stevie

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='290984' date='Sep 24 2008, 04:23 PM']Moi? [/quote] I think Bilbo may be playing bass on this one - it's certainly his kind of music. [url="http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=NmijSk0zT-A&feature=related"]http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=NmijSk0zT-A&...feature=related[/url]

[quote name='escholl' post='288663' date='Sep 21 2008, 06:28 PM']my housemate has one of [url="http://www.soundslive.co.uk/product.asp?id=3717"]these[/url] he uses for acoustic guitar, and i've been pretty impressed by it, considering the price.[/quote] Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not a great believer in valves. I think I'll keep looking for a pucker bass preamp.

I notice a few people on here using the Avalon, but please don't suggest that - I'm on a budget!

[quote name='escholl' post='286956' date='Sep 18 2008, 11:43 PM']what if you used a different cheap preamp, and rack mount it along with the power amp?....there must be something out there what would work[/quote] I suppose the Behringer V-Amp Pro might work, but I had one of those and it broke. It is more complex than I need anyway. Apart from that, preamps seem to be more expensive than pre/power amps nowadays. I have an active bass with a 3-band EQ - so the preamp doesn't need to do too much. I just need enough level for a +4dB power amp input. Ideas?

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='286849' date='Sep 18 2008, 08:55 PM']I'm not saying that any of the Neo cabs that I've had are bad, far from it, but they have (whether by design or driver) been mid biased. If real world experiences are showing that people feel that Neo equipped cabs have been mid biased I'd be inclined to think that manufacturers may well just be sticking neo drivers into cabs that were modelled and made to accommodate standard non-neo drivers... would that be an awful and wholly wrong assumption to make [/quote] You mean, build a box to visually match the standard head, and fit whatever driver you can get the best deal on? Surely not!

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='286815' date='Sep 18 2008, 07:44 PM']I've always considered that the Neo equipped cabs that I have owned (5 cabs in total) have a 'perceived' increase in mid-range. [/quote] If these are American built cabs fitted with the Eminence Deltalite II2510 10-inch or 2512 12-inch, it's easy to see why. Have a look at the frequency response curves of these two drivers from here: [url="http://www.eminence.com/neodymium.asp"]http://www.eminence.com/neodymium.asp[/url] Both of these speakers have a 10dB rise up to 2kHz and a really horrendous resonance at around 2kHz (which you can see from the peak in the frequency response and the impedance curve). Once you fit these speakers into a cabinet, you will lose quite a bit of the LF, which will leave the mid even more exposed. Either of these drivers will sound excessively middy and I'd not want to use them full range - they really should be crossed over to a midrange driver. However, I suspect that they are probably typical of what the average US OEM is fitting. To be fair to Eminence, look at the Deltalite II 2515 to see how it should be done. The response is very smooth and resonances are controlled throughout the passband, as far as one can tell from the available data. This one shouldn't sound overly middy. As Bill said earlier, the type of magnet has nothing to do with the response curve - that's down to the way the speaker is designed.

[quote name='pete.young' post='286094' date='Sep 17 2008, 05:36 PM']I think it's unlikely. The DI output is very puny and when I've used it to DI into a PA it's needed the gain wound well up on the mixing desk.[/quote] Thanks, Pete (and escholl) - that's what I was afraid of. I'd hoped to be able to put my power amp into service by using a cheap Behringer preamp in front of it. It looks like that wasn't a great idea after all.

[quote name='Zach' post='285843' date='Sep 17 2008, 01:38 PM']Not that I've had any experience with neos, but I can't see why they would be more 'midrangey', as surely they'd still generate the same shaped magnetic field around the coil? I've heard this midrange bias mentioned several times in reference to neo's, and i just can't fathom the reason behind it.[/quote] It's possible that the designers of earlier neo speakers got a bit carried away with the power of the magnets and didn't spec them very well. I can see evidence of that in some of the neos out there now. An excessively powerful magnet will not only produce a raised midrange, it will damp out lower frequencies, isolating the mids even more. Another thing that will increase the level of the midrange is a smaller coil, and on the whole, neos tend to have smaller coils than their ceramic counterparts. This is, admittedly, conjecture. I don't think this is a mature technology at all. It's only recently that these magnets became affordable enough to be used by mainstream manufacturers and I think quite a few of them may still be figuring it out.

Will the Behringer BDI21 work as a standalone bass preamp to drive the balanced, low impedance input of a professional power amp? There are no proper specs on the Behringer site and reviews on the web suggest it might not be loud enough. Has anyone tried it (or the Samsamp)?

