FRFR, is it just a buzz word?

[dave_bass5]

Ok, i know what the letters mean, but i cant get my head around the fact that different FRFR cabs produce a different tone. The Fearless/BB2 thread springs to mind. If both are flat why do people prefer one or the other for tone?

Which one is 'truly' flat if they sound differently. If its neither then what's the point of calling it a FRFR cab?

Sorry, i except this is stupid Monday thread, but its been on my mind to ask someone, if nothing else to let confirm im missing the point. 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by dave_bass5

[jrixn1]

45 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Which one is 'truly' flat if they sound differently. If its neither then what's the point of calling it a FRFR cab?

Is it aspiration rather than realization - I'm not sure many cab could be literally flat-response?  In which case, I could see that two cabs which are "almost flat" could be almost flat in different ways.

I would also guess that response changes with volume - I wonder if systems with DSP have some advantage here.

Edited October 21, 2019 by jrixn1

[dave_bass5]

2 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

Is it aspiration rather than realization - I'm not sure many cab could be literally flat-response?  In which case, I could see that two cabs which are "almost flat" could be almost flat in different ways.

This is how i see it as well, so is it right to call a cab flat when it isnt?

[EBS_freak]

Alot of it is buzz.

A FRFR cab should be exactly that. The only really true FRFR cabs seem to be the ones that are sporting DSP to make them so. Whilst it is theoretically possible to achieve a FRFRish passive cab, the majority that are marketed as such are not... but hey, it says FRFR so a fool and his money and all that*

 

* maybe that's a bit unfair... if your modeller and (not)FRFR sound good together, it's good. Let your ears do the determining rather than the graphs. The reason I like DSP FRFR is that I like to take as much of the speaker out of the equation and have it all taken care of in modeller world. I think there are a lot of manufacturers selling as FRFR as they are using speakers that are typically less coloured in sound that you'd typical find in a guitar cab.

Edited October 21, 2019 by EBS_freak

[EBS_freak]

Just now, dave_bass5 said:

This is how i see it as well, so is it right to call a cab flat when it isnt?

If your the salesman... then it would seem that way.

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 4, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[dave_bass5]

I genually get all that, and id be very surprised if anyone could make a totally flat resonance bass cab.

This is what my question was addressing. If its not flat or neutral why advertise it as such? Close to flat, relatively uncoloured etc, i get those sayings, but calling it FRFR does seem like a marketing thing if you arent actually getting a flat or neutral response cab. It seems like the phrase is used to encompass a variety of cabs that are less coloured than the mainstream, but still coloured enough that they sound different.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

9 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

I genually get all that, and id be very surprised if anyone could make a totally flat resonance bass cab.

It's not difficult. Whether or not it's worthwhile is a different question.

Quote

If its not flat or neutral why advertise it as such?

Why advertise anything that it's not? To make a sale.

[dave_bass5]

3 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

It's not difficult. Whether or not it's worthwhile is a different question.

Why advertise anything that it's not? To make a sale.

Yes, im beginning to think this.

[paulbuzz]

The point is that a full-range flat response is the design goal for this gear, and that this distinguishes this equipment from traditional bass (or guitar) gear, which doesn't attempt to be linear. Indeed, the non-linearities of traditional gear were a vital part of creating the instrument sounds that we know and love.

Using FRFR gear as the last part of the chain in instrument amplification represents a definitively different approach: create the non-linearities (distortion, EQ, simulation of traditional cabs) earlier in the chain, and then afterwards amplify this as accurately as possible. This mirrors the approach that's been used in PA systems for ages now.

So no, in my view FRFR is not just a buzzword; it's a quite separate approach to getting the sounds you want out of instrument amplification.

[stevie]

4 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

Alot of it is buzz.

A FRFR cab should be exactly that. The only really true FRFR cabs seem to be the ones that are sporting DSP to make them so. Whilst it is theoretically possible to achieve a FRFRish passive cab, the majority that are marketed as such are not... but hey, it says FRFR so a fool and his money and all that*

It's always been possible to make a flat-response cab using passive rather than active crossovers. Many people believe that this approach can produce a better result than taking inferior drivers and  "fixing" their weaknesses by tweaking the frequency response digitally. It's a bit like adding monosodium glutamate to cheap food IMO. Better to start with the proper ingredients. There is some discussion in professional circles about what DSP does to high frequencies. Quite a few pros a prefer a passive solution.

Any speaker designer will tell you that it's quite possible to build a flat-response speaker that sounds awful. There are a lot more factors that go into making a good speaker. Which is why @Dave bass that flat-response cabs can sound very different, although I have my doubts about whether some of the products that claim to be FRFR are actually flat response at all.

