Merton Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1442050426' post='2864016'] It won't, you can definitely make a flat* response 2x10", with the right 10"s crossing to a good tweeter at a low enough frequency - the EA NL210 and CX210 are both decent examples of that. Both are also definitely 'boutique' bass cabs. 3-way allows you to use a wider variety of woofers and use the crossover and mid driver to sort the response through the mids. 2-way needs either very specialist drivers or a huge tweeter that can cross over very low. * It's all relative and I don't think flat is a good word - accurate is better. [/quote] I stand corrected Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 14, 2015 by Happy Jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merton Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1442053673' post='2864061'] Well sit down man! You're making me feel tired just looking at you ... [/quote] I have that effect on people Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merton Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='BassBod' timestamp='1442051567' post='2864024'] Any of the EA 2x10 cabs would be a very good match to requirements, but they are heavy and in the boutique category. Sound wonderful..as long as you really like your bass sound naked, with little seasoning. I would dare to suggest the Ashdown Retrogilde 800 with an EA 2x10 would be quite the thing..... [/quote] Now that is a very fine and sensible suggestion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonepete Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 13, 2015 by tbonepete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1442074950' post='2864270'] Blimey, DI boxes, how can I mess that up? (Rhetorical question :-) ), there's way too many choices. How is it that to get an uncoloured clean flat sound from amp and cabs from a mainstream manufacturer seems impossible, but there are seemingly plentiful examples of boutique manufacturers doing just that?, I mean isn't that like charging more money for doing less?. Clearly I'm in the minority (actually it's probably just me!). I'd have thought it would be less expensive to do no colouring on the amp, and design a cab that also didn't colour the sound (obviously after r and d costs etc), but colour seems to be the thing. Is it perhaps a way of disguising shortcomings in design, and excecution, or actual preference? What ever the answer is its not one the mainstream makers seem worried about....... No clean sound for me (al la yoda! ) Hehe. [/quote] No..it is because an awful lot of players can't cope with real hi quality as it isn't always very forgiving...so you hear an awful lot of stuff that you rather wouldn't. The same reason gtrs always want a distortion element in their sound Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1442074950' post='2864270']I'd have thought it would be less expensive to do no colouring on the amp, and design a cab that also didn't colour the sound (obviously after r and d costs etc) [/quote] The audio industry has spend untold billions over the last century trying to achieve perfect response (frequency/transient/polar/etc) from amplifiers and loudspeakers. Quite a lot of amps get pretty damned close. No speakers do. But the ones that come closest are incredibly expensive (costing similar amounts to nice cars or houses) and extremely large. And that's talking about the entire world of hi-fi, studio monitoring and pro-sound, as well as MI amplification. It is FAR easier to make amps and cabs with colouration. Trying to remove colouration is what hugely increases the cost of R&D and design and materials and manufacturing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonepete Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 13, 2015 by tbonepete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonepete Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 13, 2015 by tbonepete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bassman7755 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1442078094' post='2864302'] No..it is because an awful lot of players can't cope with real hi quality as it isn't always very forgiving...so you hear an awful lot of stuff that you rather wouldn't. The same reason gtrs always want a distortion element in their sound [/quote] Complete tosh on both counts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bassman7755 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1442080359' post='2864315'] but it still miffs me if I'm honest that to sound as near to the actual sound of the instrument is seemingly discouraged, [/quote] Its not discouraged, its just not especially easy to do. Turning electrical inpulses back into sound accurately is a difficult engineering problem. Thats just the reality of physics involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 I think what Alex was saying is that a truly flat response system would be prohibitively expensive and impractical to cart around. Affordable solutions must inevitably include some colouration. IEMs sound a good way to go if it's just for your personal monitoring Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonepete Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 13, 2015 by tbonepete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merton Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 It's not just expensive in the r&d stage though, component tolerances would have to be whittled down to the minutest detail which then makes manufacture more costly too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bassman7755 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) [quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1442089804' post='2864409'] it seems a considered choice from the mainstream manufacturers to give us amps, and cabs which don't represent how the actual instrument being played should sound [/quote] Its the easy way out for them, they slap some mediocre drivers in a cab, maybe a token tweeter if your lucky, it has response humps all over the place, the drivers break up into distortion in the 2-4k range because they arn't designed to cleanly produce those frequencies, and its marketed