Chienmortbb

Having owned a Monaco and a Monza, I don't think you will find it wanting.

23 hours ago, StingRayBoy42 said:

I know you've bought one, but if anyone else is interested... I use the Subzero guitar bug

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/SubZero-Pocket-Guitar-Bug-Digital-Wireless-System/33F7

It works with my active Basses (MM StingRays and Sterling), it's 5.8GHz so hopefully no interference, 4 switchable channels (with different coloured lights!), USB charging, worked a treat at many gigs and rehearsals, highly reccomended.

They say it does not work with active basses.

On 04/06/2024 at 14:12, TimR said:

The stereo image for the audience is created when they move their heads.

There is only one spot that is the sweet spot for the stereo image and if you are off to one side or back behind the sweet spot.

On 04/06/2024 at 14:12, TimR said:

 

Even when using backline,  the amps are in different locations on the stage. 

Once you get away from the stage that also reduces.

We measured several amps amps at the South West Bass Bash a few years ago. The Ashdown RM series are flat with all EQ at noon and non of the effects engaged as are the Bugera Veyron 1001M Mosfet. There were a number of lower powered amps that also measured substantially flat but these were the only two in the 500W plus club from memory. I will check later that we did not check any other higher powered ones.

Most Class D heads are flat via the line in/power amp input/ EFX return but the above amps were measured form the instrument input.

20 hours ago, JPJ said:

So second gig of the weekend at the glorious Old Fox in Felling (on the Gateshead side of the river Tyne close to Newcastle for those born in the south). This is a proper music venue pub, with live music on four or five times a week. The Sunday afternoon slot is a coveted slot because you are almost guaranteed a full pub, and a full pub of music lovers. This could not have been more different to our Friday night gig, and we all played so much better. Our usual eclectic mix of country, Americana, and blues went down a storm with the enthusiastic crowd. Gear-wise, my trusty old Ashdown ABM 1x15 Neo combo, EBS Stanley Clarke, MicroThumpinator, and my fretless Tony Franklin Precision and NS NXT EUB. More compliments on the sound so I must finally be getting to grips with the old PA malarkey (I’ve only been doing it for twenty plus years 😂). A busy three gigs in eight days have bedded new guitarist Steve in nicely (for a band that only plays around 20 gigs a year). 

Is that Johnny Vegas to the right of the singer?

6 hours ago, agedhorse said:

This is one of the reasons I have stuck with ICEPower for all of my designs.
 

There were many Asian vendors that made great promises yet every one of them had significant questionable elements with their offerings. Ultimately it made more sense to pay a premium price for a premium product.

I bought a few of the cheap modules  and they were invariably unreliable. I have had power supplies +\- 50V and they were +/- 70V. There is almost no technical support or documentation. 
 

I have modules from Connex that work flawlessly and I have had good support from Connex but, as with 3e, the actual cost is virtually the same as a certified ICEPowet module. 
 

A little knowledge IS a dangerous thing and whatever route you take, you must know what you are doing.  These amplifiers have dangerous voltages, not only on the mains side but also at the output of the power supply. In addition, The regulations around safety and emi/rfi are also important and most enthusiastic amateurs (since retiring I must include myself in this group) do not have the knowledge or experience required. 

Has anyone used the Soundmagic E10/E11 for IEM use?

21 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

'm currently encouraging one of our dep singers to get herself her own mic and stand, lol!

I wish I thought you were joking. I wish I had a £Grand for every singer that turned up with nothing more than a smile. I could by a new TE Rig 😀

12 hours ago, agedhorse said:

Not at all very elaborate. The values the caps are labeled as and what specs they are built to can be entirely different. Below is a far more elaborate "mis-labeling" than a simple printed number:

 

 

 

There are a number of YouTube videos showing that many caps emit magic smoke at way lower than the quoted voltage. This picture probably explains why. Another reason for probably buying an integrated amp or power amp from an established manufacturer.

On 20/05/2024 at 07:32, Phil Starr said:

it's a bit more flexible than mine but that is a huge price hike.

