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male33lancs

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  1. "Bass players are the only users of amplification that will use different sized speakers for the same frequencies." that bit is certainly opinion... I know of plenty guitarists and have myself (guitarist) used 15" and 12" mixed, 12" and 10" mixed and Gibson's Goldtone range guitar amps have used a 12" and 10" mix for years... Many small combo amps with 8" or 10" internal speakers and external extension output (that doesn't cut out the internal speaker) are unlikely to be used with 8" or 10" extension cabs as there are few made... a room will affect the sound from the different cab / speaker combinations anyway whether using same or different cabs - different reflections at the two cab heights etc... your position relative to them etc... I imagine if it were to be calculated, their would be differences at different altitudes as well? but howe many people do you know who adjust there tuner from A440? what difference in altitude would you need before you would have to alter this anyway? I don't know... Most 'scientists' work in labatories, engineers design at a desk or bench, most musicians play in pubs, clubs and the like - that are usually far from ideal acoustically to begin with... - not been in many where they have acoustic engineers in... they too busy paying for their licenscing and stopping people taking their pints outside when they go for a fag... I agree with chris's approach, as at the end of the day, most 'musicians' do not scientifically create music - or not when they start out, rather what sounds good works... and phase cancellations may actually be a desired effect - they've been selling them things for years too... An engineers philosophy (often restrained by an accountant), is not always the best judge of what is right and wrong and the proliferation of small scale guitar and amp builders who cater more to personal tastes, kinda hints towards that too... You can listen to 'opinion', 'fact' (like the world is flat - fair enough there are measureable responses and such - but mostly measured under lab conditions) and you can add these to your own personal experience (go the placve you intend to buy from or a couple of different places and try the different cabs with your rig - take note of different rooms and positions and take what seems like the best option that you can afford... as time goes by, you tend to become more informed and experienced and opinions and 'facts' both change as we all learn more... despite what scotty said, Jimmy managed to defy the laws of physics a few times I think, but then again that was just t.v. wasn't it...? Quite often, what scientists can measure, people cannot hear and what people can hear, scientists cannot measure (we all have very different hearing ranges and peaks and troughs) hence why we all hear things differently - and we often will hear the same sound differently - all this is part of the 'science' of psycho acoustics... Personally I find my taste changes as to what is ideal from time to time even with my gear left in same place in house - maybe its changes in humidity, ageing of components or just mood or just psychoacoustics again - that should cover it... Is it really a conflict? thought that was in the Falklands...
  2. hey steve, the fingerboard could either be replaced or the gouges filled with rosewood dust mixed in epoxy. The sanded flat. use a sanding block and perhaps tape up around the area to sand with masking tape. then dependent on radius of fingerboard either gat a radius block of the correct radius or a large hardwood (or glue a few pieces of 2" x 18mm mdf together) to use this as a sanding block and carefully sand the whole of the fingerboard to clean it up. with the body, wet and heat the dings (you can use a wet cloth and apply heat via a soldering iron placed over this - it will often swell out the wood where it has been compressed from bumps... if not, you may have to sand the marks out. plug the control pot holes ( i think you said you were left so would want to move controls to other side. you could use a router and flush trim cuter with bottom mounted bearing to make a copy of the control cavity shape and replicate it on other side of instrument and rather than struggling to fill the original control cavity, you could make matching covers for either side and therefore keep some symmetry... you could likewise adda scratchplate on front same shape on either side that covered the old holes after pluggin if you were worried about that aesthetic - it will usually be noticeable in lighter woods... you would need sanding the whole body before relacquering anyway, so any filling or removing of dents or holes you couldn't plug can be sanded out and the plugs in control pots sanded flush... enjoy hope that helps, as you never really stated what you had in mind or I missed that part...
  3. with a valve amp, impedance mis match will give reduced power and bandwidth solid state using lower than recommended impedance will (in most modern gear) initiate some kind of thermal protection as the output devices will try to provide more power than the power rating of the devices, so the protection circuit kicks in... otherwise you destroy your amp
  4. If you have hum problems when daisy chaining several fx from same supply, it is likely one or more of them needs isolated supply. An isolated supply will cost you more but will give the performance you require.... you pay for the extra transformer windings and components....I had to build mine as I bought several line 6 pedals a while back when they were being sold off for £20.00 - they hum like hell on a daisy chain You could always build your own... built my old one with 24, 18, 12 and 9 volts, (now living with mate as the new version is nearly done) and he needs more than me as he regularly gigging rather than just building gear like me enjoy!
