EBS_freak

I didn't check your link earlier as I was out of the country and didn't want to get hit for roaming data costs but having seen it now, I don't agree that the prices are at all comparable... especially for a triple driver monitor. Check the prices from here - http://www.custom-inearmonitors.co.uk/ Westone ES3X - £799 M Fidelity SA32 - £780 JH Audio JH7 - £620 ACS T1s - £609 Puretone Classic 3 - £609 Lear LCM3 - £440 Rooth LS3 - £400 1964-V3 - £399 Unique Melody Aero - £395 Minerva Mi-3 - £395 (silicon based like the ACS as opposed to acrylic) Alien Ears C3 - £370 That's quite some spread of costs. If I was looking at spending approx the amount of money on T1s now, I think I would be more likely to push for something like the 1964-V6-S... just for the added headroom over the ACS. Of course, I'd be auditioning the range to see which one works best for my ears... but I would be very interested in hearing the difference between say the Alien Ears and the Westones... and the 1964s and Jerry Harveys for example.

You could do a lot worse than a Heil PR40...

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1384380839' post='2276101'] I just had Bob at Brookwood [url="http://brookwoodleather.com/"]http://brookwoodleather.com/[/url] custom make me a strap. Not cheap (but I had some fancy bits added), but excellent comms and quality. Plus he's in the US, so there is a customs charge, but I've got a first rate strap. Highly recommended. [/quote] Yup - Bob is top chap. Highly recommeded too.

Harvest, Ritter...

With regards to whether there is a difference when increasing the number of drivers, the answer is yes and no. First up, when adding drivers, they need to be added so that they work in phase and such that the crossovers work in harmony with the frequencies of the drivers. Secondly, the addition of drivers can then add bias to a certain frequency range, typically the bass. So double the number of bass drivers typically givens the iems a greater amount of bass... however this doesnt always hold true. For example, doubling the bass can be done so that the headroom of the bass is increased but theres no perceived increase in the bass. This just means you can go louder before your drivers start to struggle as the load is shared between drivers. For live performance I would always go for the system that gives you the most bass as that is the hardest set of frequencies to amplify, especially live and especially if you are a bass player or drummer. As to which iem is best, I guess that it comes down to budget and what you want to hear. You may prefer the sound of a duo to a triple or a quad. For example, a common discussion in the iem world is the difference between the jh13 and jh16. The 16 has two more bass drivers and develops more bass than the jh13s. For standard listening, a lot of people prefer the flat response of the jh13s whilst musicians using them for live use or bass heads plump for the jh16s. Everybody hears and prefers different sounds signatures so its best to audition iems for your prefered sound. ACS I think are quite pricey for a triple driver unit (they are actually a single and dual driver configuration as opposed to three seperate unit) compared to some of the competition... but having said that, I quite like the response of my ACS T1s but would say that I find the bass adequate as opposed to being full on. There are times where I crave for more bass and greater headroom. As another option to moulds for universals... 1964, Unique Melody, Alien Ears are a few companies that will reshell your universal (or custom) IEMs if you manage to find a great set of universals at the right price... however, this does not mean a great sounding of universals will sound as great when reshelled; unless the alignment and shell volume is kept similar, it will change the characteristics for the better... or worse! A bit of a gamble! There are lots of options out there so its best to keep what has been said in this thread in mind and go from there.

The delay will be the time for the sound from your cab to reach your ears, not the wireless system!

Dony know what date you are looking at as we are already pretty jammed in August but check the sig

