fEARful 15/6/1 and TC Electronics RS212 A/B Comparisson

[Scogman]

A few days ago I had a chance to stop in Ron Anchak's shop (authorized fEARful builder) and try out a fEARful 15/6/1. I had recently purchased a TC electronics RH750 amp and an RS212 cabinet. I brought these to his shop along with my fENDer Jazz.

Ron was nice enough to let me A/B the 15/6/1 with the TC RS212. Plugged in the RS212 first. This cabinet sounds good, deep bass, good midrange, highs roll off pretty quickly on this one even with a tweeter. I don't know how it sounds compared to the TC RS210 but some say the RS210 is brighter. If I were to describe the RS212 in a word at this point I would pick 'vintage-y.' I like the vintage-y sound. Ron thought the cab sounded good.

I then plugged the amp into the fEARful 15/6/1. Wow! This cab sounded awesome. The best way for me to describe it is that it provided, in my mind, a very linear presentation of the frequencies from low to high. What I mean by that was there seemed to be no holes or bumps in frequencies as far as my ear could tell. This cab sounded fantastic. Turned up the volume and tested the clarity at higher volumes and Wow! again sounded clear even at higher volumes. Enough volume that a person from one of the businesses in the same complex came by and asked us to turn down. :-)

It seemed that the lows on the RS212 was a bit more 'boomy' than the 15/6/1. The lows on the 15/6/1 seemed more focused. I liked that. I liked the mids on both the RS212 and the 15/6/1. The 15/6/1 had better highs to my ear. The highs on the RS212 rolled off pretty quickly.

On the TC RH750 head I had 3 presets:
1 totally flat
2 low mid and high mid bump +4 dots
3 same as 2 but added some TubeTone to give it some tube-y sound

15/6/1 sounded great with all of those sets. I fiddling with various knobs on the RH750 I got a number of tones that I liked out of the 15/6/1. Clean and flat, midrangy/tube-y sound, and tried some mid-scoop. I'm not much on mid-scoop but tried it.

I fingerpicked (my main technique) and tried some slap (don't have much need but wanted to hear the sound). Was able to dial in tones for each with no problem.

The 15/6/1 vs. the RS212 goes something like this:
- The RS212 can give you a good deep vintage sound.
- The 15/6/1 can give you whatever sound you and your amp can produce.

For me I'm a vintage-y sound guy. On the 15/6/1 I was able to use the RH750, bump the mids slightly, use the TubeTone until I got a little grit, not too much, and had a sound that I was really, really happy with.

TC Electonics RS212 sounds good.
fEARful 15/6/1 sounds fan-friggin-tastic!

The RS212 is about 65% of the price of a builder-supplied fEARful. A buddy of mine asked me if the difference in price is worth it. My answer is unequivocally Yes.

So I'm keeping the RH750 amp. I've since returned the RS212 ( I was within the 30 days), and have ordered a 15/6/1 from Ron and should have it by next week. I am most likely going to get both a 15/6/1 and a 12/6/1. 12/6/1 for smaller gigs, 15/6/1 for medium gigs, and combine for larger gigs. I will use a separate post to discuss my thoughts on that.

I've put this post on both greenboy and talkbass forums. Moderators, if that is a problem let me know and I will remove from one of the boards.

[jeff5311]

Cool! Great review. I'm putting together my 15/6/1 and 12/6/1 now. They are less costly tham the RS212 if you build them yourself.

Just make sure you have dual parallel inputs on your cabs as I believe the RH750 only has 1 output speakon jack. You nedd to parallel the cabs to run both at the same time.

[Scogman]

@Jeff5311:

Absolutely, Ron is putting Dual Parallel Speakon Jacks on the 15/6/1 for sure. Yes, can probably build the fEARful cheaper than buying the RS212, but I'm doing my best to support the Southern California economy. :-)

[4Mal]

I have a dual Speakon plate, plus a single speakon plate on one of my 12.6 cabs. There is also a switch to go from passive crossover to biamp and one to turn off the mid entirely. Sounds goofy, no ?

I can run that cab as a sub in my PA, along with a 12 sub, turning off the mid and setting for biamp let's me run 1 4 conductor cable to that cab and power my passive top cab from 1 run.

Last night I had that cab and the sub under a set of Mackie 1530'powered 3 ways, plus a set of Mackie 450's. The sub's more that ket up wneh the top end was getting a bit ragged. This was outside and it was screamin' loud up by the mains. 75 feet out at the board, not so bad. Freakin' amazing low end performance from such small little cab's.

I really have to do a pair of the 15 sub cabs too...

[jeff5311]

Originally Posted by Scogman

@Jeff5311:

Absolutely, Ron is putting Dual Parallel Speakon Jacks on the 15/6/1 for sure. Yes, can probably build the fEARful cheaper than buying the RS212, but I'm doing my best to support the Southern California economy. :-)

Great! I completely understand.

What head did you have before the RH750? I have a MB F500 now, but love all the features and presets available on the the TC Electronic stuff.

Now that they have the high pass situation figured out with the "tweeter tone," they definitely look like a great solution for me.

Do you like the compression and tube emulation?

[Scogman]

Originally Posted by jeff5311

Great! I completely understand.
...
What head did you have before the RH750?
...
Do you like the compression and tube emulation?

A while back (1983-2004) I had a
1) Early Fender Bassman
2) Yamaha PB-1 preamp and a Crown power amp in an Anvil rack driving a 15" cab and an 18" cab stacked. Also had an 8x10 for a while with the rack. In 2004 I donated the rig to some kids in the neighborhood.

Since 2004 I've had a Hartke combo and a Carvin micro-combo. Now that I'm getting serious about the bass again I'm on my quest for my next big (or not so big) rig. Been reading a lot on Talkbass and found out about the fEARful that way.

The RH750 Spectracomp is really good. I usually keep it around 9:00 when using it. That seems to suit me. I really, really like the Tubetone. I'm not going to say it will replace and Ampeg SVT, but if you make the analogy that the Ampeg are real breasts and the TubeTone are fake breasts, either one you can be happy with in their own way.

I use a Sansamp Paradriver DI and I like it as well. But I really like having TubeTone, TweeterTone, Presets, SpectraComp, the semi-parametric equalization, Presets, built in tuner, 450-750 watts, did I say Presets yet, all in one less-than-10-pound-box. All that stuff to get the same functionality used to fill my 8U rack and weigh more than the 15" cab it was driving.

The tone I can get with Spectracomp at 9:00, TubeTone at 9:00 to 10:00, even with the rest flat, is the bees knees. I really really like that package.

[parapentep70]

Scogman,

Thanks for the great review. I wanted to improve my gear, tested the RH-750 with RS210 (the RS212 not available at the time) and I was not 100% convinced.

After a lot of research (reviews, data, even cab simulations) I realized that I thought I would need the greatest 4x10 or even 4x10 + 1x15 (as most), but in reality I needed to follow a less emotional and more rational path... Something closer to Fearful or Barefaced.

With the prices of good Neo drivers rising so quickly I had to make a quick decision this morning, I bought some components for my own cabs (very similar to FearFul). But I was not completely sure if I did well, in my case I'd prefer to pay more for a good commercial cab or even more for a custom cab (but I don't have the last option).

This review is what I needed to confirm that all the numbers and technical explanations do work in the real world, now I am happier with my decision. NO RS cabs for me, just the head. A good 15' and a good mid driver makes the perfect cab. Two of them, better!

Perhaps I will go by the store and buy the amp head even if I cannot use it in some weeks.

Thanks