As EBS-freak says, there's a lot of jumping on the bandwagon going on. It's a bit like stacking one driver on top of another and calling it a line array. It sells product.

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by stevie

[dave_bass5]

1 hour ago, paulbuzz said:

The point is that a full-range flat response is the design goal for this gear, and that this distinguishes this equipment from traditional bass (or guitar) gear, which doesn't attempt to be linear. Indeed, the non-linearities of traditional gear were a vital part of creating the instrument sounds that we know and love.

But If the goal isn't met, why advertise it as flat?

[paulbuzz]

32 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

But If the goal isn't met, why advertise it as flat?

Because the goal can never be met - there's no such thing as a perfect speaker.

Speaker design (like many other kinds of design) is a series of compromises (some technical, some financial etc) and the final product can never be more than a "best-line-of-fit" to the design goals relative to the compromises chosen.

So 'flat', for a speaker, is a description of the type of speaker the manufacturer was aiming at, rather than specifications of the finished product.
The response of 'FRFR' speakers used for bass or guitar is imperfect, just like the response of all other speakers, whether they are for PA, pro studio monitoring, domestic hifi or whatever.

[dave_bass5]

3 minutes ago, paulbuzz said:

Because the goal can never be met - there's no such thing as a perfect speaker.

Speaker design (like many other kinds of design) is a series of compromises (some technical, some financial etc) and the final product can never be more than a "best-line-of-fit" to the design goals relative to the compromises chosen.

So 'flat', for a speaker, is a description of the type of speaker the manufacturer was aiming at, rather than specifications of the finished product.
The response of 'FRFR' speakers used for bass or guitar is imperfect, just like the response of all other speakers, whether they are for PA, pro studio monitoring, domestic hifi or whatever.

This makes sense, as when i had a BF BB2 I felt it was anything but 'neutral'. But I'm still not getting it. So you are saying flat is anything the manufacture was aiming for,? Doesnt that more or less cover every cab out there? They all go through R&D so surely they all end up sounding how the manufacturer wants them to sound?

Totally understand the complexities of doing a truly flat sounding cab, but dont get that certain manufacturers state things like 'Want to hear there true tone  of your bass?', and yet they have designed a cab that sounds how they want it to sound, rather than a truly flat tone which would do what they promise.

Sorry, not trying to be argumentative, I'm sure at some point the penny will drop, but i just dont get the cabs that are labeled FRFR are not FR. 

[Cuzzie]

Someone one probably should have coined AFAP

As Flat As Possible

[Cuzzie]

25 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

This makes sense, as when i had a BF BB2 I felt it was anything but 'neutral'. But I'm still not getting it. So you are saying flat is anything the manufacture was aiming for,? Doesnt that more or less cover every cab out there? They all go through R&D so surely they all end up sounding how the manufacturer wants them to sound?

Totally understand the complexities of doing a truly flat sounding cab, but dont get that certain manufacturers state things like 'Want to hear there true tone  of your bass?', and yet they have designed a cab that sounds how they want it to sound, rather than a truly flat tone which would do what they promise.

Sorry, not trying to be argumentative, I'm sure at some point the penny will drop, but i just dont get the cabs that are labeled FRFR are not FR. 

That would of course need a completely flat and neutral amp

[paulbuzz]

Ok, I'll have a final stab at it! 😀

Your original question was "Is FRFR just a buzzword?"

I would say that it IS a buzzword, in that it's bit of terminology that's only recently come into use, and is currently popular in marketing bass and guitar gear.
Equipment that broadly matches the definition has been around for a long time, as the requirements are very similar to those that have always been needed for PA and acoustic instrument amplification.
Essentially, if you were to play some finished pre-recorded music through this type of equipment, the music would still sound pretty much like it's supposed to.
So while equipment with these characteristics has been around for a long time, nobody was calling it "FRFR" - that's a recent trend, ie it's a buzzword.

However, it's not JUST a buzzword, because it actually means something specific in the context of electric guitar/bass amplification, which is a distinctly different approach to how amplifying these instruments has generally been done in the past. Since these instruments don't actually HAVE a 'natural' sound, you can amplify them any way you like as long as you like the result. The traditional approach to amplifying them (because it was easier) was to produce amplifiers/speakers for which you didn't worry too much about  the frequency response, levels of distortion etc as long as users agreed that the end result was satisfactory. Indeed, lots of the gear used to produce what we now think of as 'classic' guitar/bass sounds was simply atrocious if viewed from the standpoint of technical accuracy - high levels of distortion, severely curtailed or wildly unbalanced frequency responses etc - but those technical flaws came to be regarded as desirable or essential elements of the guitar/bass sounds that people liked.