ACS make all their T series IEMs as customs from impressions of your ears. Personally if you arent going for custom fits I would stick with the Shure buds or in particular the Sennheiser IE8s if thats within your budget as they develop a good amounts of bass. Also gives you option of getting some custom tips at a later date if you want to go down that route. ACS are guys that will make you great custom fit tips. ACS is just one IEM manufacturer and I have been looking into many customs again. As Ive stated earlier in the thread, I rate ACS very highly but I believe that there are now other systems that will give you as good as, if not better audio for less money but you probably won't have the advantage of the silicon fit. It all depends if you want to go with the ambient pack option... and thats if it ever materialises. Also, ACS is silicon as opposed to acrylic. Without trying to push any particular brand, I'd certainly be looking at 1964, UM, Ultimate Ears, JH Audio, Alien Ears for starters on the custom front. As for frequencies, your choices are limited to what bands have been allocated by your country. For example, in the UK, theres channel 70 (free for all) and channel 38 (free for all if you hold the license). There are also licenses that you can obtain for ad hoc events or venue licenses but these are generally limited to large scale events. In the UK, most bands are going to be using 38 or 70. So in short, you are told by legislation what frequency band you are allowed to use and your kit must run on yhis frequency. If you dont, you may be unlucky and have to answer to the law and expect big fines or worse. So in short buy the correct gear for the correct frequencies. Be wary of buying stuff off ebay. There are alot of guys trying to offload channel 69 gear in the UK which is now illegal to use. Generally, license bands are pretty stable... Some manufacturers also offered a cheap service to modify older equipment to the new frequency bands. To be honest though, I think we are stable for a good period of time now. As for release times of the systems, I dont see much to be gained by buying the latest and greatest. I dont think it follows like that. I bought the system I thought performed the best to my ears. This is all open to debate Im sure but at the time I bought my until the Shure and Sennheiser were pretty much identical in price. All my wireless systems are Shure so it seemed to make sense... and I can plan using Shures wireless workbench so that was cool for me. Industry standard wise, I believe there are as many Shure systems out there as the Sennheisers albeit in the PSM1000 form. If you are going wireless instrument, it doesnt make much sense to go wired iem.

Whole band in my ears with my own individual mix. I have my own vocal and bass high in the mix with the rest of the band mixed to taste. I run stereo iems so have singers panned between left and right, stereo keys and have a slight bias on bass and snare to lock into. I run seperate fx for my ears mix so have compressors and reverb to taste. The isolation provided by your iems may influence your mix. For example, my IEMs mean I can only hear what Ive mixed in as the attenuation is too great to liken my experience to wearing ear plugs.

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1383662458' post='2267236'] I'm out of this topic. I wasn't insinuating anything incidentally. That was a wider comment not aimed at you personally. I just disagree with you on this. I don't think basses mature in sound and get better with age. You think they do. That's fine by me. You will note that I have not said anything disparaging about you personally in this thread. I have no reason to do that. I just disagree with your view. I also disagree with the experts as you quote. I will not speak on this subject again. There's no point. You know my views and I know yours and neither is likely to change. I will leave you with this though. I think differently from a lot of the "experts" who you allude to. What about Dick Fosbury. [/quote] Whats your view on the ageing of Status basses? Hehehe...

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1383662045' post='2267225'] But as I said in my pervious post they weren't HANDMADE. They used big industrial routers and bandsaws etc. Those are machines in my book. Maybe there was more hand finishing than there is now, but the whole point of the Fender manufacturing process has always been to reduce costs and increase consistency and that was done by using machine tools as much as possible and many although primitive by CNC standards were the cutting edge wood machining technology of the day. For me "handmade' means using hand tools and mostly non-powered. That's fine for luthiers making instruments one at a time, each one being uniquely tailored to the player's specifications, but completely unfeasible for any kind of mass production, no matter how many skilled workers you employ. It's simply not cost effective enough or fast enough to make the quantities required in the time. [/quote] Calm down. Whether they are hand tools are power tools, they still need the human element to make them work. CNC is a completely different ball game. Stop being a pedant. All these luthiers that report to make their basses by hand... are they cutting the bodies out with a hacksaw? I think not. In this case, handmade, handcrafted, it's all semantics and pretty much irrelevant, the key point is that they were manufactured in a wildly different manner to how they are crafted today. And thats just one of the attibuting factors as to why vintage Fenders are highly desired. [quote] And if modern musical instrument makers can't get a decent level of consistency to their product (even allowing for the fact that they are deal with a material that's not particularly consistent - wood) then IMO there is something seriously wrong with their working practices. [/quote] Completely agree but they are still hitting the shelf on a daily basis. [quote] For me the whole point of buying a mass-produced instrument would be so I didn't have to worry about inconsistencies and quality control. I can't be doing with the accepted practice of having to try an entire shop stock of Fenders in order to find "The One". If like Fender basses then they should all be "The One". [/quote] Oh, for an ideal world.

