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[Dood]

Over the weekend I was lucky enough to become a proud, albeit very temporary, owner of an actual potato, or three. I’ll try to keep comments to a minimum, (Om, nomm, noms, chips...) as I think the measurements speak for themselves.*








*Yes, I am having fun, this is just a lighthearted joke. (I can't believe I'm actually going to have to type that.)

Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[stevie]

Nice to see you back in the thread, Dood.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[Steve Browning]

Maybe I'm less sensitive (there's probably a graph for it!). While not a scientist, I have worked in a scientific environment and it is the nature of scientists to probe and question any claim.

I was around when scientists were engaged in work on Thrust, the speed of sound on land. There were heated discussions around the minutae of the project and I recall how it was proved (because air pressure is part of the equation) that some parts of the car would achieve Mach1 before other bits of it. I, as a layman, was left thinking that it's one thing so it must achieve mach 1 in its entirety at the same time - not so.

I don't profess to know much of the technical arguments but I have a healthy scepticism of any claim by a salesman and so I find this discussion very interesting. I'm not sure I see any casual put-downs but a mere statement of fact.

[jassthebass]

Stevie,
Which model & generation of Barefaced cab did you somehow purloin ?
Was the same cab used for both speakers that were tested ? (Both happened to be 33cm/1.5 metres high etc.)
If they remained in their own cabs, what was the crossover position ?

Have you thought about doing this with other cabs/speakers in regards to balance/fairness ?
Do you ever make/take similar readings with regards to amplifiers?


I assure you there's no wind up intended

Have a good day all

[stevie]

Thanks Steve. I didn't think there was any put down either. I was sort of apologising for uploading information that would go over many people's heads.

Jass, time was a bit limited and I was only interested in measuring the driver, which was the one used in the thread title. So I installed the drivers in an identical cabinet in order to carry out measurements that were comparable. In fact, it was the Basschat DIY prototype cab. The measurements were of the 12" drivers connected directly to an amp.

I'd be very happy to measure some commercial cabinets and to put the information on the forum in a standard format for comparison purposes - perhaps in the Reviews section. I did actually put out a call for some cabs at one stage during the Basschat DIY thread so that we could have a quality commercial cabinet to compare with - but nobody responded.

I leave amplifiers to the many qualified experts in that field. I am certainly not one of them.

Edited May 15, 2017 by stevie

[Dood]

Nice to see you back in the thread, Dood.

Thanks! I popped in to see if anymore had been added to the OP's original question as using active cabinets for backline is of interest to me. Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[stingrayPete1977]

I've rarely seen a better case argued for using your ears rather than all this reductio ad absurdum.

If you like the sound, buy it.

If you don't like the sound, buy something else.

If you want to score points, endlessly, boringly, repetitively, then analyse the sound to death using oh-so-clever graphs accompanied by casual put-downs ("I suspect not everyone will know how to read this ...").

Perhaps clutching a copy of this graph will somehow make your PA sound better in The Tickled Trout.

I promise you it won't make a blind bit of difference in any pub I've ever played.

I imagine that the RCFs sound great. I know the Barefaced RFs sound great. Lots of things sound great.

Get over it.

I did try to explain to Alex once after some claim about making a light weight version of an ampeg fridge but at the same time fixing all it's issues that people enjoy the issues,it's human nature, if we didn't have that inside us then the experts could just make a bass,amp and cab that is 'the best'. Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[Jack]

I ordered a pair of fr800s last week.

[Beer of the Bass]

Snark aside, what might we take from those measurements? The on and off axis measurements show that the off-axis response does start to drop off somewhere above 1KHz. A comparison with the Kappalite 3012HO and LF might be interesting, since those were used in the previous Barefaced products and would presumably be what they are attempting to improve on with the new driver.
It's a shame not many driver manufacturers include data on off-axis response - I've noticed that Faital do but I'm not aware of any others.
I'm not too familiar with spectral decay plots, though it's clear enough what the axes are. I presume that the "decay" bit suggests that this shows the behaviour after a burst of test signal ends? And that the frequencies which still show some amplitude after a few milliseconds would indicate some sort of resonance which might colour the sound? Am I way off the mark with that interpretation? I don't really have a benchmark for what other drivers would look like when measured in this way though.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Beer of the Bass

[EBS_freak]

I ordered a pair of fr800s last week.

