Moo

There may be a confusion of a couple of different issues here. 1st,- Gain, and levels. The 'line level' input of the speakers will be expecting a LINE LEVEL signal from another piece of pro audio equipment with a signal of approximately 1.737 volts also commonly known as +4dbu. MP3 players do not produce this level from the headphone output and typically produce 100mV into 16-32 ohm earbud type headphones. It is normal for MP3 players to be quiet, and need a lot of gain boost when plugged into a line level input. Some pieces of equipment bypass the gain setting for line level inputs, because they are expecting the input to the line level socket to be Line level. The XLR input: Does this allow you to switch between line level and Mic level? It should be at line level (+4db or 1.7 volts) when plugged into a mixer. A normal setting for the gain for a vocal mic should be around 30db gain for a normal singer. This is normally at the 12 o'clock position on the gain knob. If you do not have a switch on the input to choose between Mic or line level, then it will be necessary to turn the gain to zero, and adjust the output of the mixer so that it is not high enough to clip the input of the speaker. 2. The Humming: Does the speaker hum when nothing is plugged into it? If yes then the unit is faulty. This could be caused by a design fault, a manufacturing fault, or damage. Whichever means its not your fault, and you are entitled to be refunded. I would be wary about using a unit with a possible earth problem because it could electrocute the user. If the speaker hums only when the mixer is plugged in, there could be a number of causes: If you are connecting Mixer and speaker with jacks: Is the input balanced? Is the output of the mixer balanced? I have had a humming problem when an unbalanced jack output from a mixer was connected with a balanced TRS cable to an amp. The output and input need to be both either balanced or unbalanced to eliminate that problem. If you are connecting the mixer to the speaker with XLR: Then the XLR input of the speaker needs to be switched to Line Level. If you are connecting to a mic level input, it will be expecting 1-10mv level, but will be receiving 1.7volts level, and will noticeably amplify any tiny background noise or hum which is normal for any mixer to produce. Hope this helps and is not too confusing. Moo.

[quote name='Toasted' post='728795' date='Jan 29 2010, 03:17 PM']Raggy - the americans go nuts for those.[/quote] ... and me

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='728759' date='Jan 29 2010, 02:42 PM']It seems 'teej' really likes the one he's got.[/quote] I met Teej. I did sound for his band Red Jackson, in Dorchester last year. I was playing his C.D. in the car this week strangely. Nice bloke. IIRC his 50s Ply Bass was knackered from all the busking, and he was looking for another cheap bass to gig with while he got his main bass repaired. Is that still his plan? Perhaps he may sell you the cheap No.2 bass when he's finished? (It is posible I may have confused Teej and that story with one of the other bassists I spoke to last year.)

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='728332' date='Jan 29 2010, 01:52 AM']Well work's been crap for ages and I've been after a DB for ages but if there's one benefit of a slow year at work it's that my tax bill is a lot smaller than they thought it would be and I hardly owe them anything. I don't want to splash out in a big way (times are still a bit tight) but I'm looking for a DB that I can take out and busk with my guitarist (and maybe drummer) when spring eventually arrives, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on a bass just to take it out and scrape half of it off on kerbs and other public obstacles. So something fairly loud played pizz, not bothered at all about arco sound - I can't bow for toffee anyway. I'll be using it mostly for old '60s Jamaican pop music so a good boomy sound would be ideal, not too bothered about treble detail. Can I do this on the cheap or is it not really feasible? Thing is: I met an upright bassist at the back end of last year (don't really want to name him because of his controversial bit that comes next...) who was telling me that I could probably find something ideal for "about 150 quid" (he actually said there were "always loads" of these basses for sale), and if I spent another hundred or so on getting it set up properly it would be ideal. This seems to go totally against the advice I've read on here in the past though. Is he just dead wrong on this? He seems like a good guy, down-to-earth middle-aged chap, he can certainly play, and he was up for giving me some lessons and helping me find an instrument and he's the sort of guy I think would make a good teacher. But is he totally off his rocker with his buying suggestions?[/quote] Sorry but Yes. Not necessarily off his rocker, but probably has not bought a bass for at least 20 years. Times have changed. I looked for the last 10 years to find a cheap bass to replace the one I sold for £180 when I left school. I never found one. An identical hungarian bass sold on ebay for £860 last year. A friend of a friend recently sold me a european carved front/ ply back bass for £600, which is cheap these days for a student quality playable instrument. It is still not as good as the one I sold for £180. For £250 you might find a 2nd hand horrible sounding, orange varnished, plywood, unplayable chinese bass, and then spend £130 replacing the nasty strings, £100 on a setup, and £100+ for a luthier to carve the fingerboard somewhere near straight to stop the buzzing, which means you have spent nearly £600 on a bass which still looks and sounds horrible, and is still worth only £250. (Can you tell that that is what I had to do with the 'cheap' bass I bought for my son?) Also you want a loud bass. I am afraid that what makes a bass loud is a finely carved table (front of the body), of the sort you will not find on a bass costing less than £5000. This type of bass will also be to fragile to stay in one piece after being dragged around the streets. Having said that, for the vintage thudy sound you are after, a plywood bass will make the right noises, but you will need a pickup and amp to be heard in a busy street. I sincerely hope you do strike lucky, and find a playable bass for under £200. I looked for a long time, and the only cheap bass I found was £350 and needed lots of work to fix the broken bits. Sorry but these days even £600 is cheap for something reasonable (and not chinese sh*te), so I am afraid that as you say £150 is not really feasible. Unless the chap you met wants to sell you his for £150? Good Luck. Moo.

