Two of the very best 112 cabs available today?

[Al Krow]

12 minutes ago, mcnach said:

Haven't we all heard that before, 'though

I hope it does the job for you. It looks great too. Is yours blue like in the picture? I like the look of that one.

Mine's a boring black (pics posted earlier in the thread). 

Although I did manage to buy a spare grille, from another BCer, which is in garish yellow to remind me of my former Markbass glory days! 😂 

[Phil Starr]

On 01/04/2019 at 17:57, Jimrs2k2 said:

It look similar to a fearful 12-6-1 but just looking at the mid and HF drivers it's a lookalike.

Fearful speaker are not difficult to build and would certainly give you what you are looking for in terms of performance that's for certain. 

 

Jim.

I don't often comment on the quality of particular cabs, I prefer the safer objectivity of technical issues to the subjective judgement of what sounds best/suits my needs. However I've heard Jim's cab a few times now at the SW Bass Bash and we had a chance to compare it with the new 1x12 design Stevie is doing on Basschat. In fact Jim spent some time playing through both. I love the sound of Jim's Greenboy/Fearless cab but I felt the Basschat design matched it fairly well, one edged the other in some areas but I don't think one cab had a clear advantage. Both are exceptionally good IMO.

I'd be interested if Jim came on here to give what he felt about the comparison between the two. Of course you'd have to build the Basschat Mk2 but if the kits work out that won't be such a difficult option. 

[krispn]

12 hours ago, mcnach said:

 

We had to pull out. Our drummer has some family matters that will take him away that week. Are you going to be playing?

I was also going to play on the Saturday with a one-off band we put together just for that, playing Audioslave songs [1]... but the singer, after standing us up twice, has just told us she needs call it off. Shame, as I was looking forward to play those (only 6 songs). 

[1] One of the organisers got in touch with our RATM band to ask if we did Audioslave too. We said no, and that our singer didn't have the range for that. But she said she knew a girl who would be perfect, sent us a video, and we said we're in. Well... our drummer was going to be away (different drummer), but our singer said he'd do it. It would be his first gig on drums. We were all quite keen but too much faff for a one off 30min show to be looking for a singer now.

No I'm not playing this year but i think one of the guys I work with might have been involved in organising it (he and his brother have been involved in previous years I think) and when I saw the poster at work I thought I might catch you guys. They're usually a good night out!

[Al Krow]

On 18/03/2019 at 14:48, funkle said:

I concluded the F112 needs huge power to get the absolute best out of it. 500W into the cab and it will barely break a sweat. It's very loud with 500W, but edged out for loudness by some other cabs I have tried - BB2 included. The BB2, as I said before, is lighter on the low end, but since it's a single 12" in a correctly sized box it will take EQ for the low end very well, and is louder than the F112 with the same power applied. 

Just connecting a couple of dots...

Any cab that delivers a meaty low end is going to be putting out more in the low frequency range, and those low-f waves are also the higher energy ones. So I guess it's not surprising that the F112 can soak up the watts and needs to be partnered with a decent powered amp to get the most out of it.

@xgsjx gave the relationship of RMS power at 4 ohms => 2/3 RMS power at 8 ohms earlier in this thread.

That would broadly tie in with Marcus Limited 800 amp, we've just been discussing on another thread, delivering 800W at 4ohm = 500W at 8ohm (per its spec sheet), and my DG M900 delivering 900+ W at 4ohms = circa 600W at 8ohms (although the manual states 500W at 8ohms which is a little confusing). Should do the trick  

Edited July 15, 2019 by Al Krow

[Jimrs2k2]

Hi all, 

Just thought I'd drop in with my tuppence worth about cabs etc.

Firstly I am no expert in this field, I am in fact just a bass player like us all , but some of the guys here really do know what they are talking about when it come to cabs etc.

I built my fearful 15/6/1 a good few years ago now and while cabinet design has moved on ,I'm am still very happy with it, in fact I have come to realise that I am quite spoilt with the performance it gives me.

But it also a good benchmark to use against other cabinets although its clarity and brute power are not everyone's taste, also it's a fairly large cabinet. 

Move on a few years and we have Greenboy's fearless range , much more compact yet still able to produce a stupid amount of bottom end combined with the response and dispersion of the earlier designs.

The latest version of the basschat cab was to my mind simply marvellous considering it's a 2 way cabinet and up against some serious kit in the blind test including a fearless F112 and a barefaced cab, yet it was not left wanting for anything.

After the test I noodled around with  both of the current Basschat cabs, and while they differed slightly they both took EQ very well which is a very important quality that a lot of big name manufacturers cabs do not , all while fitting the current trend for smaller cabinets.

