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Barefaced One10

Roland Rock

By Roland Rock,
in Amps and Cabs

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vbance Rising Star

vbance

Posted
Posted (edited)

Well i gigged the stack for the first time last night and although both cabs haven't been run in properly yet i was happy with what i heard.
Firstly the reason i got the rig. I'd always been happy with my Roland DB-700 but illness and maybe a bit of old age creeping in, oh and my Yorkville not quite being up to the job, made me start looking for something lighter and hopefully better sounding. Future proofing also was on my mind 'cos i'm not into buying loads of equipment then flogging it and buying more and flogging it and, well ya know what i mean.
I'd read some nice things about Barefaced and decided to go for a One10 and with some help from Alex matched it with a Markbass LM III. After using this for practice at home at low levels i was well chuffed with the results playing with a thumb pick or fingers. My first gig with it was a small pub as a duo with drum machine doing 50's through to Bryan Adams latest offering which strangely i quite like. We play pretty loud and the One 10 had no problems. I had the cab raised by standing it on my Yorkville and i was stood almost right in front of the cab about one and a half, two feet. We started with The Moody Blues Tuesday Afternoon and i knew right away i'd made the right decision. A great big smile crept across me face. It just sounded right, the best separation i have heard in all the time i've been playing. I'm not great at describing the sound but fat and warm come to mind. Ok this is one gig and i'm confident things will only get better. The guitarist was happy with the what he could hear and never once complained about any booming which he has mentioned to me whilst using me Roland.
Gig over and loading the car was most enjoyable and only involved me.
I was so happy I mailed Alex to let him know and later ordered another one 10 to cover bigger venues should i need to.
as i said gigged the stack last night at the same pub, really only would need one cab but had to give two a try. Sadly we had to set up in a different area of the pub but still sounded ace the amp was at just under 9 o'clock. i managed to get around 4 feet to the left of the stack at one point just to hear how it was and it was all there sounded fine well pronounced, clear and i couldn't be more happy. looking forward to playing on a propper stage and giving it a good blast.
i hope this makes sense.
[url="https://flic.kr/p/CASmRt"][/url]

Edited by vbance
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vbance Rising Star

vbance

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Posted

Over the next few months i'll get more of an idea how they sound single or stacked, next gig i'll use one for the first set and both for the second if the situation allows. but you know how things can sound different in a room just from the differing amounts of people in there.

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vbance Rising Star

vbance

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Posted

[quote name='Kevin Dean' timestamp='1451664887' post='2942234']
Having to separate 1 x10s isn't going to work the same way as a 2x10 cab , I wonder of you can hear the difference ?
[/quote]
barefaced site suggests you could notice the difference. 2x10 cab has treble from one speaker only. if i understand it correctly.

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DBerriff Explorer

DBerriff

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Posted

[quote name='vbance' timestamp='1451671840' post='2942318']
barefaced site suggests you could notice the difference. 2x10 cab has treble from one speaker only. if i understand it correctly.
[/quote]
This is to do with horizontal dispersion (interference between the 2 speakers). The 2x10" could be used with the speakers horizontal and then you only want one speaker to radiate treble. With 2 One10s you can stack one on top of the other, tall or wide orientation, and all will be well.

I suppose they will sound different given the different box configuration, but I would not like to predict how. Portability (divide and conquer) overruled any worries about that in my case.

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  • 4 weeks later...
discreet Grand Master