That diagram looks just short of two... what happened? A handle fall off? Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[Stylon Pilson]

That diagram looks just short of two... what happened? A handle fall off?

It's not - the pale horizontal lines are at 0.75 and 2.25.

OP should have prefixed with the caveat "I suspect not everyone will know how to read this".

S.P. Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[EBS_freak]

It's not - the pale horizontal lines are at 0.75 and 2.25.

OP should have prefixed with the caveat "I suspect not everyone will know how to read this".

S.P.

It was a joke.

You know, a joke. Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[Stylon Pilson]

It was a joke.

You know, a joke.

Mine was also a joke. I knew that yours was a joke, which was why I, too, made a joke.

S.P. Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[Raggy]

I think the Potato diagram is the bestest.

[Phil Starr]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1494856354' post='3299037']
I've rarely seen a better case argued for using your ears rather than all this reductio ad absurdum.

If you like the sound, buy it.

If you don't like the sound, buy something else.

[/quote]
[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1494858314' post='3299064']
For those of us without a PhD in acoustics, what do those graphs actually mean in the "real world"?

[/quote]
[quote name='Steve Browning' timestamp='1494862134' post='3299100']
Maybe I'm less sensitive (there's probably a graph for it!). While not a scientist, I have worked in a scientific environment and it is the nature of scientists to probe and question any claim.

I'm not sure I see any casual put-downs but a mere statement of fact.
[/quote]

Knowledge is power. Without it you have no way of assessing the truth of anything and you can spend a lot of effort chasing phantoms. My music theory isn't what it should be and I don't doubt I'd be a better bassist if I knew more. Most of what I get out of BC is reading other people's debates about music and I'm trying to learn as much as I can. I love it when the muso's get into a spat about what mode a song is written in because I learn a lot. I hope there are people out there who don't have the science but who are learning from the bits and pieces of technical debate on BC. So yeah, if it sounds good to you and you want to get on playing bass good on you. If you've spent a fortune over the years on changing gear whilst chasing your perfect sound and think a little technical knowledge would help, well that's good too. And Steve (Browning) is right, scientists and engineers can get quite heated over details, but we have a way of resolving issues and that is to take measurements and collect data. In the end the off axis response of a 12" speaker either falls off in pretty much the same way for all 12's or it doesn't, and if it does you can measure it. I don't think it's snarky to do those measurements

So what do Stevie's Graphs show? (I'm ignoring the waterfall chart)

[quote]Here’s the frequency response of the Barefaced driver on axis (top) and at 30 degrees off axis (lower).



Nice smooth response apart from the wide bump just above 2kHz, which deserves further investigation. The upper -6dB point is at 3.5kHz, which means that, without any crossover on the LF, the crossover point must at around 3.5kHz.

Note the off-axis response.

This is the same measurement of a Ciare 12.00 NDW. Unfortunately no longer made, it was a standard production model (i.e. not OEM). It has a 4-inch, 20mm long coil. It’s a bit bumpier than the Eminence, but its on-axis response extends to 4kHz, which is where its main upper resonance is.

[/quote]

Each graph has two traces. The top line is the frequency response of the speaker with the mic pointing straight at the middle of the speaker and the lower one is with the mic pointing in from one side, 30 degrees off the centre line. Both speakers show that the frequency response of the bass frequencies is pretty much the same on and off axis until you reach around 1,000Hz which is well into the mids. Above this the output off axis falls for both speakers in a similar but not identical way. The area between the two represents how much sound is lost off axis. If one of those drivers is better off axis then it would have a smaller difference between the two lines. You can judge for your self if that is true

It would be great to see a few more measurements of other 12" drivers from commercial units. There's not a huge difference in off axis output and it clearly varies with frequency but the Ciare driver might be better or worse than average itself off axis. To make a fair test you'd have to compare the Barefaced driver with a range of drivers.

Anyway I find it interesting

[EBS_freak]

Back to the thread title - the OP was looking for comment on FRFR and off axis response came up - so, as a comparison, here are the vendor supplied charts (ideally Stevie should do the measurements to keep things on the level) for the 745.



