hi-fi for bass?

[ianangus]

Here is a link to a blog entry I did on the subject.

http://thegeekysideofrocksuperstardo...-for-bass.html

I love how my bass sounds recorded cleanly and played back through my home stereo so I thought I'd try to make a bass rig out of hi-fi gear that I had lying about and this is what I came up with.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried to do this already. If it didn't work, what roadblocks did you encounter? If it worked, how did you solve the problems you encountered and what kind of gear did you use? If you've not tried it before them what problems do you forsee in my future?

I have no plans to play any of these setups live cause I know the surrounds and the voice coils in these drivers are not meant to take a beating like pro-sound drivers but I sure am having fun playing.

Thanks for your replies.

[Derek Kiernan]

You might want to look into the fEarful designs here, or Audiokinesis' Thunderchild, potentially with a clean pre going into a power amp. I really have no idea what your volume needs are thought

[Calaverasgrande]

hifi designs that have high wattage are not intended for high average output. They are intended for preserving headroom. Maybe at coffeeshop levels it will work. Otherwise I wouldnt risk damaging perfectly nice gear.

[ianangus]

Risk of damaging perfectly good gear aside...

I know that hi-fi speakers are not meant for high output and that the drivers begin to break up at a relatively low level but the solution to that problem, though it seems simplistic and has diminishing returns, is more speakers.

Am I wrong?

[KJung]

Originally Posted by ianangus

Risk of damaging perfectly good gear aside...

I know that hi-fi speakers are not meant for high output and that the drivers begin to break up at a relatively low level but the solution to that problem, though it seems simplistic and has diminishing returns, is more speakers.

Am I wrong?

IMO, yes. A speaker designed to provide moderate volumes with compressed, programmed music in a small space is a totally different thing than pounding those massive peaks at even moderate volumes.

As posted above, there are quite a few cabs that are based on the 'logic' of hi fi/audiophile type speaker cabinets, but using components and road worthy boxes that you can actually gig with.

Duke of Audiokinesis is actually a hi fi system designer, and his bass cabs are a thing of beauty, and just hammer. The 'Greenboy' fEarful type design, using a high quality mid driver and a full, two or three way crossover (if you decide on a tweeter) is also a wonderful execution, and they come in 'small/medium/large depending on your volume needs.

Low Down Sound and Avater also make their own executions of these mid driver designs if you aren't a do it yourselfer.

Some of Jim Bergantino's cabs (like the HT112ER and AE212) are of more typical two way woofer/tweeter designs, but are so well executed with such nice crossovers, that they also reach the level, IMO of 'audiophile' tone reproduction.

I would HIGHLY recommend trying one of the Audiokinesis TC112 cabs. With 400-500 watts (it is a 4ohm cab.. so any micro head will do) into it, it IS like playing through a hi end stereo system, but it won't blow up

[JimmyM]

+1 for ken and audiokinesis. don't confuse hi fi audio systems for musical performance with stereo systems.

[cnltb]

Originally Posted by ianangus

Here is a link to a blog entry I did on the subject.

http://thegeekysideofrocksuperstardo...-for-bass.html

I love how my bass sounds recorded cleanly and played back through my home stereo so I thought I'd try to make a bass rig out of hi-fi gear that I had lying about and this is what I came up with.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried to do this already. If it didn't work, what roadblocks did you encounter? If it worked, how did you solve the problems you encountered and what kind of gear did you use? If you've not tried it before them what problems do you forsee in my future?

I have no plans to play any of these setups live cause I know the surrounds and the voice coils in these drivers are not meant to take a beating like pro-sound drivers but I sure am having fun playing.

Thanks for your replies.

I had cabs made that had 12 drivers each ( 4.5" I think) and they are the best sounding cabs for my instrument I have ever heard.
They are slightly unpractical though as they are not small.
Plus...they were stolen.
They were not made for loudness,yet could easily handle medium Volume gigs.
I also use a power amp by a hifi gear manufacturer. I use it for pretty much everything I do when certain volumes are needed.

[kosmicwizard]

speaking of an infinite amount of small drivers and hi-fi sound ...

http://www.philjonespuresound.com/products/?id=99

Cheers.

[Passinwind]

Originally Posted by ianangus

Risk of damaging perfectly good gear aside...

I know that hi-fi speakers are not meant for high output and that the drivers begin to break up at a relatively low level but the solution to that problem, though it seems simplistic and has diminishing returns, is more speakers.

Am I wrong?

Has anyone ever tried this before? You're kidding, right? Every kid who has ever owned a bass and no amp yet has tried it, and Dad ended up pretty unhappy about the blown tweeters in a great number of cases. I had this, er, friend...

You're the right track with your vertical stacking experiment. As always though, there's no free lunch. For just playing at home what you are doing is great fun (until someone puts an eye out), and I have played in a few jazz rehearsal situations where we all ran through a home hi-fi rig quite happily, for years. The biggest problem is the fact that by the time you hear the drivers complain, they are often toast. Well designed MI rigs give you some cues and some forgiveness before it all goes south.

All of which sidesteps the the fact that if it sounds good, it is good. Have fun, and let us know how it progresses for you.

