stevie

The scraping noise is the giveaway sound of a blown driver. You could confirm with an ohm meter to see if the coil is open circuit. The cheapest route is to recone yourself. You can buy the recone kits for about £60 and the instructions are available online. But you need to be confident that you can work in an absolutely meticulous and precise way or else you're wasting your money. I would guess at a specialist recone being well over £100. Add £20 for carriage both ways and it can mount up. I'd get in touch with the seller to get my money back. It sounds like you've been ripped off.

Well, Random, maybe it's never happened before but I'm sure you'll get over it. I did provide an explanation of why I thought you were mistaken and you're welcome to disagree. I've aired my concerns and we'll see if any information is forthcoming. Yes, the advertising thing does bug me a bit, especially when it gets excessive. If I'm having a pint in a pub, the last think I want is somebody trying to sell me insurance or flashing their corporate logo at me. But I never used the word 'wrong'. I do think it would be a good idea for Basschat to charge companies for displaying their business logo. That way at least Basschat would benefit.

Well I'm glad about that. You're wrong about the "well considered and explanatory" thing because he completely sidestepped my point about the poor measurements of the cab in Bass Gear Magazine by repeating what Bill had said and claiming that measurements are not meaningful unless everyone uses the same methods. But I can forgive you for that So, while a vendor is allowed a certain leeway to promote his products on this site (unlike many others, I would add), these vendors should in return play the game and respond to reasonable criticism when it's levelled at them.

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1361543244' post='1987265'] Let's hope you'll thrive amidst the Euroloons. We're seriously weird, ya know. [/quote] Ha, do you know anything about Texas, Bert? I'm sure you'll find us all very normal, Dave.

[quote name='RandomBass' timestamp='1361522750' post='1986828'] From the horse's mouth, indeed. Always a welcome thing here, especially such a well considered reply. [/quote] You really don't recognize an advert when you see one, do you, Random? He even managed to include details of his UK stockist.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1361542631' post='1987248'] Subjective views are just as valid as the technical review, IMO.. they all build a pciture. but they don't make you buy them unheard or unseen. [/quote] Nothing against subjective opinions when they are unbiased and from someone who knows what they're talking about, but measurements can explain much of what you are hearing that you can't necessarily put your finger on. They can also highlight problems, if you know how to interpret them. As you say, the big picture.

If it's wired in series you could try switching it to parallel. You'll lose some volume and some of those aggressive mids. It's easier than changing magnets.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1361465147' post='1986130'] And I've found them the most worthless part of his reviews, as they do not adhere to any measurement standard. [/quote] Because they do not adhere to a measurement standard doesn't make them worthless. Sure, it would be nice if Tom were to get his act together and publish more consistent measurements, but I'm pleased that he's doing them at all, because nobody else is. And they are useful. For example, you can see from the measurements of a Trace Elliot cab in this month's issue that they have wired the tweeter the wrong way round. That's quite interesting, especially for people who have bought that cabinet.

Did a deal with Jonathan last week. We arranged to meet at a convenient point for both of us (in a Tesco car park in fact) where I swapped some folding stuff for a bass cab. Everything went well, except that I was a bit late, and the cab was just as described. A great chap to do business with!

That's a bit harsh. You can nit pick, but I've always found Tom's measurements to be the most useful part of his reviews. You learn an awful lot more from those than from the subjective reviews, where he is clearly reluctant to be too critical. As he's the only one publishing measurements of bass gear, I think he deserves a pat on the back - also for the internal photos of the gear.

Just out of interest, was it the ML112 you measured, Bill? And did it measure the same as the one Tom Bowlus tested in Bass Gear? (I certainly hope not.)

Yer pays yer money.... I'm sure you'll be OK with jacks up to a certain power but opinions vary about how much power they will handle in practice. Prosound stopped using them decades ago for speakers and switched to more suitable alternatives.

Ampeg and Genz-Benz fit Speakons to their current ranges. So I'm not sure what you mean by 'brand new'. If you want to put 500 or 600 watts through a jack plug originally designed to handle line level, that's your business but if a more suitable alternative is available, why not use it?

The Delta Pro looks really nice (cast chassis too!), but it's not as good as the Beyma on paper.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1361106816' post='1981081'] The price of after-market pickups is pretty much linked to the amount of R&D that has gone into them. If you are going to spend time producing a pickup for a particular use or tone, make a range of variants and get them properly tested by musicians to find the right one(s), then that's going to cost a fair bit more than just winding some wire around a magnet to a specification that matches what someone else has already done. [/quote] That's not how it works in the real world. Like anything else, the price of after-market pickups is pretty much linked to the punter's perception of their value. Given that most pickup makers are chasing the holy grail of "vintage" pickups, copying what somebody else has done is exactly what most of them do! How much R&D does it take to make another P-Bass pickup when all the design work was done 60 years ago?

Went for £130. That's a bargain, and shows you why Collect Only isn't always a great idea.

Balcro has just pointed out to me that my figure for Qms doesn't agree with Beyma's. That's because I had my software recalculate the parameters so that they would all match. I should have told it to recalculate Rms but it changed Qms instead. If you change Rms to 2.03 (although you probably won't use it in WinISD), then 5.6 is OK for Qms. The difference isn't big enough to affect the simulation - but we might as well get it right.

I've used his Musicman bass pickup, which was excellent ,although I wasn't able to compare it to other brands at the time. I suspect the price of replacement pickups is more of a marketing consideration than anything else. They all contain more or less the same bits.

The Beyma is a great choice. Here are the parameters, which have been cross-calculated and shouldn't throw up any errors. I'd pick the size of box you want rather than letting WinISD do it for you. 50-litres would be a good starting point. Tune between 50 and 55Hz using (preferably) a single 100mm dia. or else 2 x 70mm ports. [IMG]http://i48.tinypic.com/n1rpmo.jpg[/IMG]

I wouldn't buy a bass cab without Speakons nowadays. Unless you're getting a really good deal or are in a hurry, I'd wait. It's your money. Edit _ If it's jacks only, it will probably be pretty ancient - also worth bearing in mind.

Phil, the reason I mentioned frequency response is that I've never seen it discussed on here before. I just wanted to put a word in for the Celestions because everyone on BC seems to automatically favour Eminence, whose products really are a very mixed bunch. In a typical 12-inch cab the green Celestions (the BL-200X ceramic and BN-300X neo) model exactly the same as the Beyma at the bottom end (and the Eminence Beta 12 in fact). So they're going to have a full, warm bass sound. I've never seen the point of the Orange series because 1. their xmax is limited, as you rightly point out, and 2. because they roll off early when you load them in a box and will sound quite thin (very similar to the Eminence 3012HO which is not an ideal bass guitar speaker despite Mr Foxen's eulogy). However, they may work better in practice than expected - and I've never used them personally. The Green Celestions have an xmax of 4mm. As this is a proper voice coil overhang it's probably equivalent to 6.5mm on an Eminence and is perfectly acceptable, although not in the same league as the Beyma it must be said.