The CQ20 does have multitrack recording capability and 96KHz sampling. On top of that it is so quiet. Noise wise that is. It is also much smaller than it looks and seems really robust. I chose it over the CQ18 because I wanted all my main outputs on XLR rather than TRS.

On the subject of the HPF frequency, if you have an adjustable one, move it slowly up and you will be surprised at how little of your tone and sound comes below 100Hz  in most forms of music.

21 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

I get many people use mono, but it just didn't sound inspiring. 

I wonder why this is. The audience never get a real stereo experience but maybe the volume makes it more immersive?

5 hours ago, Pirellithecat said:

I'm teetering .........  
How's the Monza vs the Monaco in the live setting?  
Any noticeable differences in terms of Bass frequencies, overall volume?  
Or anything else?  

Not much if at all. It is a bit quieter on spec but it is plenty loud enough and will take whatever you through at it. I have played venues that needed less bass and others that needed more. I set my amp up fairly flat at the start and just tweak a little after sound check. I have never felt the need for another cabinet although I do sometimes think I would like a stack, I know one BCer has two but in pubs and clubs, it is more than enough.

The difference in bass response is hardly noticeable and as I have said before, some venues I have to trim the bass. It is all I need maybe I will change my mind when the IMOLA is released. That is a joke, as far as I know there is nothing called the IMOLA on the Horizon. Sorry to cause you trouble @stevie.

As with @Phil Starr, I hope to be considered a friend of @stevie and although that might seem to suggest a bias, it also means that both Phil and I have a lot of insight into the cabinets that @steviedesigns. 
 

The controlled low end on his cabinets come from careful design and the use of expensive, high quality drivers. Many bass cabinets are designed to be “voiced”, that is have a dialed in response, often with a peak were a DB is itself resonant. 
 

You only have to pay some music through the cabs to hear that there are no nasty peaks or troughs and I would gladly use two Monza or Monaco cabs for HiFi. Of course, being a perfectionist,  @steviewould say they are not designed for that…

It is a shame that you are so far away as you could have borrowed mine. I am not gigging for a while as my guitarist had a heart attack last week. 
 

I should also add that I had a Monaco before but as I am having years and loosing muscle quit rapidly, I traded my Monaco with another basschatter for the Monza. 

Phil is right that the published specifications for the TI chips are really theoretical and cannot be achieved in a real world situation. This tree for a pedalboard app where you do not want a large heat sink and a fan.

The best of these amps are built by a company called 3E audio. They are based in China but they seem to build to a better standard and have a very good reputation. However, quality does not come cheap and the 3E boards are several times more expensive than the low-cost AliExpress, eBay or Banggood modules. The lower cost boards have components of questionable quality and are much more likely to burn out quite quickly.

 Even with the three boards, a good power supply is essential and again these do not come cheap. In fact in my opinion you need to spend as much on one of these TI modules and power supplies as you would buying an 300 W model from ICEPower. The 300AS/1 is an ideal paddleboard amp and the whole module which includes the mains power supply will set you back between 100 and £150. With the ICEPower modules, You have the added knowledge you are meeting all the required standards and that the unit has been tested in a proper manner as quality components and is almost ready to go. Be aware though that with the ICEPower modules you need to be aware of how to connect the mains so as not to affect the safety or integrity of the module with respect to conducted and radiated interference.

If you do decide to go the TI module route, remember that the powers quoted are often at much higher voltages and currents than you can get easily from a laptop brick type power supply. Even if you did have the high voltages available that many of the modules sold will not stand the higher voltages. For example, many of the TPA3255 modules, are only guaranteed to work at 36V dc. If you do use a power supply of 48-50 volts, you may find you run out of current before getting anywhere near the quoted power. 
 

As  @Phil Starrsays, heatsinking/thermal management is also an issue. The size of the heartsick needed to achieve really high powers is quite large, especially if you are trying to dissipate the heat without the help of a fan. It is also true that the maximum efficiency of a class D amp is close to its maximum power output power. So you cannot scale back the size of the heat sink as much as you might think at lower powers. 

