EBS_freak

OBBM shared the technique he uses for soldering and every cable I have made myself remains reliable. I haven't really had the need to the solder any cables of late... but I have always gone to OBBM for wireless cables... just because given the amount of soldering that he has done in his life time, is probably a lot better at soldering mini jacks and xlrs than I am! In short, his cable are made great... and properly - in a manner that can't be replicated by machine. And thats why it's worth paying for OBBM cables! Coloured electrical tape good if you have the ends already soldered on and don't want to desolder anything.

I would be worried if paying less. You get somebody that doesn’t have a pride in their work and you’ll have chipped poly, routes that aren’t true (nobody wants to see a pair of pickups where one is wonky)... and of course there’s not only the skill of doing the job - but the cost of the router and router bits to do the job properly. Would you want a blunt router tip mashing up your pride and joy?

OBBM made a star quad XLR and the way that he wires and does the heat shrink makes the solder connections particularly strong. There’s no pressure on any of the solder tags at all. The singer at the time used to wrap the cord around her hand, use it to pick up the mic, swing it round, everything... and that cable is still going strong even with all the abuse it got. Up until that point, she was literally killing a cable every gig.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RCF-Art-732-A-MkII-with-padded-covers-bags-2-available-and-price-per-speaker/253905172566?hash=item3b1ded7856:g:LG8AAOSwM~Rbivka I personally would stay away from the mini line arrays unless you go for one of the top end systems (K-Array etc). You'll get better performance from your traditional boxes for the money. The reason for the RCF above? The 3 in the model number designates the voice coil size in these hf element. In essence, a large sized voice coil in the high means that more of the vocal can be handled by that drivers and crossed over lower so that the woofer can concentrate on what it's better at - the lows. This will give you a much better clarity and projection in the vocals over other cabs in this range - which typically would have a 1 or 1.5 inch voice coil.

Read this thread - it should give you a good idea of what to expect

For around 1.4k you could get a couple of active RCF 735s and that means you can do away for the subs for all but the biggest gigs. The higher quality hf driver (3 inch voice coil in this case, compared to the 1 inch drives you tend to get at this price range), means that the woofers are freed up to do more work in the lows... to the point where they can put out enough bass for you to negate the needs for subs. They are a very loud cab, light enough to be manageable and as stated before, for most small (to medium depending upon your definition) venues will negate the need for subs as they will quite happily handle the whole band going through them and remove the need for backline completely (e.g. they won't fart out with kick, toms and bass guitar etc). The 3 inch voice coil in the drivers means that your vocals will be super clear and carry without too much trouble - afterall, vocal clarity is the most important aspect of a live band as punters want to be able to hear the vocals clearly. If the band is looking to all get onto IEMs, you may be hampered by the XR12s two auxes... that may or may no be enough for you.

Well, here's hoping they hold out for a while!

That’s just pants - it’s a part that you’ve got no hope of fixing yourself too because it’s buried into the silicon. :-/ So what’s the plan? Stick until you’ve got some cash to change?

Is it the cable or the connector that is failing?

Man, Moog, I'm sorry to hear about your woes with ACS and especially the cables. They just seem to have outrageously bad reliability with the cables especially and the lack of headroom... Even on my triples, the performance is more than a little disappointing. I don't really know what to suggest but I am sorry to hear about your experience. I guarantee not all IEMs and experiences share the same outcome for the end user. I don't want to sit here and slag ACS - because there are many happy users of them... a couple of guys I know love theirs... but for bass players and drummers, there is something defo not right about them in regard to being able to cope with headroom before distortion in the lows. I know that Andy is dead against big low end... so maybe that is it. The cables though... maybe thats just a result of being a silicon design... I don't know. But I don't know of any other IEM brand that has anywhere near the same failure rate. I landed a mid week residency with a band that don't have any sort of IEM thing going on... so I thought I would break out the ACS lives to use as variable volume ear plugs... oh yes, thats right, the cable was knackered. So took the cable housing apart to see if I could fix it.. and managed to. Got to the gig.. and the mics couldn't handle the SPL of standing next to the drummer (If I padded the input as far as it would go, there was then not enough gain to bring the output up to a decent volume). So annoying because it's such a great concept. Anyway, silicon and cables... is that the problem because they are always subject to a certain amount of flex? Well, I dunno... Spiralear don't appear to have the same issue for example - another silicone based IEM manufacturer.

Good to meet you Nick - took me a while to place you but got there in the end! The UE6s proved pretty popular today... I think out of all the inears that were out, people seemed to gravitate towards the sound (and price) of them. Let me know if you want some help with your sine wave too - I think I made sense with the brief explanation - but hit me up if you need a hand. Currently out and about seeing the sights of Manchester night life... I think I’ve come to sad realisation that I’m beginning to get old... those girls must be awfully chilly in some of the clothes that they aren’t wearing.

All looking good there! Let us know how you get on...! Meanwhile, I been washing my branded tees ready for pimping IEMs at the drum show in Manchester. Come say hi if you are about.

Price drops only seem to be in Europe though.

Boss! Thanks all.

Too late for me, I already went with the 12ts that were more to my taste than the n8ts. Much preferred the timbre in the bass on the former - not to say that one is better than the other, just personal taste.

Whats your band setup looking like? Ideally you should have a PA that it goes through...? If you want to put it into an amp that doesn't send phantom power., you'll need a phantom power injector.

Personally, I'd stay away from IEMs (this coming from me!) and go for larger cans if bass is a priority. You need to spending a lot on IEMs (granted you didn't state a budget) to get as good bass response as some larger headphones - and even then, if you do get some IEMs that buck the trend, say like some ZS10s that have oodles of bass, their phase coherence and overall ability to faithfully reproduce what you put into them, is questionable. They make fine budget monitors for live use but would not be anywhere in my shortlist for critical listening. In short, great sounding IEMs with great bass response and many hundreds (at least 600+ quid, most over 1000) of pounds. Even things like the classic Shure 215s are easily, easily outperformed by a decent set of budget cans. As for suggestions - well, you will get a list a long as your arm... but listen to stuff from Sennheiser, Beyer, AT... and pick the one you like the sound signature of.

In the interests of balance... and cutting the drummers some slack... I do get amused about the posts on here by people that they absolutely must get the fundamental from their bass cab. Congratulations to you guys, you are part of the problem. Mushy muddly low end, often compensated for by not cutting it... but by boosting everything else so the perception of mud is lessened.

That’s the hearing loss and tinnitus for you.

Indeed - but trying to get a guitarist onto IEMs is very difficult! Having been doing the IEM thing at guitar shows, guitarists would rather buy more speaker cabs than anything to do with monitoring.

Large rigs is mostly down to trying to realise the dreams of being a failed rockstar - that Marshall stack is iconic - and of course the only way to get “that sound”. idiots.

Just read back - I may have come across as a bit short and rude. Apologies - it wasn't meant like that if you read it that way!

Indeed - I think it comes down to nobody wants to own part of a PA, or a PA in entirety - but the sad thing is, bands would sound a lot, lot better without the loud, lightweight, compact backline... and better with smaller monitors/IEMs and PA. But the dinosaur thinking of backline first will not go away anytime soon. Those that have been in the inear thread have seen the light.. and I would wager their bands, sonically at least, sound much better from an audience point of view (can't vouch for the playing itself though! :p)

I've had a fair bit of stuff from Hot Covers now. Perfect every time. How covers should be made and I would say that I haven't found a case where they are not superior to the manufacturers own cases.