[JTE]

The design parameters for home stereo use and for electric bass use are pretty far apart most of the time. Home stereo needs to be:

A. Able to handle a compressed, and therefore pretty limited dynamic range- the difference between the softest sounds and the loudest it can handle is small. Plus the compression on recording allows them to be able to not worry about many high spikes compared to what happens in the real world of bass playing.
B. A relatively wide and accurate frequency response but at the cost of lower levels of efficiency.
C. Look good but not worry about being hauled around so they don't have to be rugged
D. Mostly for small listening spaces. Even huge living rooms aren't nearly as big as bars

In contrast electric bass speakers need to be:

A. Able to handle a very wide dynamic range- from a soft touch to a thumb hitting the open B string with too much bass boost.
B. Be rather efficient so the bassist doesn't have to have 5000 WRMS to cover a normal room- and extreme efficiency has tradeoffs, generally around low end response and frequency response smoothness.
C. Survive being hauled around over rough roads, temperature extremes, and smacking against other gear while in the truck or car. Not just the appearance of the cabinets, but all the components need to be able to survive this. The way the drivers are mounted, how rugged is the cross-over net work, the wires used, etc. are all impacted by this requirement.
D. Give you enough volume to create a bass sound that the bassist likes and transmit it into a pretty large listening environment.

The big difference is the home stereo stuff is made to accurately REproduce a recorded signal that's been processed to make it fit well with home stereo stuff. The electric bass instrument speaker system is designed to PRODUCE a sound the bassist likes with an uncompressed dynamic instrument with a lot of squirrely spikes in the signal, and do it at rather high volumes for a long time.

So, I voted "anything's possible", but I wouldn't do it with my stereo speakers. Just like you CAN use a Fender '59 Bassman reissue for bass, but I wouldn't try to do any playing with a drummer using one.

John

[Joebone]

Over the years I've seen bassists using "hi-fi" poweramps into regular bass cabinets. At least twice I've seen a big McIntosh power amp pressed into this service, and other things that I could not recognize or recall, but which certainly had that distinctive consumer hi-fi look. And then there is Crown, whose poweramps were well thought of in the 70's and 80's, and saw some hi-fi use at that time.

I can easily imagine a brawny hi-end hi-fi amp sounding great, but that stuff was not generally designed for roadworthiness, and the good ones weigh a TON, due to massive transformers, capacitors and slab metal faceplates intended to appeal to the hi-fi crowd.

I'm not current with the hi-fi world, but it would be interesting to see how Class-D amps are making out in that world, and the extent to which those are based on power modules that are the same or resemble those used for the bass mini-amps.

[greenboy]

Good way to not be loud enough to bring the rock. And then blowing up drivers trying to rectify the situation.

[MNAirHead]

I designed my rackmount biamp rig around this concept.

My PA setup was also based around home hi-fi/audiophile specs... it is not as powerful as many folks insist a pa should be.

Neither was cheap or easy.... not sure I'd do it again.

Tim

[Coolhandjjl]

Look at it this way- using MacIntosh or SAE power amps is one thing. People do it all the time. But the cabs have to be engineered from the ground up for the demands of live music.

Also, 20~20KHz looks good on a Hi Fi spec sheet, and those JBL's, Cerwin Vega's or whatever, sure sound good hitting those über low notes while in your living room, but those über low notes amplified to crowd volume would be nauseating (plus the wattage and cab demands would be cost prohibitive). Most live music is rolled off at 40hz on stage, and even as high as 80hz on the PA.

[fokof]

It also depends on your definition of the word "Hi-Fi" , someones Hi-Fi can be someone else's "brownbox".

Is Meyer Hi-fi ?
Is D&B Hi-Fi ?

If you answer Yes to those , then it's a definite Thumbs up to the question

[greenboy]

It doesn't take a wizard in the muffin utility research kitchen to see that home hi-fi was the brunt of the biscuit.

[groooooove]

markbass amps, brickhouse cabinets..

atleast it makes me happy.

[gnjpowell]

BTDT as I like a Hi-Fi (100% clean) sound too. I now run a Hartke Hydrive 4x10 cab driven by one 900W Ch of a QSC PLX1804 pro amp. I use a Yamaha PB1 pre-amp with bi-amping capability. When I can, I run the wide-band outout into one 900W Ch into the Hartke 4x10 and the low-pass output crossed-over at about 100 Hz into the second QSC 900W Ch into a SVT-810 for "a little more low end". Sounds super-clean and it Rocks! Oh, main axe: '79 Rick 4001, also '70 Gibson EB-3, '90s Gibson Thunderbird, 60th Anniv Deluxe American Jazz bass.

[jsbarber]

There is a variety of equipment that is audiophile quality that bassists can, and some do, use. For instance, the Millennia Media STT-1 Origin and TD-1 are designed for studio use but some bassists use these as preamps. (I've seen a picture of Anthony Jackson using an STT-1, for instance.)

Glockenklang's Bass Line: Bass Art Classic Head, BAC Preamp, and Bugatti Poweramp are definitely audiophile quality. In fact, a home audio version of the Bugatti is offered by Glockenklang. A review can be found here:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/g...g/bugatti.html

The gigging version is only sightly different. I took my Bugatti into a high end audio store and used it with a pair of $28k speakers and an $8k Cd player and it sounded really good.

I think speaker cabinets are the area where true audiophile quality is hardest to find. But audiophile speakers are serving a different purpose. They aren't intended to be moved, imaging is very important and the listener typically sits in a special location, power output is often lower, etc. The Glockenkland BAC Cabinet sounds great, and I've heard that the Glockenklang Acoustic Art MKII and MKIII both sound fantastic. They use audiophile quality components, including a softdome tweeter that is no longer being manufactured so you can't buy these new anymore.

I am also a big fan of the Berg IP310 which sounds great, although I don't have two to try with my CD player to see how good they sound in a home audio environment. But as far as delivering home audio quality for gigging, I think the IP310 fits the bill.

FWIW, IMO,

Jim

BTW, I also agree that using true home audio equipment for playing bass is looking for trouble. It was not designed for this application and is not fit for this purpose.

[Passinwind]

Originally Posted by greenboy

It doesn't take a wizard in the muffin utility research kitchen to see that home hi-fi was the brunt of the biscuit.

Indeed, my man, indeed. Unless the OP happens to have the Wall Of Sound lying around his living room in pieces.