Obrienp

@bremen it’s covers 50s-90s, plus originals in one band but that’s not the problem; the other is blues and classic rock, which can get quite loud. TBH I’m surprised, even with the latter, that the Two10 gets out of its depth. I have two class D heads capable of 500 watts at 4 ohms but I rarely have either at above 12 o’clock on gain and master. I do like quite a lot of low end in my sound and occasionally some overdrive but nothing more than that. The Two10 has a tendency to go over to speaker overdrive when I don’t want it. I just think I need a bit more headroom. An old rule of thumb was that the cab should have an RMS rating twice that of the max output of the amp. Perhaps it still applies.

@itu I think that is what I wanted to know really. The size of the driver is not that important and they are not interchangeable. The issue was not so much not being able to hear myself (although that can be an issue), it was more that my Two10 loses its composure when I push the power near its maximum. I think it is better than most cabs on the market TBH but everything has its limits. It sounds like I am going to have to stick with plan A, which is either to double the cabs, or go for a 2x12, or 4x10. It’s going to be expensive!

I think you are right. It could be a £300 mistake. I forgot the Two10 has the hybrid resonator in it as well. I suspect that is very much tailored for the 10CR drivers. This article sheds some light: https://www.bassgearmag.com/cab-lab-barefaced-audio-two10/. The bit about reducing the drivers’ excursion in particular set off alarm bells for me.

Thank you for the offer. As I understand it, the drivers are custom made by Eminence to Barefaced’s own design/specifications. BF refer to them as 10CR but that may be their internal designation. I couldn’t find them when I looked on the Eminence website a little while ago.

Sorry to return to this subject and somewhat extend it. After some consideration, I may reconsidered my decision to stick to pre-made cabinets, largely for economy reasons. This is probably an idiot boy question 🙋‍♂️. The question for you knowledgable folks likes @itu and @nekomatic : I have a Barefaced Two10 that I like tonally but does seem to struggle a little at volumes approaching the maximum rating of 500 watts. I am assuming that the maximum rating of the OEM speakers is 250 watts each. There are 10” drivers on the market rated much higher than that: e.g. FaitalPro 10FH520 (600 watts). If I were to replace the OEM speakers with these higher rated drivers, would I end up with a cabinet of similar tone but much higher power handling, or would I just completely mess it up? To put the question differently, how much is the cabinet design (capacity, porting, etc) designed for a specific driver, or are drivers of similar size interchangeable? How could I check if this idea is viable, or is it a complete non-starter? BTW, replacing the drivers would be a much cheaper option than buying a second, or different cabinet (e.g. a 4 x 10) and reversible.

I am feeling proud of myself for having resisted the temptation of a number of Barefaced cabs that have been listed on BC. I have developed a procrastination coping mechanism: I sleep on it and by the next day some other BCer has jumped in and removed the temptation. I don’t think it would work if a LFSys cab came up again. One of the bands I am in used Plug Studios in Norwich for a rehearsal yesterday. There was an anonymous 4 x10 (alternative speaker cloth on it) powered by a Peavey Max 800 in our rehearsal room and it sounded brilliant. It has really given me GAS for a 4 x 10 but one I can lift easily, which kind of restricts the choice in the affordable range. A BF Four10 is out of my league, ditto a GR Bass but the newish Markbass MB58R 4 x10s look tempting. Fortunately, there are very few reviews on them out there, so that is controlling the GAS at the moment.

@Dan Dare it fits nicely in the pocket of a gig bag, so handy as a spare amp for gigs, or just for the extra portability. I agree, if you use the gig bag it comes with, why not go for a bit more and use something like an MB LM III, GK 500, etc and get a lot more headroom. I do think the ELF sounds better out of the box than a Warwick Gnome, or TCE BAM 200 but play with the EQ of those two and you get pretty close for less money.

Hmm, I’ll have to think about it. Trailing leads bother me though. Perhaps I can persuade a bandmate to get it 😀.