[quote name='spinynorman' post='657626' date='Nov 17 2009, 11:13 PM']the SRM350 - it felt quite expensive to me, but agreed it isn't primarily a monitor.[/quote] Plastic cabs are cheaper than plywood to manufacture, and lighter, which means cheaper distribution costs for the Manufacturer. Unfortunately that does not guarantee a cheap retail price. My opinion is that I have never heard a plastic cab that I like the sound of. They tend to have nasty resonant peaks in the high mids. That will exacerbate your low SPL before feedback problem. EDIT: I just remembered - I played a festival gig last summer where the Sound Co provided SRM350s for monitors. I Sing B.Vs in my band. The monitors where painful and piercing when turned up, but were difficult to hear for pitch when singing harmonies. I think the problem is that they have a small 1" comp driver with a high crossover freq. This means the 12" mid driver is forced to operate up to a high frequency in its breakup modes, at which it becomes very directional. The angle of the cab (45º IIRC) meant it was not pointed at my ear like a proper monitor, and the comp driver compromise meant that all the important frequencies were directed at my knees. At the higher frequencies that come out of the comp driver the dispersion was better, so I heard too much HF but no mids. Overall Result: It was painfully loud, but I could not hear myself for Harmony vocal duties. You will get best monitoring with Proper Wedges which point at the singers, and a good eq. Either of those two will improve matters for you. The e.q. is probably the cheapest route in the short term. Moo.

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' post='657563' date='Nov 17 2009, 10:26 PM']Moo, is the RTA just so you can see exactly which freqs are peaking so you can cut them more precisely?[/quote] That is correct. I have a lot of experience as an engineer, but I cannot set an e.q. accurately by ear. The eq will vary with venues so I plug in the laptop, run pink noise through, and then adjust eq for flat trace on the RTA. Takes about 20 seconds. Its not always practical to do this in a venue full of punters, but you can make a note of your average settings, and run to those in venues where it is impractical to RTA.

Which Microphone is she using? Cheaper mics often have nasty spikes in response that cause feedback. A hyper cardoid may help, but some singers don't like them because they only pic up in a narrow area, and go quiet the instant they turn there head or back off a bit. In your situation, a larger monitor will just cause louder feedback. The feedback is caused by the specific frequency reacing a level that the Microphone can 'hear.' Larger / Louder monitors will not change that level. You can make the situation better by using mics with smoother freq response, Dito Monitors with smooth resonse (Sory but Not cheap plasic P.A. speakers) Or buy putting a Graphic or feedback filter inline before the monitor. You can gain 12db (four times louder) before feedback if you have a decent graphic eq on the monitor channel. It must be at least 16 band, but preferably 32 band to be usefull though. Anything less than a 16 will have wide frequency bands, and will just cut out the frequencies that you need to hear yourself. When you start cutting wide frequency bands (Which are often on P.A. Mixer amps) to combat feedback, you will tend to cut all of the high mids where the prescence boost of the mic is. The reason that precence band is engineered into the mic is to make the vocals come through the mix more clearly. When you cut this on the graphic to stop feedback, suprise suprise the vocalist cannot hear themselves. I set the monitor graphics on my P.A. system with an RTA (Real Time Analisys) program on my laptop. I have 20 years of (weekend warrior) experience as a sound engineer, and when I set one by ear, it is still only just in the ballpark compared to the RTA. A Properly set graphic should look completely random, with no smiley face etc. patterns. Its not uncommon for singers to ask me to turn monitor levels down after I have set up the stage. I can hit the limiters on my 300w monitor amps with no feedback using the RTA. Hope this helps. Moo.