You may find this thread interesting - [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Number=1015083"]http://www.soundonso...?Number=1015083[/url] Of course, you have to realise that this is forums we are dealing with and opinions can sometimes be taken with a pinch of salt but I found the fact that the LD systems and tBone systems being the same quite interesting. The higher priced tBone IEM200 unit actually looks to be quite nice... just trying to figure out if the receiver is metal or not. Also, the report of the LD not being as responsive of the PSM200s and the detail in the bass and highs not being good, would urge you to check them out before hand, given my experience of the PSM200s with bass. EDIT : Hmm, these tBones seem to get very, very mixed reviews too! Hmm. Would love a day with all these devices back to back and record a load of sound samples through them to put them all in the black and white.

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1383658495' post='2267137'] Yep. I agree with all of what you say there. Some people like old stuff. I like more of the modern angle to everything. Things ain't like they used to be (thank heavens ...... IMO). [/quote] And there you go, just because one man likes new, there will always be the next man who wants the latest and greatest. I'm sure there are many people like me who would be thrilled to have an original Atari 2600 games console in their living room... whereas kids of today just wouldn't get it.

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1383658313' post='2267133'] That well-known bass player called who? I've been playing Precisions probably just as long as he has. What makes his thoughts on the sound of a Precision any better than mine? [/quote] Billy Sheehan who? Anyway, as an aside, I haven't really got much interest in old guitars as I generally can't get the action where I need them to be and fret dressing the freck out of them isn't going to do anything towards their value. But what I will say, I have a Taylor guitar that I bought best part of 10 years ago. I played it for about 6 months but started playing more and more bass so the Taylor has been left in it's case. About 3 or 4 months ago, my pine coloured Taylor is now a honey coloured Taylor and has developed more bass acoustically. The main problem with the Taylor for me, is that it always sounded great plugged in but pretty much trebly and lifeless acoustic wise... hence I started looking at Collings and Maton before I gave up on the idea completely. It's sounds better now in the bass then it has ever done - I understand my hearing could have changed... but it's definitely sounding better now than I remember it... and when I pick up new Taylors in the shop, they all have that lacking in the bass that I seem to remember... Something changed... wouldn't like to quantify how much though.

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1383657905' post='2267120'] I agree it looks great and has loads of mojo - and if wanted an ornament in my garage for people to look at it would win hands down. But it won't be that great a car to drive by today's standards. The brakes will be wooden and it won't go that well. [/quote] And there's your market. "Hey guys, I bought this early 60s Fender...sits on my wall for me to gawp at." And that's the reality for most of these basses that are bought. Funny you say, "But it won't be that great a car to drive by today's standards" - I know many Classic Car enthusiasts that love their cars because they don't drive to the standards of todays, safe, unexciting in comparison, cars.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1383656705' post='2267085'] But most of them weren't made by craftsmen were they? They were made by machines operated by relatively unskilled workers (certainly compared with Gibson and Rickenbacker). That was the whole USP of Fender instruments. And to be honest when it comes to mass-produced musical instruments, IMO the more that can be done by machine the less by just above minimum wage labour the better. And I defy anyone to tell me that the quality of machining done by a modern CNC process is inferior to the pin routers of the past. [/quote] You've skipped the point. It's the fact they were made by hand... made with techniques and materials that don't apply today. As for craftsmen, well, it depends upon your definition of craftsmen... perhaps more accurate would have been to said made by people with the level of expertise required in order to do their job to a high standard. I say high standard because the standard of the Fenders of that era were recognised of being significantly better than the competition. So, yeah, handmade. Of course it's not as precise. Of course there is more chance of imperfections... but in some ways, that only adds to the value more. Get an old P bass with no imperfections and it's more rare... or get one that is a solid colour where the paint has worn away and got a sunburst underneath. That bass now has a story... adding to its value. This is all something that isn't done the same today... so dress it up appropriately and you have a market. As for the CNC routers... have you seen some of the sh1t that comes from Fender nowadays? I'm not saying that these basses are worth their money or not. Would I like one? Probably. Would I play it? Probably not. Same as I would like that Ferrari. Would I drive it as my daily driver? Probably not.