OK, would any of the following be a fail? a) Cover for my guitar amp, as I have to take it out of the house these days; b) Stage box/snake as the band has grown in size and requires more DIs and mics. Also I made a rookie mistake when buying my current stage box and didn’t think about returns. We now need at least 4 returns. None of the above are bass gear…….

I think it is the same bridge as used standard on Maruszczyk basses. I hated it immediately on my Elwood, partly because I wanted to experiment with strings and action. I found it really difficult to move the bridge saddles accurately with the strings in place to get the intonation right. I then spent ages trying to find a direct replacement with the four hole retaining screws (why don’t they go for standard Fender style 5 hole!?). I eventually found a Gotoh bridge with reasonable mass, plus screw and spring intonation adjustment. It also has quick load for the ball ends, which is an added bonus. It wasn’t cheap though for what it is: it’s not really in the Babicz league but nearly the same money. I bought the Elwood used. If I ever spec a Maruszczyk on the configurator (unlikely), I would definitely go for a non-standard bridge. However, if you are lucky enough to get the intonation and saddle height absolutely right, then the standard model is probably more stable in the long run than the conventional screw and spring intonation adjustment.

A friend got hold of a Lionel used last year. He loves it but he changed the pickup set within a few weeks. He said it just didn’t sound like a P. He hasn’t complained about the bridge but he had it set up by our local luthier when the pick up was changed, so perhaps he hasn’t wrestled with it yet.

I must remind myself not to accede to every request from a band mate to play a freebie. Yesterday evening it was a fund raising for a community hall in a very bijoux local town with a large private school. It was billed as a Spring Spectacular and we were the last act. There were 10 acts on before us, with an opportunity for us to put our gear on the stage but not sound check during a 20 minute break. Anyway we sat through various acts singing along to backing tracks with the odd guitar player, mostly flat (excruciating) but with the exception of a couple of teenage girl soloists, who could go far with some coaching; a choir (some good moments); couple of acoustic duos (one of which involved our lead guitarist, so good) and a “comedy” act involving some of the volunteers dressing up and miming to three Shawaddywaddy tracks: the joke wore very thin after the first song. All of this to rapturous applause from the audience. At the point when we were about to go on ( one and a quarter hours after originally scheduled), one of the organisers (and perpetrator of a great deal of flat vocals) announced that it was the end of the main show and over to us! Oh thanks mate! The audience quickly reduced from around 150, to around 12 by the time we had tuned up! We got in about 6 truncated numbers before noise had to stop at 11pm. This having sat there for three and a half hours, being as encouraging as possible to the other acts (and some were a bit grim). I thought some of them could have shown a bit of solidarity, including the one we lent some gear to but obviously it was past their bed time. We were probably pretty torturous too, as our on stage sound was dreadful, due to lack of a sound check and no PA support. My bass sound was heavily and inappropriately distorted, for some reason I couldn’t work out but that can be the drawback of FRFR cabs (LFSys in my case), garbage in/garbage out to pinch an old computing adage. The vocalists couldn’t hear themselves, despite a couple of monitors. Anyway the remnants of the audience seemed to enjoy it and were dancing away. I can only assume they had over-indulged by that stage in the evening. Best forgotten now, I think! Note to self, be very wary of any further freebies!

That H-B 6 looks good for the money! Plus it has a distinct advantage over the Squier/Fender offerings in not having a tremolo bridge.

I agree with the comments about the Hofner Club. Bit of a one trick pony IMO. I have a Starfire 1 (with the P pickup). Great bass but it is a big instrument both in body width and in length. In fact it is as long as my full scale P bass, so I can see why you would want something smaller bodied. It does look like a “proper” bass on stage though, whereas some SS look like toys.