discreet

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[quote name='Lownote-LA' timestamp='1442766798' post='2869310']
[color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Excuse the long post--which is itself a variation on what I posted on the BG Forum at TalkBass--but since I have several Barefaced Cabinets I thought my experience might be helpful. I was lucky enough to be sitting at my computer when the email from Alex arrived announcing the One-10 and the introductory pricing. I currently own a Big Baby 2 and a Super Midget which I use on their own and paired, primarily for upright playing but also for bass guitar and doubling gigs. These are the best speakers I have ever owned bar none, and I jumped at the opportunity to get one of Alex's speakers designed for low volume, small group play that is light as a feather. I will primarily use it for upright duo and trio gigs, and if it is as good as I hope it will be, it will replace my Mike Arnopol fibreglass Crazy 8 that I have been using for low volume gigs. I immediately hit the purchase button and it was confirmed today that I was lucky enough to get one at the introductory price of £199. [/font][/color][color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]My speaker--serial number 002--arrived Friday 11 September. It is beautifully constructed and a step-up quality from the already high standards of the latest generation Barefaced cabinets. I had a chance to play around with it at home on upright bass and to A-B it to one of Mike Arnopol fibreglass Crazy 8 speakers which has been my go-to box for small gigs. I've been having some troubles with the Crazy 8 rattling and vibrating so it isn't a totally valid comparison but I thought the new One-10 sounded much more solid and substantial. For swing music I was able to get the big punchy sound I look for on upright bass--think tones that are like "cubes with eased edges" rather than blobs--if that makes any sense to people. Like other BF speakers I wasn't able to get it to fart out or distort noticeably, driving it with AI Clarus SL (one of the old ones.) I found that using a HiPass filter in front of my amp (that doesn't have one built in) helped to firm up the sound and allow me to increase the volume to an even higher level.[/font][/color]

[color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]I had a gig on Saturday night with a jazz quartet of bone, piano, drums and me, which I thought was going to be quiet background jazz during the cocktail hour of a wedding to be followed by a DJ for the dancing. Off I went with the new speaker thinking this would be a perfect test run. Unfortunately when I arrived I found that I was playing more of a neo-swing dance gig in a big marquis with volumes way up, well beyond what the One-10 is designed to do. If I'd had my Big Baby 2 and new Midget pairing, it would have been perfect. Fortunately there was good PA support and I was able to go into the PA for sound out front. The One-10 did make an excellent stage monitor however, [/font][/color][color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]and I like the fact that it fits into a padded cajon bag along with my AI Clarus and an extension reel for easy over-the-shoulder load-in.[/font][/color]

[color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]20 September Update: I've still not had the right gigging situation yet for the new speaker--yesterday's job was an outdoor 30's swing gig on upright without PA support. Because I was concerned about volume and overloading the One 10, I took the Super Midget instead. Upcoming gigs include a 17-piece loud big band and a quartet backing a female vocalist in a jazz club with a back line amp wired into the PA so I've yet to get the perfect gig to try out the new speaker. [/font][/color]

[font="verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"][color="#141414"]However, I did spend a bunch of time today with both upright and bass guitar in my large front hall (15' X 25' with a 12' ceiling) and thought my experience with the One10 and my other speakers might be helpful. I'm not a professional equipment reviewer, just a jobbing musician, so I might not have the lingo down, but here are my thoughts in sort of random order.[/color][/size][/font][list]
[*]The One10 alone gets incredibly loud with no farting out at all on the E string with either upright or BG. I was driving the speaker(s) with an Acoustic Image Focus Series III so there was gobs of clean power. The upright has a bridge wing piezo pickup called the Revolution Solo. To make the double bass sound "right," I set the high pass filter to about 85 hz, and for BG, I rolled it all the way down to the lowest setting of 35 hz. On upright I get a very punchy and yet fat and rich sound that is clean as a whistle, mirrors the sound of my bass but projects like crazy. The One10 is much fatter when sitting on the ground and I put it down on the long side so that the cylindrical port was pointing out the side and not down to the bottom. When I put a speaker on the floor, I like to slip a foam wedge under the speaker so that I can hear it better and this would cover up the port if it was sitting with the narrow end down. The One10 also sounded good when played alone while sitting on top of another speaker--boomy rooms may well call for the speaker to be up off the floor.
[*]This was the first time I played a BG (Status Graphite 4-string Streamliner) through the speaker and was bowled over by what a fat funky sound it produced with just the One10 on its own. For smaller pub gigs where there is no drummer or the drummer isn't super loud, I think you could get by just fine with this speaker alone. Certainly for a drummer-less duo or trio playing background jazz in almost any size room, or any kind of folky or bluegrass gig, the One10 will do the job on either/both upright and BG.
[*]Somewhat surprisingly I didn't like the sound of the One10 with the Big Baby 2 although I love the sound of the SuperMIdget paired with the BB2. The BB2 alone has been a wonderful speaker, particularly as a stage monitor with a loud 5-horn band in a touring Rat Pack theatre show that I play with. It is a bit hard to describe why I didn't like the One10/BB2 pairing but the sonic palette just didn't seem to mesh that well. It helped when I turned the crossover on the BB2 almost all the way to the side that favours the woofer and not the horn.
[*]However, the pairing of the SuperMidget and the One10 is absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend this pairing for both upright and BG. Loud, rich, clean, punchy and well disbursed are descriptors that come to mind. This will be a rig that I'll go out with often especially since the One10 fits in a Cajon bag and the SuperMidget fits in a Bass Cajon bag, making transport safe and relatively easy. I didn't want to stop playing this combination.
[/list]
[font="verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"][color="#141414"]Having owned a ton of small speakers (Wizzy 10, Schroeder 10, Acme B-1, GK 112MBX, Arnopol composite Crazy 8) the Barefaced One10 is the very best one I've played to date and I could have saved a ton of money if they had come along sooner. Barefaced Speakers are relatively unusual in that they sound equally good with both upright and BG, and this is rare indeed.[/color][/size][/font]

