Eminence drivers have only one thing going for them - they are bombproof. Don't buy new ones though: you should definitely spend a little bit more and get something half decent. It's such a nice, birch ply cabinet that it would certainly be worth putting something better in it. The Celestion BL15-300X looks quite good. Even better would be a Celestion neo, the TN1530. The two Celestions would both perform better in a bigger cabinet but they will work in the Mini box and sound better than the original speaker. You need to extend the ports to eight inches either by fitting new ports or by adding some cardboard tube to the existing ones. Also, you should staple some BAF wadding to the walls, which will improve the quality of the midrange. That's it. Good luck.

[quote name='Musky' post='530717' date='Jul 2 2009, 03:25 PM']I'm not sure an imperfect analogy needs taking to a logical conclusion. [/quote] You're probably right .... I just couldn't resist. I'll try to exert more self control in future.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='530613' date='Jul 2 2009, 01:45 PM']Or to look at an analogy, the performance of a car is not determined by the number of doors it has. Yes, there are lots of fast 2-door cars but there are plenty of 4-door cars with far better performance than many 2-doors. What matters much more is the weight of the car, the stiffness of the suspension, the centre of gravity and the power of the engine ...[/quote] If I want a car with four doors, I want a car with four doors. I don't care how fast it goes as long as I don't have to swing the front seats up to let the kids in every time I take them to school. A car with four doors meets my needs better than a car with two doors - to take your analogy to its logical conclusion.

Finally, here is a frequency response curve of the ABM Mini 15 from 200Hz up. It measures quite smoothly and is relatively extended for a 15. Notice in particular the lack of sharp peaks. The waterfall plot isn't quite so nice, although the lack of damping inside the cab doesn't help. Ignore the curve in the top window.

It can be fixed though, with a bit of jiggery pokery. Ignore the green curve - that's a halfway house. Not bad, eh?