You are looking at the 3rd dotted line down from the top - circa -3db attenuation at 10k off axis is pretty good in my book... but again, use your ears and all that. I'd like to see the chart for the FR800 (including the HF horn) to see how it compares.

[EBS_freak]

For FRFR, this is the graph that we should be interested in. I think it's clear to see the DSP is having some influence on keeping the response pretty flat. Again, would be interested to see how the FR800 compares.

Edited May 16, 2017 by EBS_freak

[EBS_freak]

Although, in the spirit of the thread, this is the graph that we should be looking at -

[TPJ]

I like pie charts instead

[Dood]

Back to the thread title - the OP was looking for comment on FRFR and off axis response came up - so, as a comparison, here are the vendor supplied charts (ideally Stevie should do the measurements to keep things on the level) for the 745.



.... . I'd like to see the chart for the FR800 (including the HF horn) to see how it compares.

The analysis of a cabinet system that is suitable for FRFR and the focus is on one single component. Hopefully the screw driver will be coming out for the 745 - and I don't expect the off axis response to be jaw droppingly different for a PRO driver. In the same way that I might measure the speed of the car by the type of tyre it's wearing. So, I agree. I'd like to see the entire system being measured. Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[EBS_freak]

Good, to be fair, I think that the claim that the BF 12 is superior to other 12s was the purpose of the graphs.

I think the tyre argument doesn't quite work either, I think we are talking more about the engines!

Edited May 16, 2017 by EBS_freak

[Dood]

Good, to be fair, I think that the claim that the BF 12 is superior to other 12s was the purpose of the graphs.

I think the tyre argument doesn't quite work either, I think we are talking more about the engines!

I see engines as active components, like amplifiers, DSP etc. Anyway,


I thought I might go check out what Barefaced had to say about the driver on the website: (Not necessarily responding directly to you, but to the discussion in general)

Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[Conan]

dood said:

It all feels a bit like a bit of a 'he said, she said' argument. But hey, popcorn sales are up

 

Yes. It is the ad hominem aspects that increasingly grate...

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[EBS_freak]

Specifically looking for "being superior" and "like for like 12" drivers".

Thing is, looking at the wording on the website, the 12" driver polar response is being advertised as (and to quote) better than a 4x10 bass cabinet. Which is true anyway, or we'd have lots of 4x10 PA cabinets right? The mention of 'superior' in the quotes from the website appear to be telling me 'what superior polar response means' and not necessarily that Barefaced are out and out saying their speakers are superior to ALL 12" speakers? In fact, I believe I keep seeing 'great polar response for bass guitar', which is a little different than BF saying nothing is better.

Err... I don't know if you have seen this page or not - http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/12XN550.htm - but I think it would be hard to disagree that the whole underlying message is that the 12" in Barefaced cabs are deemed to be superior to those found in other "boutique" bass cabs... or is it just me that is receiving that message?

When you are making bold claims like that, it is inevitable that discussions like this will take place... if people don't like it, maybe a forum isn't the best place for them to hang out!

There's no ad hominem it, if the claims are there, people will seek to validate them, especially when the cabs in questions are directly compared to some of the best selling cabs on the market. There is a lot of he said / she said... but it would seem the case with this particular brand, nobody can talk freely about them without being at the mercy of the fanboys.

There's been plentiful of discussion about many brands and their claims... yet this one brand seems to be a contentious subject.

As it stands, I'm not too interested on the polar response of a cab (although I am still reading with interest - especially if a full range analysis of the FR800 can be done as opposed to just the woofer) - I'm more interested in how FRFR a cab that is marketed as a FRFR cab is... and how well it performs at volume, in a gigging situation - isn't that what the initial OP was trying to get at too? I don't think, handle joke aside - which let's face it, is a bit of an ongoing forum joke, I've said anything that is out to upset - I'm looking at the graphs - and the information, to gleam what I can about the product, just as I would with any other product. I feel sometimes that people on here are far too sensitive over gear at times. Edited October 10, 2019 by Dad3353

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 24, 2022 by Jus Lukin