I got fed up with the backache of gigging with my TRB 6p, and went looking for a £700 ish (2nd hand ) 5 string Bass for the funk covers band I am in. I wanted a stingray, but did not like the sound or ergonomics of the new ones I tried in a shop. I ended up buying a used [url="http://www.lakland.com/55-02.htm"]Lakland Skyline 55-2.[/url] This is a very nicely made bass, machined and assembled in indonesia, and then finished in the US where they install the electronics, set them up and 'refine' the frets etc. Many people on Harmony-central etc. state that Lakland basses have higher build quality than many U.S. fenders, and I can see why. The 35" neck has a not to fat, not to thin, but' just right' feel to it with well finished small frets on a rock maple fretboard. The 35" scale removes the floppy B problem that I have on my old 34" neck TRB. Combined with the 19mm string spacing it has a roomy and solid feel, especially compared to my Ibanez SR 506. I have restored the action and neck relief to Factory settings from the very high action which the previous owner had set. Because of the small frets, this bass is hard work with a high action, and heavy strings on. It works much better with medium or light strings and the low action which the level of fretwork allows. I now have a nice low action, which I can dig into much more than my other basses before I get fret buzz, and can play for hours with less fatigue. The neck is not as fast as my Ibanez, but then you can't dig in and get a funky bark with the ibanez. 55-02s have the same Pup and Pres as U.S. 55s. Newer basses have Laklands own version. It has jazz style single neck pup, and a stingray style bridge pup with 3 way switch for single front, dual, and single back options. powerfull 3 band e.q. with internal mid frequency selector swich. (which some people find a PITA to have to take the electronics cover off to get to.) It has an overall well ballenced deep, harmonically rich, and yet nice clean sound. It can pull of that rare trick of having lots of bottom, but not sounding whooly on the lower notes, which usually requires a much higher price tag to do. The pickup and eq options had me fiddling for days to work out the tones I wanted for the funk band, and it can do them all: It can do a good facsimile of a vintage stingray sound on the back pickup in dual mode. A Jazz bridge sound in back only single mode, and a jazz neck sound on the neck Pup. So I can go from motown to 'chilles in the flick of a switch between songs. I am very pleased that I bought this instead of the Stingray I have wanted for years. It obviously cannot sound exactly like a stingray, but I find the Stingray-esque sound it producess very pleasing, and prefer it to a modern 5 string 'ray. I can get that old stingray sound that I have in my head, as well as a passable jaco tone (its not fretless) or bernie edwards, or vintage motown, or blues brothers etc etc. There is a comprehensive matrix of 60 sound samples on the Lakland website [url="http://www.lakland.com/ac_5502.htm"]here[/url] Overall these basses have a level of construction and playability up there with the £2,000+ range basses, and a wide range of great sounding solid tones. If you play in a band who's setlist spans many genres and or eras, then this bass is a good quality and very usefull tool that will sound right, and feel comfortable to play all night. The dust is realy building up on my other basses now. Good luck finding 'the one' - I have. Moo