More recently, it's become much more possible to reproduce these 'desirable flaws' of traditional guitar/bass gear accurately and in a controllable manner entirely within electronic circuitry (not going to start an analogue/digital debate here!). Having done so, what we then want is simply to amplify the result as accurately as possible. Handily, the right equipment for this then becomes very similar to what's already being used for PA.

Attaching the term "FRFR" to this approach describes the difference between this strategy and the one traditionally used in the sphere of guitar/bass amplification.
This seems to me to be a useful and meaningful distinction, and hence I would say that FRFR is not JUST a buzzword, even though it is one.

Apologies for the massive wall of text - hope there may be something in it you find helpful or enlightening! Quite possibly not though! 😁 

[itu]

Flat response is possible. The drawback is, that the sensitivity will be reduced quite some. Passive X-over can cut frequency peaks = less noise, so you get a PA (i.e. bass) speaker that is not that loud.

An amp is very easy to make flat. A speaker is far harder but doable. In these days of light and big D-class wattage it would be just fine to drive a speaker that is not so sensitive, to make it still sound pretty loud.

[dave_bass5]

Thanks for all the replies, especially Paul who really made the effort. 
OK, buzzword was the wrong word to use. I just meant is it being used legitimately or as a marketing ploy. I’ve concluded that it is more a marketing ploy, but see why it’s being used. 

My point is that calling something flat or neutral is fine, even as close as possible, but then you try another ‘neutral’ cab and it sounds different to the previous one. So, as close as possible should IMO still sound the same across different makes of cabs. 

Cuzzie’s idea sounds more plausible, but then if one manufacturer makes a AFAP,  it will only be limited to how the manufacturer sees it, so again, the next manufacturers AFAP will sound different 

I get that FRFR cabs have less colouration than other cab’s, and so do sound more neutral, but not flat. And this is my beef. I’m not interested in the science behind them, just the end result. 

Bottom line for me is there are different sounding cabs all labelled as flat or neutral, and with the marketing blurb that goes with this i think it’s a bit of gimmick. 

 

[paulbuzz]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

... when i had a BF BB2 I felt it was anything but 'neutral'.....

Interesting, and somewhat surprising (to me at least!), since Barefaced do specifically compare the accuracy of the BB2 to that of a studio monitor, which would very much imply neutrality!

Mind you, different people's subjective opinions of speakers, even of 'neutral' studio monitors, do seem to vary wildly! 😀

In what ways did you find the BB2 not to be neutral?

[dave_bass5]

8 minutes ago, paulbuzz said:

Interesting, and somewhat surprising (to me at least!), since Barefaced do specifically compare the accuracy of the BB2 to that of a studio monitor, which would very much imply neutrality!

Mind you, different people's subjective opinions of speakers, even of 'neutral' studio monitors, do seem to vary wildly! 😀

In what ways did you find the BB2 not to be neutral?

Which Stuido monitor? Is there one thats perfectly flat that they used? Who's 'flat' was it 😉

I didn't like my BB2 (or Retro 2 10). Very large low end, lacked mids. Saying that, i was more used to a more coloured tone so I'd say the tone just wasnt what i liked. I'm not singling out BF, just that i thought I'd mention it as it was brought up that manufactures do aim for a particular tone and the BF wasnt one i liked. 

[stevie]

1 hour ago, paulbuzz said:

Apologies for the massive wall of text - hope there may be something in it you find helpful or enlightening! Quite possibly not though! 😁 

That was a very useful post.

[stevie]

1 hour ago, itu said:

Flat response is possible. The drawback is, that the sensitivity will be reduced quite some. Passive X-over can cut frequency peaks = less noise, so you get a PA (i.e. bass) speaker that is not that loud.

That's not quite right, @itu. When you cut peaks with a passive crossover, you do just that: you cut peaks. By definition, peaks do not define the sensitivity of a speaker. So cutting peaks doesn't reduce the sensitivity of a speaker. Passive crossovers do have insertion loss which can reduce sensitivity slightly, but that's a different matter.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Which Stuido monitor? Is there one thats perfectly flat that they used? Who's 'flat' was it

Two of the most successful studio monitors of all time were the Yamaha NS10 and the Rogers LS3/5A. Google them to see response charts that show both to be about as flat as the Alps.

[dave_bass5]

12 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Two of the most successful studio monitors of all time were the Yamaha NS10 and the Rogers LS3/5A. Google them to see response charts that show both to be about as flat as the Alps.

Ive used NS10's many times in recording studios. Very revealing speakers 😔