In a nutshell given the totally different design to the fearful/ fearless offerings the basschat cab is going to be a bit of a shocker to the community especially as Stevie has tweaked the crossover a little since as it really is as good as cabs costing many times more, and you get to build it yourself,  I'm mean what more could you want.

 

Jim.

 

[Al Krow]

Great post, thanks Jim!

I'm glad you're still a big fan of the Fearless cabs - it's good to know that my ears are not deceiving me just to make me feel better for having recently forked out for one! 

Is there a pic of the BC cab lurking around somewhere that you or @stevie could post for us on this thread? And is there a spec sheet for it (the usual: ohms, power handling, output, frequency response, weight etc)?

2 hours ago, Jimrs2k2 said:

...In a nutshell given the totally different design to the fearful/ fearless offerings the basschat cab is going to be a bit of a shocker to the community especially as Stevie has tweaked the crossover a little since as it really is as good as cabs costing many times more, and you get to build it yourself,  I mean what more could you want.

What more could we want? Well for those of us who are still struggling to differentiate our Stomp from our Aftershock and lack the confidence to put something like a cab together without the tolex fraying or melting, maybe getting you or Stevie to provide a finished product?! 😁

How much does the kit form cost and what would be a cost for the finished product? (You may want to consult with Stevie on the latter if this is not something that you are already providing to BC Land!)

Edited July 16, 2019 by Al Krow

[LukeFRC]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Is there a pic of the BC cab lurking around somewhere that you or @stevie could post for us on this thread? And is there a spec sheet for it (the usual: ohms, power handling, output, frequency response, weight etc)?

There’s a whole thread...

[funkle]

Here’s the thread @Al Krow

 

[Al Krow]

Cheers, just 28 pages to read through then...😂

[afterimage]

Bergantino are worth mentioning too

[funkle]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Cheers, just 28 pages to read through then...😂

Yep, have fun! Lol. At least the most up to date schematics are at the first post...

[stevie]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Cheers, just 28 pages to read through then...😂

I suspect that if Al were interested in all that geeky, nerdy stuff, he'd have read it already. Allow me to summarise.

The original thread, which is probably another 28 pages, was Phil Starr's original idea. He suggested that a few of us should get together to design a bass cab that would perform well, be relatively cheap, and be easy for DIYers to assemble. Phil's background is in hi-fi while mine is more in PA, but neither of us had designed a bass guitar cab before. So it was a bit of a learning process for us, and we shared the lessons we learned with the Basschat community in the Diary thread.

We came up with a cabinet equipped with a single, high-performance driver. Phil also made a more compact version, which he assembled in about 20 minutes in front of an admiring audience at the last South West Bass Bash. The video is online and well worth a watch.

The next stage in this project (where the Continued thread begins) was an attempt to design a compact DIY bass cab that would compete with high-end commercial products. It wasn't an all-out, cost-no-object design, as we did keep a eye on costs, but there was no skimping on either components or materials. One of the goals was that the cab should be able to handle the output of the many lightweight 500W (into 4 ohms) amps on the market.

By this time, I had come to the conclusion that an FRFR design was by far the best design approach for bass guitar (and not just with modellers). So I published a design based on the Beyma 12" driver we had been using very successfully up until then - but with a compression driver and horn. Surprisingly, I thought, didn't attract much attention.

The next step was to work on the weight factor. So I chose a couple of very high quality neo drivers and designed a system around them. The first one I built  was demoed at the South West Bass Bash and went head-to-head against several expensive branded cabs.

The latest version, which will be available as a kit (soon, honest!), took into account some of the comments made at the Bash. It is slightly larger, which extends the bottom end response a tad (it should now be similar to the Fearless in this respect) and I've modified the crossover to reduce a slight excess in the midrange.

Basic specs just for Al - power handling: 300W AES, weight with metal grille: 14kg approx., frequency response: +/- 1dB from 80 to 18kHz,  8 ohms.

The major design feature as far as I'm concerned is that you can hear your bass very clearly even when you're directly in front of and above the cab. Not only that, but the sound you hear in front of the cab is the same as your audience hears when they're 20 feet away; it doesn't change. It's all about dispersion and power response (but let's not go there now).

It plays music like a monitor. So your bass sounds like your bass, or like it would through a console and monitors in the studio. It also has the ability to kick like a mule. During the demo at the SW Bash, Phil turned the volume up and it did that physical chest-hammering thing that you get from big systems with subs.

You should be able to build one for about £300, thanks to some canny purchasing input, although experience has shown that the costs of DIY projects can easily escalate if you're not careful.