I was in the same boat as you. I got fed up with the backache of gigging with my TRB 6p, and went looking for a £700 ish (2nd hand ) 5 string Bass for the funk covers band I am in. I love the sound of old Stingrays, and went to Absolute music to try a few out. I found that I did not like the Hi-Fi sound of the new stingrays, and did not get on with the necks on them. I kept pulling the G string off the side of the fretboard. I also tried a few warwicks because I love the Zender jamiroquai sound and thought they might suit the funk band, but found them to aggresive sounding for the older tunes, and the fat necks uncomfortable. This has shown me that no matter how many other people rave about a bass, and no matter how much you like the sound of a bass, It may not be physically right for you. It is realy important to have a proper try out before you buy. I ended up buying a used Lakland Skyline 55-2. This is a very nicely made bass, assembled in indonesia, and then finished in the US. Many people on Harmony-central etc. state that Lakland have higher build quality than many U.S. fenders. The action and setup had been butchered by the previous owner, but I have restored the setup to factory settings from the Lakland website, and have grown to love this bass. The pickup and eq options had me fiddling for days to work out the tones I wanted for the funk band, and it can do them all: It can do a good facsimile of a vintage stingray sound on the back pickup in dual mode. A Jazz bridge sound in back only single mode, and a jazz neck sound on the neck Pup. So I can go from motown to 'chilles in the flick of a switch between songs. I am so pleased with myself that I bought this instead of the Stingray I have wanted for years. I can get the old stingray sound that I have in my head, as well as many more great vintage funk sounds. The dust is realy building up on my other basses now. I think the Lakland 55-2 can be found used for the sort of money you have, and will do the jobs you want it to do very well. I think that if you like your current Jazz bases, then a Lakland will suit you as well. You should have them on your shortlist to try. Good luck finding 'the one' - I have. Moo.

[quote name='oldslapper' post='622080' date='Oct 9 2009, 10:21 PM']Hi, yes teaching built up over past 18 months now to full time with bass work too, which is cool. Teaching split 50;50 bass/guitar, but always prefer bass. I'm slowly converting my function band to dance/disco, the drummer is into it, but the guitarists want to rock out......I'll have to show them some nile rogers!! Glad Charley got a teacher nearer, is he still pursuing upright bass too? This forum is great, i didn't know about it until i did a search for genz benz. I'll try and get down to the blues night soon. Nice to hear from you, John[/quote] I just had an email from the promoter that the next bluesnight is sold out. Charley still does pop club at the Arts centre, but is playing more upright now than bass guitar. He is in the Big band, and Orchestra at Thomas Hardys School. Glad business is good for you. Mark.

[quote name='oldslapper' post='620059' date='Oct 7 2009, 10:43 PM']Hey Mark, I believe I was, must be longer than a year, very early down the teaching avenue, hope you got over my fumbled attempts at coaching! Good to hear from you, how's the jazz playing? Do you still go to the blues nights? I must visit sometime, our singer goes and he says they're great.[/quote] Hi There. I liked your lessons, but the long drive was too much, and charley got a more local teacher through school. The Jazz thing is not realy happening now. I joined a rock band, which has now gone in a funk direction due to suggestions from the pubs we played. The funk set goes down realy well. - We are a walking 70's/80's Disco, which amazes the younger clientel that such tunes can be played by a band. I am still doing sound for 'Bluesnights'. Our next Gig with Geof Aichson (SP?) got a bigup on Radio2 and is nearly sold out. How is your teaching going? You keeping busy? Moo.

Hi Old Slapper. Welcome to basschat fellow Dorsetite. Are you the teacher My Son and I had a couple of lessons with last year? Moo. (AKA Mark Warder)

[quote name='jezzaboy' post='551406' date='Jul 25 2009, 09:12 PM']Can anyone recomend a decent set of speakers stands for our peavey`s as they are looking dodgy on top of our £35 stands from Maplins and where is the best place to get em. Cheers, Jez[/quote] These are Good, well built German stands: [url="http://www.studiospares.com/Stands-Speaker/K+M-Speaker-Stand-Steel-Black/invt/438660"]http://www.studiospares.com/Stands-Speaker...ack/invt/438660[/url] My sound engineer mate has 4 that have been going for 10 years of hire indoors and out. About £100 for a pair with postage - You get what you pay for. Moo.