as a "classic punchy bass sound" with "tone" and "character". So long as people keep stumping up the money for mediocrity they will keep making then this way. Edited September 12, 2015 by bassman7755 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonepete Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 13, 2015 by tbonepete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonepete Posted September 12, 2015 Author Share Posted September 12, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 13, 2015 by tbonepete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merton Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1442092399' post='2864430'] Yes, but once they were in production the unit costs sold would gradually reduce the overall cost, and again, this doesn't have to be born by only one manufacturer. More costly yes, but the technology already exsists in sound reinforcement I'd have thought. Not just a question of swapping a badge on a full range powered PA cab with dsp, for a badge on a bass cab, but nevertheless the technology is out there.......... This of course may not be true, but it seems plausible to me that it is. Still the status quo must be maintained it seems. Cheers Pete :-) [/quote] Trouble is bass amps don't sell in high enough volume (compared to consumer electronics like TVs etc) so the component costs won't necessarily drop as much as you think as the manufacturers don't have the buying power of saying "we're using tens of thousands of components per month", more like a couple of thousand a year max. Don't get me wrong, I agree with where you're coming from but it's not as easy as that. Example - 10 years ago I was working for an electronic component company who sold components to Amstrad (amongst others). Amstrad made the Sky boxes and Sky Plus boxes at the time and were buying approx 100k components per month from us, all the same spec, at around 4 cents per unit. They were rejecting about 10% of their boards and kept blaming our component. Rigorous testing followed where it became abundantly clear that their circuit design was so sh*t it needed to tighten an already ridiculous spec to the degree the price of the component doubled. They were, understandably, pretty pissed off about that but it wasn't the component being faulty so they couldn't blame us no matter what legal threats came our way. They had to swallow the price increase. Scale that down over a thousand fold and you are looking at the higher-volume amp makers, think how that tightening of the component tolerance affects them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 The limiting factor is the speakers. The kind of woofers you need to make a suitably high output cab with accurate response are bloody expensive. It's not like computers or electronics where technological progress and mass production can reduce the cost massively, it's like high performance car engines - expensive materials, expensive casting/forging/machining, precise assembly, etc. Even with modern manufacturing technology it's still far more expensive to manufacture such high precision high quality components than what's normally in MI gear. The business model of the big players doesn't allow the production costs to be that high - and also much of the industry is built on heritage so if you start trying to copy innovators then you risk damaging your own brand value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bassman7755 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 [quote name='tbonepete' timestamp='1442092399' post='2864430'] Yes, but once they were in production the unit costs sold would gradually reduce the overall cost, and again, this doesn't have to be born by only one manufacturer. More costly yes, but the technology already exsists in sound reinforcement I'd have thought. Not just a question of swapping a badge on a full range powered PA cab with dsp, for a badge on a bass cab, but nevertheless the technology is out there.......... This of course may not be true, but it seems plausible to me that it is. Still the status quo must be maintained it seems. Cheers Pete :-) [/quote] There is some amount of design overlap between PA cabs and "flat" bass cabs, its why alex for example markets some of his generation 3 range as both bass and PA in particular the FR800 which is a essentially a self powered big baby 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 [quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1442085852' post='2864376'] Complete tosh on both counts. [/quote] Explain why you think it is complete tosh on both counts..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve-bbb Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbonepete Posted September 13, 2015 Author Share Posted September 13, 2015 (edited) . Edited September 13, 2015 by tbonepete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 I'd get out and try a few cabs.... and I'd get over to Bass Gear and listen to what they have..and if you have time, Bass Direct. It might take a day's leave and be a long day but it will give you some perspetive and might even change your mind on one or two things. On my shopping list for a trip like that would be CN212, Vanderkley and SL12's... Bassgear might have ATS and a few other goodies in. Also, they'll have TKS and amps to suit. For a serious test of kit, you'll have all day to play around, during the week, IMO. There is a reason that some cabs come with a premium and you may have touched on it a bit already... Boutique isn't really a factor, IMO, unless the band inisist on certain cabs per an image. Mainstream... Ampeg 210 and GK, maybe..but the other cabs I've listed really ought to be better..whether they suit you sound wise, only you can say Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
largo Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Could you not just buy a 48-band EQ or similar and EQ a flat response into any cab you choose? Glue the sliders once it's done and your cab will always be flat, in fact do it with amp in the signal chain too and you can guarantee having a flat response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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