We should have been at our favourite venue last night but… our rhythm guitarist had a heart attack two days before.
 

He had a stent fitted and was sent home yesterday and is convinced he will be able to play next Friday. 

11 hours ago, redbandit599 said:

It has SICA drivers which I believe are well rated.

Ashdown use custom Sica drivers so they are perfectly fine. although perhaps not state of the art as far as drivers are concerned.

Do not get me started on these amps. Oops you already have.  Many of them are based as is said earlier on chips amps like the TPA3255 and the TPA3116.

These are single supply rail amps often driven by a laptop style "brick".

The amps can go loud under the right conditions. For example the TPA3255 can reach high powers however you need to run them with a  48V+ power supply AND at low impedances. Under those conditions, the heatsink fitted is almost totally inadequate. In addition te headline powers quoted are at 10% distortion. This is unusable IMHO for bass.

As many know I make cables to order but I have some cables close to the end of reel, a number of odd connectors and need to free up both space and money. 

So this is a cable consisting of 3.9m of Sommer Spirit cable terminated with a Sommer Hicon silent plug at one end and a standard 1/4” jack plug. 
 

Similar cables on EBay using inferior cable are over £40.

The price includes 2nd Class Postage. 

On 10/05/2024 at 00:53, DGBass said:

Not quite a weekend rig but it was the one of choice for a gig last night. New band time and doing some Jazz/blues fusion with a sax player, and as it was just a short two hour gig to a quiet weekday crowd, we played low volume so the punters could still talk when the band was playing. Worked well and I am enjoying the low wattage rig and sitting down while playing these days. Laney R210 200 watt/4 ohm cab and an old mid nineties TE GP7 SM130 amp, in limited edition green leatherette of course. Sounded fab.

 

 

A bit of overhang but even a pedant like me is not offended. Nice rig.

17 hours ago, BassmanPaul said:

That is an over simplification. Tube amps give a pleasing  distortion when pushed too far.  If a cabinet is rated for 750W you need at least that much to make it 'sing'. 

Valve amps have little magic but many components that tend to distort/compress in a musically pleasing way when pushed hard. A valve amp rated at say 100 watts RMS, at 0.1% distortion can only give 141.4 watts RMS when fully driven into distortion (i.e.close to a square wave). Also a bass cabinet should not be driver close to its thermal rating. If you push a speaker so hard that it "colours" the sound, you are probably close to blowing it.

On 14/05/2024 at 15:48, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

CCAW has the same current capacity and resistance as pure copper if you go up one gauge. However, it's more prone to breaking from repeated flexing, so it should only be used in permanent installations.

Some driver manufacturers also use it for the coils, it is much lighter than a pure copper coil.

Can you revise this to WITHDRAWN?

On 16/05/2024 at 16:10, Obrienp said:

Any folks aware of this offering from Gordon Smith. https://www.gordonsmithguitars.com/shop/guitars/gs-bass/#reviews. Pricey I think and vaguely reminiscent of the Orange O bass, especially if you opt for a single cutaway. I wonder if it is actually made in the UK, or just tweaked here, like the Auden offerings.

 

Still there aren’t many medium scale basses available in this country, so it adds to the range of choice. I still can’t understand why Fender/Squier aren’t offering a medium scale P bass. I think it would sell really well.

According to the spec it has more than one tuner and no machine heads?I have heard of basses with built in tuners but even a headless has machine heads of some sort.

I have to admit this thread is  breath of fresh air. I mistrust evangelists, except myself that is. The  from loud onstage sound to silent stage/full IEM is too big to achieve in one step. My band of dinosaurs are unlikely to go full silent stage anytime soon so I am trying to change them very gradually. Reading  other people's experiences,

7 hours ago, Mottlefeeder said:

A good guide, but point 2 is not quite right. A neutrik/speakon NL4FX 4-pole plug will physically fit a neutrik/speakon 2-pole combi jack/speakon socket. Presumably +1 & -1, but I can't check that.

David

I think you are correct, it seems that the combo is built to the same spec as the 4 ways, despite only having two speakON poles.