[quote name='JPJ' post='616426' date='Oct 4 2009, 12:36 PM']The band I play in is a five-piece rock covers band, playing a variety of gigs from small pubs to large social clubs, bike rallies etc. I am thinking of building two DR280's to couple with two Tuba 24's (at 24" wide) to provide a small but powerful three way system. I'd want to run the full band through the PA including drums, 2x guitars, bass & a couple of vocals (1 main, 1 backing). Anybody else running a BFM speaker array for PA duties?[/quote] I have a full BFM PA which I use for P.A. hire. I also have built a pair of 'normal' 12 + Horn cabs for band gigs which I am playing in. If you are doing large gigs where you need a full subs and tops rig, then you also need a sound engineer, because they can be complicated to set up, and have a very clear and accurate sound - which will show up all of you and your bandmates mistakes or shoddy technique or mixing (Which I hate doing whilst playing). My BFM Rig is 2x DR200, and 2XTitan39. I would advise against using Tubas for band work. They are designed for DJs who need extension down to 30hz. Most bands do not need that. The subs are mainlly for kick drum, which is the 50-100hz range. The titans are louder than Tubas in this range. If you do outside gigs, then you need to double the number of subs, because the frequency that horn subs can reach down to depends on the mouth area. Indoors the mouth can be extended by putting them in a corner, outside, you just have to have more cabs to reach the required mouth area. (this is another reason why the titans are louder than the tubas) A DSP (Digital signal processor) Is a must have for a BFM Sub / top system. These cabs are designed for maximum efficiency, this means that there frequency respose is not flat, and needs 32 band eq, and crossover with delays to work. The chaepest way to do this is the DBX Driverack which are arround £350. Belive it or not (I Don't ) The behringer crossover and Digital EQ combo, which are linked digitally, apparently sound better than the Driverack, and have moe flexibility. The behringer combo is more expensive than the driverack, and you have to return a few before you find one which works.Your engineer will also need to know how to use it, to set up the P.A. in each venue, and will also need 1/2 hour in the venue with no noise, and no people in before the gig to set it up. This is why this type of set up is not suitable for pubs, and why I do not use it when playing in my band. Hope this helps. Moo.

Hi ardi100. I have just bought an Identical Zeller this weekend, and have also returned to upright playing after a 20 year hiatus between youth orchestra and now with Blues / Folky Americana band. My Zeller needs similar TLC as yours - New bridge and strings - I will get a luthier to install the new bridge, and check the soundpost as well. (It sounds very dead on the E and A at the moment.) I have been deliberating over strings this week and can't decide between Pirastro Obligatos, or Helicore hybrids. A search on the web threw up a couple of posts suggesting that the Helicores have manufacturing / QC problems and sometimes break after a couple of months. Another site also suggested the Obligatos were only good for 6 months hard playing, with de-tuning between gigs to release the tension. I am a bit reluctant to spend £130 on strings that will only last 6 months! How are your Helicores holding up? I know this is subjective, but could you describe the sound with the Zeller? P.S. do you play mainly Pizz or Arco? Thanks for any advice you can give. Moo.

[quote name='Protium' post='314256' date='Oct 24 2008, 11:39 PM']I'm not discussing which is a better amp, 300W is still 300W - you should get a comparable volume.[/quote] My point is that it may not be 300w [u]RMS[/u], Warwick may not be lying, but it is well known in pro audio forums that manufacturers use different criteria to rate the power of thier amps. I have been discussing this same amp on another pro audio site. It has been suggested that the 300w rating of the prophet may be a peak rating, not an RMS Rating. So what they call a 300w, and what I have measured to be 200w RMS continous, may not be the same power as another manufacturers 300w RMS Rating. It could be the case that my prophet is not working properly, but the experience of others would suggest otherwise. For comparison, when I ran the RTA Frequency Plot of my bass rig, I also ran the same test on my 900w P.A. amp plugged into the same speakers, in the same location , and at the same SPL level. The plot for Profet compared to the P.A. amp shows the Prophet is 1db within the P.A. Amp, which I would take to be my margin of error - Exept that it is 3db quieter than the P.A. amp bellow 70Hz. It is probably not fair to compare a £180 Bass Head to a £300 power amp, but I feel cheated that my 300w £600 rig is not as loud as a small 100w £220 Combo. Moo.

[quote name='Protium' post='313964' date='Oct 24 2008, 04:53 PM']I know... I was saying that the output power isn't necessarily split 50:50 between two cabs - you have to treat the whole setup as one circuit and that (depending on wiring) the power will be split between each speaker not split between each cab.[/quote] Sorry to be patronising. I was trying to add to the explanation for the benefit of the original poster. If Both cabs are 4ohms they both recive the same power. With a 300w amp and 2 4ohm cabs, a 1x15 will get 150w, and a 4x10 will get 150w. This means that the 15" driver gets 150w and each of the 4 10" inch drivers gets 37.5w because they are series / parralel wired in pairs to make 8 ohms for the cab. Any road up. I have the results of my shed measuring this afternoon: I turned up the head to the point where the clip light was just comming on and then measured the voltage with 2x 8ohm cabs conected in parallel. 1000Hz Sine = 29.4v into 4ohm cabs = 7.35A and 216 Watts 100Hz sine = 29.4v into 4ohm cabs = 7.35A and 216 Watts 50Hz sine = 28.4v into 4ohm cabs = 7.1A and 201 Watts Pink Noise = 17.8v into 4ohm cabs = 4.45A and 79 Watts So when the clip light comes on this head is delivering 216 watts. It has a 33% safetey margin built in. To be fair to Warwick, most the problem I have hearing myself are probably caused by my cabs, which do not have much prescence or high end. Time to try out some new cabs. Moo.