  5. Hi folks, Built my own supplies, but I used seperate transformer windings. My older version had 24, 18, 12 and 9 volts - this has found new home with a mate as I am just finishing the mark two... Don't really know about dc - dc converters, but the idea of transformer isolated supplies is to eliminate ground loop issues - this is certainly useful if you own any line 6 fx... interested if you wish to offer lowdown on what the dc - dc converters are and how economic an approach they are, how they perform etc...
  6. That's not surreal bass ferret... I was commenting on maybe why they are nt so common as the usual 1 x , 2x and 4 x variants It also does not necessarily matter with valve amps either... although as with any impedance 'mismatch', there will be reduced output and bandwidth
  7. There's a few pages on the Fender 400PS in "The Soul Of Tone" - a really big and excellent book for the valve amp and valve amp history lovers among you although only 1 chapter deicated to bass amps... but a real interesting read and some lovely pics and discussions of cabs n such...
  8. hi folks, not sure on reasoning, i guess most manufacturers are set up for the conventional 2 or 4 drivers per cab routine... the issues with impedance could be overcome in a number of ways, using two 8 ohm speakers in parralell to give 4 ohm and then putting this in series with a 4 ohm, this would give 8 ohms for a common crossover figure with which to use a horn. However, the problem with this would be that the output from the amp is shared unequally between the drivers.... another way would be to use two 16ohm and one 8 ohm in parallel, which would give 4 ohm - then you would need a 4 ohm crossover, but again the output is shared unevenly... you could comensate by using a higher rated driver for the lower impedance driver in each case, but it would still be adding more to the sound than the two higher impedance speakers in parallel... Perhaps these are some of the reasons?
  9. Hi folks, regarding the 6 x el34's and 300w... The plate dissipation for class A is about 12w in class AB around 25w (50w per pair) and perhaps the amp is run in class B which I believe would offer the 300W RMS, although I have not referred to any spec sheets and don't think most old spec sheets would show class B as most equipment from yesteryear was built class A, AB1 or AB2... some nice posts oxblood, but I would take issue with comment that building a guitar amp is easy whereas building a bass valve amp is hard... quite often, voicing a high gain guitar amp is quite time consuming and problematic and can become quite complex circuitry and preventing oscillation and noise etc... admittedly, most bass amps having larger output levels would require larger, weightier transformers though... regarding the issue of always impedance matching valve amps and solid state not being as critical, I do not believe this to be wholly accurate either... if using a quality over rated output transformer, impedance matching is not as dangerous as perhaps you suggest - whilst it is better to err on the side of caution as much gear does use under sized output units... With regard solid state, putting a 4 ohm load onto an amp designed for 8 ohm and running flat out will surely cause destruction as ss devices tend not to limit their output as valves and their power supplies inherently do... Just observing that it is not strictly as black and white as you suggest.... on the amp sitets i join in with, this is one of the myths that is dispelled and backed up with hard science.... but as I said above, better to err on the side of caution...
  10. Hi folks, I have taken to using ABS plastic as the covering with aluminium edging and steel corners... makes it a bit more roadworthy for my liking.... rather than my poor mates who shell out on new viynl covered cabs only to have them look 10 years old after 12 months of gigging... I also like metal grilles for the same practical reasons... However, two cabs i built for home use are recalimed solid oak, although still with metal grilles... if anyone is interested, I will add a few pics when the first of the ABS covered cabs are finished (over next month or so when i get through current busy period)... I imagine there will be differences in dampening of material coverings, but whether or not the effect is discernible or measurable is another thing - construction matrial for main body of the cab and the drivers used will have most effect...
  11. hmmmmmmmm.... as my main instrument is guitar and not bass, maybe this is a little annoying to some, but the gain, volume; gain, output etc make perfect sense to me... most amplifiers, particularly most modern amplifiers that incorporate such controls have several gain stages... whilst a 'passive pot' is the control, you will hear the gain increase if you turn up the gain or preamp gain on a marshall amp... the reason is (valves) there is a greater signal going into 'control' grid of next preamp tube stage, this alters the bias condition of the tube and will amplify more or less until it reaches clipping.... whilst this is not often clipping with two valve preamp stages, that signal then goes on to another one or two stages before reaching the volume or master volume control.... most of the traditional circuits have the volume or master volume as part of the preamp, that is before the phase inverter and some debate about validity of this... But yes there is a lot of marketing hype... I don't avoid amps with such labels, they can be a bit silly, but some of them do have quite interesting features on them that act on the circuit in new ways from the amp icons we are familiar with and possibly create new tones... Just like everything else, you pay your money and you often get what you pay for... I think the labelling often reflects the goal of the designer... gain and master tend to suggest a preamp distortion created by the gain control and more power amp distortion created by the master volume.... Perhaps the volume and master volume scenario is aimed at the cleaner (less distorted) end of the market? Once you understand what the controls are doing and see through silly marketing, its no biggie and sometimes there are nice surprises... but I get what you are saying with some companies that excel at the marketing and hype - that's entertainment.... or did I mean capitalism? How should these controls be labelled?