This one calls itself the biggest music shop in the centre of Munich: [url="http://www.hieber-lindberg.de/index.php/cPath/42_53_82"]http://www.hieber-lindberg.de/index.php/cPath/42_53_82[/url] They do seem to have a good selection of basses and should be easy to find (near the Stachus). This is not a personal recommendation though. They are said to be a bit on the expensive side, although they will haggle. [url="http://www.justmusic.de/subsection/gitarren-baesse-1-102-0-0.html"]http://www.justmusic.de/subsection/gitarre...-1-102-0-0.html[/url] comes highly recommended on the German bass lists. Good prices and good selection of basses. Its in Hanauerstrasse. Check out the Elektronik Konrad electronics warehouse if you like electronic goodies. It's huge and just round the corner. Have a Radlermass for me! I can recommend the roast ox. Stephen

Not sure if this will work. Uploading a PDF anyway.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='278211' date='Sep 5 2008, 09:09 PM']The dispersion angle on the horizontal plane is wider, so everyone can better hear what you're playing, while the dispersion on the vertical plane is lessened, placing more output in the audience rather than aimed toward the floor and ceiling.[/quote] Works particularly well with an 8 x 10.

[quote name='fretmeister' post='277885' date='Sep 5 2008, 02:49 PM']I had never thought about stacking them 4 in a line though - other than getting them up to ear level, are there any other benefits?[/quote] No. It's bollocks. Keep your drivers as close together as possible.

If the tweeter is a compression driver, there must be a crossover. If there is a crossover, there is likely to be a coil and/or a resistor across the positive and negative wires even after you disconnect the tweeter. To prevent these heating up you need to disconnect the HF section of the crossover at the input, i.e. cut the wires in front of the high pass section of the crossover. If the manufacturer has just used a capacitor to protect the HF unit, or if it is a piezo, you'll be OK. Otherwise, you could set your speaker on fire.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='273000' date='Aug 30 2008, 08:39 AM']This has all be learned the hard way by me, so be warned the seller will be miffed (even though it is his fault) and will likely as not try and get the upper hand in this.[/quote] If the seller escalates the claim you won't get a chance to respond to his statement. I hope you went into plenty of detail when you opened up the dispute. As Warwickhunt said, you learn the hard way.

[quote name='Brother Jones' post='269039' date='Aug 24 2008, 07:25 PM']Chaps - I'm really loving my Jap '62 Precision at the moment. But the sizeable drop in output between it and my Sadowskys is becoming a problem, and I'd like to find a pickup with a bit more oomph. Can anyone make some recommendations please? I'm not mad keen on anything too 'hi-fi' ish and don't want to be fitting matteries - just looking for a good, high output passive, vaguely 'vintage sounding' passive pup. Many thanks Jones[/quote] Do you have the pickups with the bottom-loaded ceramic magnet? I just fitted a set taken from a 57/62 reissue and my first impression is that they are *much* better than anything else I've tried (and I've tried a lot). Fat bottom end, gnarly, growly, punchy, well defined. I certainly wouldn't want to sacrifice that for a bit more output, although we might be talking about different pickups here.

Can't believe I misspelled desperate. Maybe I was a bit disappointed after all :-) - especially as it was a local seller.

[quote name='kevbass' post='264814' date='Aug 18 2008, 06:37 PM']Ok ok so its not a real stingray but it is an olp copy with a musicman sterling pup already installed, scooped it for 90 quid, sterling sound, stingray looks, a 10th of the price...nice! will give a review and more pics when I get it (hopefully by friday) out of interest was I bidding against anyone here? I think I got it at such a good price because the seller didnt say in the title it had a sterling pup fitted, only when you read the item description did it say, so Im thinking a lot of people skipped past it thinking it was just a standard olp ray?[/quote] You were bidding against me. You just outbid me. I thought it was a bargain, but as I don't believe in owning multiple basses, I wasn't desparate to own it. Well done anyway.

[quote name='spinynorman' post='263072' date='Aug 15 2008, 01:58 PM']Fortunately for world sanity and the order of the universe, the Australian one didn't sell. There's a nice (looking) Burns Artist on t'bay now for a comparitively reasonable £795. Jump on it now while they're so cheap here. [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-Burns-Artist-Bass-Electric-Guitar-1960-1962_W0QQitemZ300250405554QQihZ020QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]Link[/url][/quote] Dearie me .... it looks like it was made in somebody's kitchen.

[quote name='lineboss58' post='261044' date='Aug 12 2008, 05:38 PM']I have seen a burns 62 vistasonic bass for sale the owner wants £1500 for it, have people lost the plot or what. Even if the guitar worked and was pristine you wouldnt get that for it, why do lots of the music population think that because something is old it must be worth a fortune? I have two of these instruments a 62 and a 63 and wouldnt expect to get anymore than £500 each for them, i just laugh when i see this kind of thing. [/quote] Somebody was selling a 60s guitar case for £500 on eBay recently. The world's gone mad. Before I was able to afford a secondhand Strat, I had a Burns 6-string (Artist?), and it was nothing special. I think even the cheapest Chinese copy would be better nowadays.