[quote name='tempo' post='313629' date='Oct 24 2008, 10:45 AM']My feeling is that your backing off the input gain so the clip light doesn't flash and/or using bass boost on the EQ. Pete.[/quote] I appreciate that you are trying to help but your assumption is incorrect. My master control is permentantly set to 10. The input gain set to as high as posible before clipping - usually just over 6 on my active basses. This does mean that the light comes with louder notes. I have deduced that the light is set 3db below the actual audible clip point, and needs to be flashing on peaks to get the most out of this head. I can get a slightly higher level by putting a compressor in front of it as well to reduce clipping on peaks. (The compressor on the head is pretty useless, and as stated elsewhere only cuts in when your clipping anyway. I do not have the contour, bass boost, or bas eq turned up because they make it clip at an even lower level, and make it even more difficult to hear against the guitar and drums. I have been concerned for a while that I am always using this amp at a maxed out level, and still struggle to hear myself at gigs. A Bass tutor I used a while ago also had a Profet 3.2, and a Warwick 4x10 cab in his teaching room. When he saw I had the same head, he tentatively asked me what I thought of it, and agreed my feeling that it was underpowered. He also explained that he has to borrow his friends Hartke rig for anything other than quiet jazz gigs BTW. I felt both cheated and intrigued as to why the 100w 1x15 Apmeg BA-115 I tried the other night was both louder, and cut through better than my 300w rig. My cabs are are both 97db efficiency, making 100db when used together. The fact that a 100w amp is louder than my '300w' head means that I need at least an extra 9db to match the efficiency of the BA-115 cab. As far as I know, there are no 1x15 speakers with 109 db efficiency that I know of. 96-98db are typical figures for the lower powered 15s on the eminence website which lists Ampeg as one of its OEM consumers. I suspect that the Profet 3.2 is not outputting the advertised 300w and has a large built in saftey margin, with the preamp clipping well below the 300w level to preseve the output transistors from abusers. I am going to measure the output of the profet in the shed later this evening, and calculate the power output at clip level. - Watch this space. Moo.

[quote name='Hamster' post='312635' date='Oct 22 2008, 11:47 PM']It might be just me, but I don't recall seeing that many Warwicks being played in metal bands. I think it's the bass player who really makes the difference anyway - them and the semi-skilled monkey on the PA desk who can make a great bass and great bassist sound like mud![/quote] I divide my weekends between being a bassplayer, and "the semi-skilled monkey on the PA desk who can make a great bass and great bassist sound like mud! " Bass mud can be avoided by not having your 50 year old "as many speakers as I could throw in one box" - (Quote from Jim Marshal) 'design' backline cab loud enough for the audience to hear, and letting some properly designed and operated P.A. speakers do the work of making the bass sound good. To get a good tight bass sound in a venue, the bass needs to either come from the backline cab, [u]OR[/u] the P.A., but having equal levels coming out of both at the same time is a recipie for a muddy - phase cancellation disaster. The bass end of a [u]GOOD[/u] P.A. system will be powered by a big amps with lots of headroom, and will be processed with: Limiters to avoid over excursion and distortion; RTA equalization to remove room nodes; delays to time align Subs with the mid/top cabs and or stage backline; High pass filers to remove subsonic 'Mud' and prevent the amps clipping; and low pass filters to stop the subs opperating above their linear passband and to stop phase cancelling with the mid/top cabs. Does a bass rig have these things? Unfortunately, many sound monkeys do not have the above tools either, or the knowlege to understand or use them. Perhaps Warwick abduct all of the good sound engineers so they can sell more bases?

