Baer Amplification Part 3

[Chef]

I mostly use two. One is useful for some stuff, as opposed to useless

[Tugboat]

Originally Posted by nordyboy

I love one, but some days I feel greedy and have two, depends on how fat I want to be

I'm thinking about adding a third. Gluttony.

[nostatic]

I got about 20+ gigs on the Baers, used the pair for 3 of those, the rest were single cab. A single ML112 does better than any other 1-12 cab I've tried and also is better than my AE210 was wrt having enough low end support and nice tone.

[CTC564]

I'm eyeing two ML-115's so I can be super fat...

[Chef]

I think Super Fat is playing Coachella.

[nostatic]

ok, I'm suing for copyright infringement. My lawyers will call your lawyers.

And no, Copyright Infringement is *not* playing Coachella.























they are doing Warp Tour

[Chef]

My Lawyers turned down playing Coachella with Copyright Infringement

[nostatic]

Probably because they couldn't bill it out at $500/hr...

[R Baer]

Originally Posted by One Drop

When Baer gets better established his cabs probably will sell for more, and if they do more power to Roger, as this way he will be in business for the long run and will be able to support the costs involved with increasing availability and growing a company. Sorry for making assumptions, but this is a likely scenario. He's probably making razor thin margins now at the launch stage of his products. Sometimes launching at a high price will increase the perception of value, but for a new brand that not many can hear or see yet, unknown beyond the confines of a few website threads, it would probably backfire, especially now when money in still tight with consumers.

Besides, not every cab sounds the same, maybe some prefer the voicing of a Berg over a Baer, and vice versa. The more I hear absolutes being thrown around about cabs the more I cringe. The fEARful designs were the beginning of this cab design as religion tendency and it's not helpful to the general acceptance of the designs, which in the end will always come back to preference and suitability for a given set of applications for a given player. The cab designers themselves are probably laughing into their damping materials at the quasi religious debates that arise over what are essentially a set of compromises that balance voicing preferences, form factors, cost of production, intended price points and target customers and their received ideas, etc.

Very well put actually. Let me try and clear a few things up right quick, as I like our threads to remain positive. The above post is very close to the mark. We operate on slim margins at the current price point. The reason we stay direct only in the USA, is that these cabs would end up out of the price range of most players once you factor in the dealer mark up. Bottom line is that these are very expensive cabinets to build. When we set out to build these cabs, we never did it with the intention of building a "better" cab than everyone else. The ML's came about because I just couldn't get the tone I wanted to hear in my head using the traditional woofer/tweeter configuration. Plus, I didn't see the point of coming out with cabinets that were just like everyone else's cabs, when I knew darn well, I wouldn't have the volume of sales needed to be cost competitive. Conversations with Bill Fitzmaurice lead me to believe the mid loaded cab might achieve my goals and he was correct. And keep in mind this is certainly not new technology pioneered by a couple guys here on TalkBass. I was using a 3 way, Electro-Voice cab back in the 80's. Long story short. The cabs were built and we realized that adding dealer markup to the cabs was going to put them out of the price point we wanted to be at, so the decision was made to stay direct only for now and focus on making great products, providing great customer support and slowly building our reputation as a legitimate player in the industry.

When it comes down down to this cab vs. that cab, I believe that the only thing that matters is finding the tone in your head. It doesn't matter if that comes from a 3 way cab with two way crossovers and mid drivers, a two way with tweeter, or a single 15 in a box with no bracing or batting. If it's the sound you like, then that's the only thing that matters. Regarding the Berg cabs, I have the utmost respect for Jim's work and you have to keep in mind that Jim also builds the cabs that he wants to build and then the dealers have to have to add their mark up. And while our pricing may seem similar, it's not really comparing apples to apples. Players have the benefit of being able to go down to their local bass shop with their amp and their instrument and check out a Bergantino in person and that does add value. It's all about trade offs in this business. And while I certainly appreciate Tunaman's enthusiasm for what we do here, one thing to remember is that Jim makes some great cabinets that "speak" to a lot of players and he has a stellar reputation here on TB. His customers truly love his products and it's totally understandable that players are excited anytime he releases a new line of cabs. Jim is quite capable of building a monster 3 way cab, but I'm sure the decision was made that such a cab, with dealer mark up added, would probably end up at a price point where the sales couldn't justify the R&D and production cost. I believe Accugroove fell victim to this. We all try to find our niche in this industry and I'm just happy that we seem to be finding ours and that there are players who truly appreciate what we are trying to do. We have wonderful customers and their enthusiasm and support is very much appreciated!

[Tunaman]

Sorry for the derail Baer

Just a quick question though

Because you have a mid driver, is your crossover point lowered vs a tweeter cab?
If so... because your main driver has less frequencies to deal with, does that make it more efficient?

[nordyboy]

Well said Roger, I have owned a lot of Berg cabs and they have all been exceptional. Yours are also amazing and are ticking all the boxes for me at the moment.
My only complaint is that the armadillo's do make my trousers flap like crazy!

[CTC564]

It really IS all about the armadillos

[Tugboat]

Originally Posted by CTC564

It really IS all about the armadillos

Yep.

[Saluki]

I have been a berg fan for five years because they worked for me. Some berg cabs worked better (for me) than others depending on the amps I was running through them. Also owned the gk neo112s, which are also great cabs especially considering their price point. I could have gigged the other cabs and been happy but the ML112s just nail that tone in your head thing for me. Plus armadillotrousers... Need I say more

[nordyboy]

Originally Posted by Saluki

I have been a berg fan for five years because they worked for me. Some berg cabs worked better (for me) than others depending on the amps I was running through them. Also owned the gk neo112s, which are also great cabs especially considering their price point. I could have gigged the other cabs and been happy but the ML112s just nail that tone in your head thing for me. Plus armadillotrousers... Need I say more

Did the congregation notice your armadillo's?

[Chef]

I won't speak for Roger/Baer, cause I can't, but, I will say this:

There are many cab mfgr's on both side of this fence.

For example, GK Neo's are two way, with tweet, but, crossed very high, so that for many users, the woofer sounds fine without the horn.

Then, there are designs such as fF and TC that when you remove the other components, the cab becomes uber dark and virtually useless.

In my completely devalued, undereducated, non-engineer opinion, this has more to do with the original design of the woofer, and very little to do with "this manufacturer vs that," or, this crossover or that.

Furthermore, I'll posit that removing or adding the higher freq components and crossover has very little to do with efficiency of the woofer. That's built in already.
An LF is less efficient than an HO, an HO is less efficient than a "regular driver," just by the nature of what they are, and what they're built from.
This is compensated for several ways:
by the ability of LF and HO to use more power, and, by the addition of the high freq components used on top of them.

I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by Tunaman

Sorry for the derail Baer

Just a quick question though

Because you have a mid driver, is your crossover point lowered vs a tweeter cab?
If so... because your main driver has less frequencies to deal with, does that make it more efficient?

[nostatic]

The other thing is that modern crossovers often aren't simple little boxes. So while the drivers have their own thing going on (plus you have off-the-shelf vs custom OEM design), so do the crossovers. I know that Duke is constantly tweaking his magic box.

In addition, there is some amount of "secret sauce" going on with any of these designs. An inch here or there can make a big difference. Not sure how reasonable it is to expect a builder to spill the details on their design.

[Chef]

"a lot going on with modern crossovers"

Ab-so-tively True.

Some crossovers are no more than a few teensy items, on the jackplate, with the attenuator L-pad.The last TC crossover I looked at was maybe 50 parts, across two boards, and the crossover weighed 5lbs by itself.

I think the Patterson built crossover in my LDS 12/6/1 is nearly as many components, across three small boards, mounted in different places in the cbs, each doing some essential part of the mojo with that cab.

I've never inspectged the Baers crossover in detail; Tom Bowlus does that part of BGM stuff. However; what ever is in there does it's job exceedingly well.

[Tunaman]

thanks Chef, Kjung & Nostatic

So Chef... you're saying that IF the Berg & the ML have the SAME high quality 12" woofer... The choice to have a mid driver in the ML vs the high quality tweet in the Berg does not effect the efficiency of the driver? I'm ASSUMING that a woofer that has less frequencies to deal with can "focus its resources" & handle more without breaking up vs a woofer that has to do more work?

I would again ASSUME that the mids are better dispersed through the mid driver than either the woofer or the tweet in the Bergs case

Are my assumptions off & wrong? Call me a moron, I just love the discussion & want to know.

[Chef]

I'd suggest you move this out of the baer thread, and start your own tech thread; but:

The Berg and the Baer -do not- use the same woofer.