I have a V1 Acinonyx and was looking forward to the 5 string because it might be one that I can play: arthritis in the base of my left thumb means the stretch on other fives is too much. A five with say a 42mm nut and similar proportions up the neck might be something I could play. However, a USA made version would be out of my price bracket and TBH perhaps not that well made? The pickups on the V1 Chinese made Acinonyx are meant to be made in USA but my local luthier (who makes pickups himself) reckons they are really poorly designed and manufactured. He has already had to repair a few because the mounting screws just go into a plain (cheap) metal baseplate. The thread soon strips and the pickups drop. Shame because they sound great; so much so that Nordstrand now offer the pickups in their own right. I have been lucky so far with the pickups; ditto with the switches that other people have had fail on them. The Hipshot bridge has also caused people problems: dropping bridge saddles and you have to be careful where the ball ends sit when you change strings. I can’t see these things improving just through US manufacture, unless there are some design changes along the way. I don’t say this to put people off the Acinonyx because I still think they are great little basses, with an amazing sound (obviously personal taste) and these kind of issues are by no means unique in Chinese made products. It only takes a little bit of sorting to deal with the issues mentioned. I am even considering having a custom pickguard made so I can replace the pickup selector buttons with a strat style 5 way switch and the tone buttons with a rotary varitone control.

I’ve given up on Schaller strap locks. I’ve found the strap buttons gradually unscrew themselves; perhaps from binding as you describe. I had them suddenly come off twice during gigs. I didn’t think I moved around that much. I’ve gone over to Loxx now and not had any issues with them.

I bought a medium scale jazz neck direct from China off fleaBay. It has binding and block inlays but was unfinished. It cost around £60 if I recall correctly. Anyway, it is more than half decent. A bit of fine sanding and a couple of coats of Rustins matte varnish finished it nicely. There were a few sharp fret ends and the nut was a bit rough but didn’t require too much work. The heel was a bit wider than standard Fender, so I had to ease the pocket on the body I was putting it on. The neck profile is interesting in that it starts very jazz like but gets quite precision like towards the 12 fret. Quite reminiscent of Ibanez SRs. It could well have been a factory QC failure because of the fret ends, nut and heel dimensions but try finding a medium scale jazz neck in the UK, especially for that money. I’ve gigged this neck on a P body and it is more than fine.

Great venue for a first gig! Proper stage and decent house PA. Result!

You all look so cool in your gig pics! Any pics of the bands I play in look like entertainment day at the old folks home and we are the residents! 🥴

Yep, a lot of people actually prefer the tone you get with a BBOT. I just appreciate the better engineered appearance of a Babicz, even the Fender high mass bridge (good value too).

Nice if you can get a bass that is exactly what you want. I guess that is why Public Peace has the Maruszczyk/Mensinger configurator and luthiers make a living in the face of cheaper mass produced products. Thing is, you pay a lot more for the individual parts that way.

I often modify basses with better parts. I always try to keep the original parts, unless they were replaced because they were defective. If/when I come to sell, I reinstall the original parts, not because of what the OP said but because you never recoup anything like what you spent. You get much more selling the parts on their own. The problem comes when you have to do a bit of woodwork to fit the upgrade parts. In that case you have to leave them on the instrument and hope the upgrade appeals to a buyer. I can understand why some people get put off by “upgrades”. Some are pretty bizarre and some are poorly executed.

I bought a replacement stereo jack socket for my Maruszczyk, which I don’t think counts as a fail, as the original was on the blink. I was about to fail big time by buying another cab but the band I intended to use it with has suffered a huge wobble in the last few days. The wobble almost provoked me into throwing in the towel but I decided to see if we can still ride it out. Time will tell if I am going to need that cab. At the moment, I’m not about to spend a big chunk of cash on something I might not need, so I’m still on the wagon.

The fan comes on pretty quick with the Gnome. I haven’t tried using it in an acoustic situation, so I couldn’t comment on how intrusive it would be. I don’t find I notice it when using it for solo practice. The Gnome is a very aggressive little amp and you have to play with the EQ a lot to get it neutral, which means that it can sound a bit unpleasant with a FRFR type cabinet, until you sort the EQ. On the other hand, I find it livens up my Barefaced Two10, which has a vintage voicing. I currently have the iPro (280 watt) version but I had the base 200 watt version before and the same applied. I can’t speak for the 600 watt version. There’s also the TCE Bam 200 in the cheap, compact amp category. I have no idea what that is like but as it and the Gnome can be found pretty cheap used, they might be worth a punt.