The clipping amp destroying speakers thing is a Myth. - Do guitar amp cabs blow up every time the overdrive is switched on? Too much power destroys Cabs, either mechanically with over excursion or Thermally by overheating and melting the voice coils. There are some circumstances where if the power of the amp EXACTLY matches the melting point of the speaker voice coils, the extra power given to them by clipping will take them over the thermal threshold and melt them, but this wont happen with a 50w Guitar amp clipping into a 100w Cab for example. The reason that 2x amp to speaker ratio is recommended for P.A. is to avoid distortion and sound nice. The max power rating of Amps is measured at the point where they reach 1% distortion. This means that if you run a 300w amp into a 300w speaker at its max level you will be amplifying 1% distortion as well as the sound you want. The harder you push them, the harsher they sound. If you want to have a nice clean sound in your P.A. then you need to run at a level which is less than the Max rated level of the amp and leave yourself some headroom. With a 600w amp into a 300w speaker, you can run it at 3db (Half the power) below its 1% distortion threshold and keep the sound clean. It is worth noting that High power P.A. systems will also be running with crossovers and limiters that will be set up so that the Amps output voltage will not exceed the thermal rating of the speakers and melt the voice coils. Unless you have limiters and have set the gain structure of the amps correctly, then it would be unwise to run 300w speakers with a 600w amp because if any 'helpers' who don't know your system turn up the amp and run it into the red then the speakers will be cooked. For bass amps the requirement is slightly different. There is only one manufacture of bass heads who routinely includes a limiter on the output of there amps (They also make P.A. amps). Unfortunately this limiter is pretty much useless for protecting the cabs, because it is not adjustable, and obviously not able to telepathically detect the thermal voltage rating of the cabs it is connected to. Many people prefer there sound slightly distorted and obviously some like it a lot distorted. In these circumstances it is wise to have cabs that have a higher rating than the amp they are connected to. If the amp is rated higher than the cabs, it could in theory sound very clean and 'Hi Fi', but one slip with the volume knob, or one slap too hard will result in fried cabs. Moo.

[quote name='Protium' post='313467' date='Oct 24 2008, 12:17 AM']You have to consider the entire setup as one circuit not as two separate cabs. Depending on the wiring (series/parallel) either the voltage or current will be split between speakers, but the power level remains the same.[/quote] The output voltage of the amp stays the same, but the current, and sound level increase with a lower impedance load. Also more drivers means higher efficiency due to larger surface area of tranducers to move the air. Two parallel wired (Normal Wiring) cabs of equal impedance and sensitivity will be twice the power output and twice as loud from the same amp. I agree with the above comments that the Profet 3.2 is underpowered, and the tone makes it difficult to hear in the mix with the rest of the band. I have a Profet 3.2 and two 8 ohm 12" cabs (Home built aguillar clones). I always struggle to hear myself in both bands in which I play. I have tried this head with both a 1x15 and a 2x10, and both were even quieter than my 12s. The rehearsal rooms I use have now bought £220 Ampeg BA-115 combos for each room. At our practice on Weds night I had the chance to A/B Listened to my rig and the Ampeg. The 100w into 1x15 Ampeg was slightly louder than my stack and (Supposedly) 300w Profet 3.2. The tone was not as low, but was clearer and less muddy than my cabs. As a result I was able to hear myself better than I ever have with the Profet with 1/3 the Power. Do yourself a favour - Dont waste any more money buying more cabs for the Profet - Trade it in for a decent combo if you want to carry less stuff and hear yourself. My Guitarist has a spare Trace 1x15 combo that I am trying next week. - I have a feeling the Profet will now be retired to bedroom practice duty only. Moo.

Most PA systems will have high pass filters set to 40hz in order to prevent cone damage and save amp power for the frequencies you can hear instead. I saw an article for a 4x24" infrabass PA cab that went down to 16hz. The sound engineers who used it were confused because they could see the cones moving, but could not hear anything. As Stated above, It is pointless trying to produce frequencies that low, because no one except mating crocodiles can hear them. Frequencies between 20-40Hz will add lots of mud and mush to your tone, but wont make the low notes sound any clearer. Most of the sound that you actually hear in a note with a fundamental below 50hz will be the second harmonic at the octave above. The bass cabs I built with PD drivers, which also double as subs for my PA system, are capable of 20Hz which I tested with tone when I tuned them. I cut anything below 50Hz when I use them in my (6 string tuned to low bass stack, because It cleans up the tone with very little noticeable loss in low end.

Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme.