LFSys Monza, a first look

[Phil Starr]

I had a chance today to see/hear the very first LFSys 10" cab, the 'Monza'. As far as I know there is nothing like it on the market yet, and it may be the next step in the evolution of bass cabs. A 10" cab that will be a genuine one cab solution.

 

So I had a pleasant afternoon playing with speakers. @stevie brought across the Monza and one of the 12" Monacos to demonstrate and I have an LFSys Silverstone of my own. @bussonetthebass came along specifically to compare these speakers. We used a Bugera BV1001M with controls set to flat. We've measured the frequency response and know it to be just about neutral. We tested mainly with a Fender Highway One jazz fitted with Fender noiseless pups but also with a American Deluxe P bass and a Japanese thunderbird copy by Burny(Fernandes).

 

Now it's hard to describe the sound of these three speakers because normally you'd describe a speaker by their 'voicing' and the voicing of all three is essentially flat. deliberately they add almost no sound of their own so the differences are minimal. Although each has it's own crossover design they all cross over at 2,000Hz and everything above that is essentially identical. What you hear is what comes out of the pickups, what you would hear in the recording studio direct from the pickups. The Silverstone has the flattest bass response and sounds the warmest of the three. The Monacos have a tailored bass response with a drop in bass at around 200Hz and then a shelved response after that. It's designed to avoid boominess at high volumes when used live, subjectively you can hear the bass goes all the way down but it doesn't become obtrusive at high volumes it movesfrom a lovely clean deep bass to a real slam as you crank the amp. The 10" Monza sits between these two, the bass is well controlled but retains a slight warmth. The outstanding thing about all these speakers though is their clarity across the rest of the range which is more than just a family resemblance. They do this with zero sibilance too, no nasty tizz from a cheap tweeter it all just sounds very natural. The other thing is that the sound is very even as you move round the room 60deg off axis either side and you hear pretty much what you hear 10deg off, I saw @bussonetthebass (Jules) walking round to test that claim so hopefully he will comment. Changing basses brough instant and very obvious changes in the sound. A lovely thud from the Japanese T-Bird a slightly polite but recognisable P sound from the P but our favourite was the Jazz with the upgraded PUPs. It all just sounded so clean.

 

So how loud does the Monza go? Well it is a little quieter than its 12" siblings more than 1db and less than 3db so call it 2db (I didn't measure) Given that the Monza will handle double the power of the Silverstone (+3db) that means in my opinion it will match pretty much any drummer for volume with the right amp. I've been gigging my Silverstone with a Warwick Gnome round the local pubs so I know that is 'enough' for a pub band. With the Bugera or anything else that puts out 300W+ into it's 8ohms I think we now have a 10" bass cab which will do any pub gig or monitoring and fill a room with a 100 people in it without sweat. I think it might be the first truly one cab 10" solution for a gigging bassist.

 

So what is special about it. On the surface it is a 10" speaker in a lightweight 30litre box with a horn tweeter, nothing revolutionary there. The differences are down to three main changes but significantly is the chosen 10" driver it has a huge 3" voice coil which allows it to dissipate more heat than a smaller coil so the driver is rated at 600W continuous. it's a long coil too so can handle a lot of low frequency excursion. The second part of this is the crossover because of the design of the bass driver it has to come in lower down and the horn has to cope with more of the mids. You can see the horn through the grille and for a small cab it is massive. The crossover itself is more complex than anything else you'll find in a bass cab and not only divides up the bass and treble but looks at the phase responses around the crossover frequency bringing the same level of design detail as you would get in a top end hi-fi speaker. It's more normal to see the 'crossover' in a bass cab to be no more than a high pass filter protecting the tweeter but allowing all sorts of problems across the crossover region even in cabs costing over £1,000. Finally this cab is built out of lightweight 12mm poplar ply and extensively braced. None of that is new of course but not many cabs can claim all three. There are cabs made of thinner ply extensively braced and others made of poplar ply unbraced or with limited bracing. You can buy PA speakers with similar care over the crossover but they won't have the same specs for the bass driver as this cab and will be in a plastic cab and as an active cab you won't be able to use it with your favourite bass amp. 

 

My conclusion was that if it had been available at the time I'd have gone for the Monza when I bought my cab. I think it is all the cab I'd ever need, I go through the PA nowadays at gigs so it would only ever be for monitoring or something I'd use if the PA was inadequate, or in emergencies where I'd need to fill a medium venue from back line. It has no sound advantage over the Silverstone but it will do the same things in a smaller cab. I've heard the Silverstone up against the BB2 and the Vanderkley and they aren't in the same league, they both have a more coloured sound. The BB2 is lighter but the smaller Monza is an even easier carry and fit in the boot. 

 

I'll leave you to decide if this little cab is a next step in evolution.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Phil Starr

[spyder]

Pictures please...

[funkle]

Beautiful. I’m ordering one!

[Phil Starr]

3 hours ago, spyder said:

Pictures please...

@stevie

[stevie]

I'm on it.....

[chyc]

Thanks for the review Phil. Just for curiosity's sake how does it stack up against your BC110T? Same dimensions? I'm going to guess that other people will immediately want to compare this to the BF's One10T, but I don't having never heard nor seen the latter . If you class the BF 12" as coloured, then I'd guess that the Monza and the One10T are like chalk and cheese, and only similarity is the size of the driver.

 

 

[stevie]

Phil plugged the BC110T in and we had a quick listen during our auditions. In view of the cost of the self-build cab, It held up surprisingly well. It was clear and well balanced but you could easily hear the effect of the higher quality components used in the Monza, which took everything to the next level. Considering the 110T took me an hour to design, and the Monza several months, I'd jolly well hope so, too.☺️

 

 

[bussonetthebass]

I consider myself supremely fortunate to have been invited to meet with Phil and Stevie yesterday to sample the current 3x LFSys cabinets, the two 12" cabs, (Monaco and Silverstone), and the 'hot off the press' 10" Monza. I'm very much a self-taught plodding amateur bassist, but I do know what I like in the way of sound from a bass cab, and also being somewhat small in stature and of later years, the size and weight of the cab is also important to me. I can't really add much to the expansive objective comments made by Phil above, but I can say I wholeheartedly agree with all of the subjective comments! What I can add though is that I did indeed wander around the room listening to each cab 'off-axis' and noticed that the dispersion on all three was exceptional even at close to 90 degrees. I can also totally agree with Phil's comment about "I think it's all the cab I'll ever need". Given that I am currently cab-less with a GK amp awaiting a mate and with a few gigs lined-up over the summer I have decided to make a Monza mine!

Thanks again to Stevie and Phil for giving me the chance to audition the whole line-up!

BTW, pictures for the Monaco and Silverstone are available on the LFSys.co.uk  , and you can imagine the Monza looking like a smaller brother!

[stevie]

 

Here are a couple of quick pics. The more glamorous ones will take a bit longer.

 

 

 

[stevie]

Here is a pair of cabs in the back of a Honda Jazz (on top of a pile of shopping bags).

[fleabag]

So they sound great, and now we see they look utterly gorgeous.  Very professional looking cabs.

[Phil Starr]

2 hours ago, chyc said:

Thanks for the review Phil. Just for curiosity's sake how does it stack up against your BC110T? Same dimensions? I'm going to guess that other people will immediately want to compare this to the BF's One10T, but I don't having never heard nor seen the latter . If you class the BF 12" as coloured, then I'd guess that the Monza and the One10T are like chalk and cheese, and only similarity is the size of the driver.

 

 

It's the same sized cab as the BC110T (which if people aren't familiar is a home build design by Stevie which we published on Bass Chat during lockdown here) I have to confess that despite having better cabs it's my go to for rehearsals and small gigs. It's a really nice little cab and weighs nothing. The Celestion bass driver in it is a little gem which doesn't have the lumpy response peak that most  bass speakers have, that lets you get away with a simple high pass filter for the horn driver which basically takes over where the bass unit starts to roll off. The crossover point is higher and the 10" Celestion has fairly modest power handling. It sounds great but won't go so loud. Fortunately our recent drummers are very controlled.

 

The Monza is a very different beast, it goes lower than the 110T and the bass is much tighter and more controlled due to the much more powerful motor system in the bass driver. It is also a 600W speaker. You are going to get some of the slam you get from a much bigger speaker. The crossover point is nearly an octave lower (I think) so the midrange is sweeter and the dispersion of the Monza much better. We didn't spend much time comparing the BC110T with the Monza, it was just idle curiosity on my part to hear my own cab and we were surprised that it wasn't disgraced at that sort of volume. The sort of clarity from the Monza is at another level though.

 

 

[yorks5stringer]

18 hours ago, stevie said:

Here is a pair of cabs in the back of a Honda Jazz (on top of a pile of shopping bags).

I bet they rattle the parcel shelf when you crank them up....!

[FirstBass]

On 09/05/2023 at 17:12, stevie said:

Here is a pair of cabs in the back of a Honda Jazz (on top of a pile of shopping bags).

That's the website shot sorted 😂