Depends - some amps have a switch that you can select the voltage, otherwise you are looking at changing out the power transformer. Depends what you are looking at. Valve stuff, you are likely to be shafted.

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1383653947' post='2267004'] And, it will be outrun, out handled and out everythinged by a decent new 3 Series which would set you back about £25K nowadays. It only looks good. In every other respect, new is better. Just like bass guitars. [/quote] Question, which would you rather have in your garage? Any why? I get your BMW point... but it won't be a pristine Ferrari 275 GTB Spider, of which there were a limited number to begin with and very few in the condition above, that's if they are still with us. Its a piece of history when cars like this weren't made on automated production lines, with computers etc... it's about the car that was made at that time by arguably the best sportscar makers in the world. Oh... and BMWs can be seen ten a penny on the roads. The same could be said almost anything. Technology has advanced... but why is the Spitfire, Vulcan etc.. held in such high esteem? Especially when they are fundamentally crap compared to what is out there today? It's what they stand for and the nostalgic value which they bring. Why do antiques command such a price? Rarity, desirability... and who they were made and when they were made. There are so many factors that it's difficult to quantify. Same goes with basses. Old vintage basses... made by craftsmen as opposed to computers. The romantic notion that they may have been touched by Leo Fender himself. Who knows... but they were considered the pinacle of instruments back in their day and they have since become iconic. There is something to be said about the difference in tone between new and old basses. The construction of the pickups alone, e.g. the magnets, the wire... all were different back then. Does it make the tone better or worse? Well, who knows... all we do know is that it's not comparable to what we've got going on now with the super high precision machines that make the components and wind the pickups. Moving onto the interconnecting wire between the pots, the lead based solder, the capacitors - they are all different to what is out there now... and as a consequence has some novelty value and hence add to the desireability of an old instrument. Whatever the reason, they are of limited supply and there is a market for them... hence the prices are only going to go up.

Bought new for $14,500 in 1967 Sold $27.5 million 2013. Sorry, what's this talk of basses?

[quote name='Toasted' timestamp='1383648067' post='2266906'] Exactly. Compassion, empathy, understanding. [/quote] A rare thing nowadays.

Does your iems fit into you moulded plugs ok then? Id start with what youve got and work from there. Youll soon know if youve got the bass headroom that you personally require. I cant really comment on the quality of the LDs... So dont know what to suggest. As for IEMS, I can show you some crazier stuff yet!! (but you wont thank me!)

I notice theres no Jaydee in that pic...

The 1964s are beautiful IEMs. Relative newcomers but seriously great spec at significant cheaper prices than the competition. They were certainly in the shortlist leading up to my last purchase. Both the quads and V6s get great reviews although I have no experience of the latter. The Unique Melody hybrid also made me raise an eyebrow. Didn't try one - but the dynamic bass driver seemed quite an interesting concept. Alas, expensive game... but once you're there, you'll never let go of them!

[quote name='muttley' timestamp='1383585298' post='2266233'] I think the term "cyber squatter" is a bit extreme if the screen shots on the DM website are anything to go by. It seems clear to me that he was a tribute act and nothing more. Ownership of a name or trade mark does not give an individual or organisation any right to a domain name containing the same words. [/quote] Not my words... Meatloaf's! I think it's just a case of the big man playing bully! On reading the comments on facebook, I am flabbergasted at some of the views! At the end of the day, music is music... and we all do it because we love it? Surely?

Ha ha! Vague?! Noooooo. I thought bass players were meant to be the tech heads of the band? Those KX Audios should see you OK. Before changing your speakers, look at the desk to give you the monitor sends that you need (especially if you want your monitoring in stereo - I know that sounds really odd... but when you have a stereo mix in your ears with singers around your head... and stereo keyboards in your ears with mono keys out front, it's really a beautiful thing!) You'll notice you'll get much more out of your existing system when you've got compressors and eq per channel to play with... and of course a 31 band eq on each output etc... Ive not seen the QU16 straight out of the box... but the GLD80 was a bit of a mind blow compared to the analogue desks... but now that I have got it, there's no way I would go back to an analogue desk. So much power!