  12. Hi guys, the way the volume control works depends on if the pot is linear or logarithmic (sorry bout spelling).... read up on many of sites.... with regard does altering volume affect wattage output, think about it? if you turn your volume up, does it get louder? the signal on the 'control' grid of an ouput valve controls how much power the output valve passes... true, a valve amp can only reach a particular wattage, determined by the transformer set and valves used etc... however, a transistor amp does not limit itself the way a valve does and if lower and lower impedances are placed on the output than the recommended load of say 8 or 4 ohms, then the solid state device will tend to try and pass that current and damage the device or trip an overload device... the idea of using a larger amp than the speaker rating and using speakers rated higher than the output of the amp are two very different issues it seems to me and are meant to attin different goals and perhaps not very well informed? Perhaps the person who suggested using a higher output amp was suggesting this to gain higher spl's before the amp began to distort, as I can imagine may be a goal for some bass players... However, using speakers rated much lower than the amp would likely then cause the speakers to distort and possibly even suffer damage... the idea of using much higher rated speakers I believe is more apt for the guitar, where distorted signal is often the goal and quite often a clipped signal (especially in modern times) and more heat makes it a good idea to over rate the speakers... it also comes down to sonic goals... a small 20w speaker in a small amp driven to max may give the desired combination of preamp, power amp and speaker distortion for the particular goal, but conversely, a thrash metal maniac may prefer to rely on preamp distortion, a power amp with lots of head room and speakers that do not distort and mush up... the sonic goals and technical and financial responsibliites/ goals are all different issues...
  13. Hi folks, As I understand it, bi amping is a term generally used when you have two amps amplifying seperate frequencies and sending them to different speakers... For example using a 300w amp for bass frequency with a 2 x 15" cab and then having a seperate lower wattage amp for mid range and or upper frequencies... I think it is a carry over from HiFi and possibly PA applications? With regard using your bass through your guitar amp: Perhaps their is already some bass roll off with the unit you're using being a modulation effect, although I have not tried the one you mention... Also, the amp itself should roll off some of the bass frequencies due to the components used... If the amp is valve for example, the decoupling caps would limit bass response and the transformers in guitar amps tend to roll off at 100Hz or so or even higher for some (some boutique gear does use full bandwidth units though, but doubt the amp you mention does, although I am not familiar with it... Many guitarists use guitar cabs, sometimes down tuned to B or A and heavily distorted, seemingly without problems, again many components in the chain will filter out the bass... If you are using as you say to get the idea of the stereo effect at home, then you should be ok as most people are severly limited in domestic situation to lower SPL's
  14. [quote name='david_l_perry' post='163537' date='Mar 26 2008, 08:39 AM']You are a [i]little [/i]late to the party with that snippet of information... Neo drivers have been being used by Bass cab manufacturers and DIY bass cab manufacturers for a number of years. They have pretty much become the standard for PA cabs also due to the massive weight savings. I don't think I would consider anything else these days...[/quote] Thanks for the tip dude... I only became aware of them about 4 years ago when I organised trade account with Eminence UK distributor... But just goes to show you that not everyone is as enlightened as yourself Must be the unextracted solder fumes arresting my development... even more than usual... or the guitarist in me...
  15. [quote name='hipbass' post='69624' date='Oct 4 2007, 05:36 PM']...Interesting article although I never subscribed to the view that speakers should be able to handle more power than the amp can deliver....If,for example you're using an amp rated at 800 watts but only use 300 watts of that [plenty loud],then your 1000 watt speaker[s],aren't being driven efficiently and your amp has to work harder..Obviously, at the other extreme if you use a 100 watt head driven hard,then it may be advisable to use more than 100 watts of speaker capacity!...Maybe some tech head will tell me I'm wrong,although I've been doing this most of my life and arrived at these conclusions via trial and error...My general rule of thumb is 50% more speaker capacity than my ACTUAL PLAYING LEVEL....[/quote] One industry extreme tech head suggests up to x 10 when using very distorted guitar tones... again this is to avoid distortion of voice coil... none of us like to be pushed to our limits right? or not for extended periods night after night... ?
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