No pics of the final cab until Blue Aran deliver my paint - but it'll look good.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by stevie

[Al Krow]

Cheers @stevie I bet it's going to look great! Can't wait to see the finished product  

[Al Krow]

3 hours ago, afterimage said:

Bergantino are worth mentioning too

Their CN212 is an amazingly good cab, I agree! Swept me off my feet and caused me to trade in my VK 210 LNT which I'd been (and remain) a very big fan of.

But I don't think the Berg 112s have the same power handling / output as the BF BB2 or Fearless 112 (or even my BF SC)? So I would find them harder to use as a one cab solution than the other three.

[stevie]

31 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Their CN212 is an amazingly good cab, I agree! Swept me off my feet and caused me to trade in my VK 210 LNT which I'd been (and remain) a very big fan of.

The BCcab 112 uses a more advanced version of the Faital driver used in the Bergantino CN112 and 212 - similar sound, but twice the excursion.

Interesting, eh?😀

Edited July 16, 2019 by stevie

[Al Krow]

59 minutes ago, stevie said:

The BCcab 112 uses a more advanced version of the Faital driver used in the Bergantino CN112 and 212 - similar sound, but twice the excursion.

Interesting, eh?😀

Is the one on BCcab 112 by any chance the same one as on the Fearless F112?

[funkle]

28 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Is the one on BCcab 112 by any chance the same one as on the Fearless F112?

No. The F112 has the mighty Eminence Kappalite 3012LF. It’s not a driver that will work in an enclosure without a mid driver as well, at least not unless you want to hear more than a low end woofing noise. 

The Berg CN112 and CN212 had a very nice driver by Faital - the 12PR300. Very smooth midrange IME, but a single 112 cab was just a touch bass shy, again IME. Loud as anything and efficient though. 

The BCcab has the updated version of the Faital 12PR300, called the 12PR320. It looks great on paper and @stevie seems to have proven it excellent in real life also. I have very high expectations indeed of the cab. 

Edited July 16, 2019 by funkle

[stevie]

The Fearless F112 and the Fearful DIY models use the Eminence Kappalite speakers, the 3012LF in the case of the F112.

[LukeFRC]

18 minutes ago, stevie said:

The Fearless F112 and the Fearful DIY models use the Eminence Kappalite speakers, the 3012LF in the case of the F112.

Also relevant for the self build cabs discussed in a UK/EU forum...

 Faital 12pr320 - £129 (Blue Arran)

Eminence Kappalite 3012LF - £199 (lean) plus you will need a mid driver...

[Owen]

On 01/04/2019 at 21:40, gusbass said:

Yummy!

[stevie]

2 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

Also relevant for the self build cabs discussed in a UK/EU forum...

 Faital 12pr320 - £129 (Blue Arran)

Eminence Kappalite 3012LF - £199 (lean) plus you will need a mid driver...

And if you add a decent neo midrange driver, you'll have spent almost as much as our entire cab. Then you need a tweeter.

Three-way systems do have their advantages, but it's telling that most modern PA cabs choose the two-way approach (plus sub); you just have to spend on the HF driver and horn.

I'm not knocking the Fearless cabs: I've been saying positive things about them for years. But I think two-ways are a better solution.

Edited July 16, 2019 by stevie

[funkle]

9 minutes ago, stevie said:

And if you add a decent neo midrange driver, you'll have spent almost as much as our entire cab. Then you need a tweeter.

Three-way systems do have their advantages, but it's telling that most modern PA cabs choose the two-way approach (plus sub); you just have to spend on the HF driver and horn.

I'm not knocking the Fearless cabs: I've been saying positive things about them for years. But I think two-ways are a better solution.

So did Alex from BF...he moved from 3-way to 2-way solutions for the Gen 3 cabs. 

[krispn]

I had a three way once... oh wait wrong forum!

[Al Krow]

54 minutes ago, stevie said:

Three-way systems do have their advantages...

For the sake of balance (and to remove the image that krispn has kindly put in our collective heads), what are the key advantages of 3-way systems?

[Jimrs2k2]

If there are advantages and there are many who say theres none, its in a one speaker for one job scenario. 

Woofer, mid ,high kind of thing leading to a more balanced spread from the cabinet, but this involves a much more complicated crossover and not many boutique companies are willing to spend that given the return that it would generate.

But time and trend moves on and with more capable mid/ tweeters coming to the market then the need for 3 way cabinets and the complex crossovers are becoming less when a 2 way can do the job while maintaining good dispersion angles.

 

Jim.