[color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Cheers,[/font][/color]

[color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Erik Hansen aka Lownote-LA[/font][/color]
[color=#141414][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Edinburgh, Scotland[/font][/color]
[/quote]

Thanks for this very comprehensive review... must admit I'm very intrigued by this little cab.

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dave_bass5 Grand Master

dave_bass5

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Posted (edited)

[quote name='Chienmortbb' timestamp='1451680222' post='2942459']
No the retro range has one full range and one speaker that only operates on the lower frequencies per pair. So they can be used either way.

[/quote]

According to the website
"The Two10 cab be used horizontally for maximum thump or vertically for increased clarity."

I can confirm this as i noticed a slight difference when i tried it with mine. For me the best tone was horizontally, it did indeed have a b it more "retro" thump or low end.

Also the Retro name has been dropped. Just thought i'd add that in case someone went looking for something called a Retro 210.

@Mark. Leave now :-)

Edited by dave_bass5
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Chienmortbb Grand Master

Chienmortbb

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Posted (edited)

[quote name='dave_bass5' timestamp='1453676345' post='2961782']


According to the website
"The Two10 cab be used horizontally for maximum thump or vertically for increased clarity."

I can confirm this as i noticed a slight difference when i tried it with mine. For me the best tone was horizontally, it did indeed have a b it more "retro" thump or low end.

Also the Retro name has been dropped. Just thought i'd add that in case someone went looking for something called a Retro 210.

@Mark. Leave now :-)
[/quote]My post was a little too short to make my point properly. I was really thinking of stacking the cabinets and I seem to remember Alex said that horizontal stacking was OK.

Edited by Chienmortbb
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discreet Grand Master

discreet

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Posted

[quote name='dave_bass5' timestamp='1453676345' post='2961782']
@Mark. Leave now :-)
[/quote]

Too late! In fact, I've already contacted Alex re suitability with my amp and band... his reply:

'Yes, that should be a great little rig! It'll be fine with the bottom end, even up against a moderately loud drummer.'

So now I'm in trouble. Again. :blink:

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dave_bass5 Grand Master

dave_bass5

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Posted

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1453725254' post='2962102']
Too late! In fact, I've already contacted Alex re suitability with my amp and band... his reply:

'Yes, that should be a great little rig! It'll be fine with the bottom end, even up against a moderately loud drummer.'

So now I'm in trouble. Again. :blink:
[/quote]

But you have a great little rig already lol.

Cant say i blame you though. Now the GAS wheels are in motion you definitely don't want to come anywhere near my BB2, although you are still welcome to try it :-)

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  • 1 month later...
DBerriff Explorer

DBerriff

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[quote name='tonyclaret' timestamp='1457763669' post='3001596']
Wow just stumbled on this thread.

Intrigied to hear more on people's experience with them.

I just can't believe they'd compete in a live band situation.

Was going to get a TKS S112 but may consider this instead. Which would be loudest?
[/quote]
Hi tony. I have been using a single One 10 with the Puma 500 I bought off you and with a 15 piece big band rehearsal it is not even breaking sweat. I was asked to turn it down last week. :)

It is quite a turn around to see the guitarist struggling in with his Fender Twin amp while I waltz in with this tiny cab and pull the Puma out of my gig-bag pocket.

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