Flatwounds = more efficient use of amp power?

[jazzmonkey]

My theory is that by playing flatwounds you get louder low end from your amp. Obviously flats thump more than rounds, but perhaps there is a proverbial flipside to this coin?

I'm thinking flats could be like an active crossover for your car stereo setup. By only sending the frequencies you want your car amp to reproduce, you are more efficiently using the amp's available power to reproduce the frequencies you want.

So following this logic (perhaps pseudo) using flats sends more fundamental and lower harmonics to your amp, thus using no power on upper harmonics and enabling higher output focused on the fundamental. In other words, you can get louder low end since none of your power is being used by the higher freqs.

I guess this logic only applies when one is going for that kind of sound. Technically, I guess you could just roll off the tone on your bass and the highs and upper mids on your amp. I have a feeling that you won't get the exact same sound though, no?

In case you were wondering, I am currently a rounds player seriously considering the transition. I have only had one experience with flats and they are the infamous F****r SS flatwounds, and I hated 'em. I have since found out that they about the worst ones made, and that I need to check out some chromes, or TI jazz flats.

I guess I'm kinda looking for another reason to start playing flats. I will say that a friend has a Tacoma acoustic fretless strung with TI jf's and man, that is the best sounding acoustic bass guitar I have ever heard, hands down, but I think the bass has something to do with that also.

Anyway thanks for reading,
Rex

[GianGian]

I can see where you are coming from, but it does not make sense to me. I have always heard that low frequencies use more power to sound at the same loudness than high frequencies. So, if you get more high end out of your signal, then you are using "wisely" your power. Anyway, if your theory is correct, using an equaliser would have the same effect, no?

[BigOldHarry]

"Obviously flats thump more than rounds"...?

Not in my experience.

[darkstorm]

Low freqs are the energy eater not the highs. Elimimnating high freqs does nothing to make a amp run better since treble freqs use very little power compared to lows.

[jazzmonkey]

So efficiency is only really gained with high pass, that makes sense. I was just thinking......and sometimes it gets dangerous! Pseudologic indeed.

[GianGian]

Originally Posted by jazzmonkey

So efficiency is only really gained with high pass, that makes sense. I was just thinking......and sometimes it gets dangerous! Pseudologic indeed.

Thinking is good. Sometimes we come up with interesting things. Failures are steps to success

[mmbongo]

Actually I've found rounds generally louder that flats, so they would be more efficient.

[CapnSev]

I think it's just your ears playing tricks on you. Flats sound deeper than rounds because they produce a fundamental bass tone with more subdued highs, and a lack of overtones. I don't think that they "add" any sort of lows, they just create a different tonal flavor. I would think of them more as a type of eq pattern or tonal variation on a stereo rather than a crossover.

[Stanley Pugh]

A db meter would give you the answer to the science of loudness.
But perception of loud is in the ear of the beholder.
Interesting thought though.

[Captain Bob]

+1 on the TI's. The JF344 set is what you are most likely seeking.

As I have stated in a previous post or three, be sure to wipe each string down with Naptha on paper towels prior to installation. Both TI and Pyramid fail to clean their flatwound strings after polishing.
Keep wiping until the residue appears gone.

[SGD Lutherie]

Your ears are more sensitive to higher frequencies, and low frequencies require more power, so the most efficient use of your amp's power would be a bright round wound tone with the lows chopped off below something like 50-75Hz.

That would sound louder with a lower powered amp. But that might not be the tone you want. \

To give an example, listen to Dennis Dunaway's tone with the Alice Cooper band. It was very bright. He said it was brighter than he wanted, and he would have liked more low end, but it was producer Bob Ezrin's idea, and Ezrin pointed out that no matter what cheap radio the song was playing on, you could sure hear the bass with no problems!

[JohnnyB53]

Even if one type of string sounds louder than another, you're not gaining amplifier efficiency in either case; you're saving some work for the preamp--the input stage. In doing so it also improves the signal-to-noise ratio because it's receiving a stronger signal to pass on to the amplifier. You can make things easier on the amp by feeding it less low frequency amplitude, but what's the point of that? We're talking about basses here!

The other way to make things easier on your amplifier is to give it more sensitive or efficient speaker/speakers to drive. For example, generally speaking a folded horn with a high efficiency 15" driver will put out more volume at 5 watts input than a 4x10 sealed cabinet.

In home audio, the Klipschorn can produce 105 dB of volume at 1KHz at a 1M distance with one watt input. By contrast, some audio speakers only put out 85 dB under the same circumstances. You have to double amplifier output for every 3dB increment of volume, so it would take 128 watts input to drive an 85 dB efficient speaker to the same loudness you get out of a Klipschorn at 1 watt input.

Most instrument speakers are more efficient than 85 dB, but they can still range from about 90 dB to 102 dB or so. The 102 dB cab needs only 1/16 as much power to sound as loud as the 90 dB one.

[JohnnyB53]

Originally Posted by mmbongo

Actually I've found rounds generally louder than flats, so they would be more efficient.

The only efficiency benefit is to the preamp, not the amp. The amp doesn't really "care" how much of the signal strength is from the output of the string/pickup combination and how much is gain added by the preamp. Higher output from the instrument will result in a lower noise floor for a given amplitude and allow the bass to sound more dynamic.

Concerning string geometry, output from the instrument is primarily dependent on how much the magnetic field of the pickups are disturbed by the oscillation of the strings. A more magnetic string (e.g., alloy 52 made of 52% iron & 48% nickel), or heavier gauge strings, or lowering the action or raising the pickup(s) all make for a "louder" bass.

[cassius987]

If you want thump I wouldn't waste your time with TIs.

I do hear more focused lows in most flats than rounds. Rounds sound "louder" because they put out frequencies easier to amplify and hear. Rounds do not sound as thumpy, or as focused in the lows, as flats--almost never in my experience, except in the case of some very special rounds.

[baldy McBalders]

PM sent your way!

[Pilgrim]

Today's amps have so much more power than needed that I find this point extremely moot. I spent years playing through a 50W Bassman - now I have a Genz-Benz with 375W into 8 ohms, 600W into 4 ohms. I could be playing gut strings with a painted-on metallic coating and still shatter windows.

Play the strings you like...there's plenty of power out there.

In addition, the theory proposed comes dangerously close to entering the pseudo-science of Monster cables and other snake oil vendors who try to convince us that we need different diameters of oxygen-free wire in a cable to carry different frequencies...and other fairy tales.

Don't try to make life so complex. Plug in and play.

[billoetjen]

LaBella DTB = THUMP

[totallyfrozen]

Originally Posted by GianGian

...Failures are steps to success.

Very true, indeed. For this is how Fleming discovered penicillin.

[dvh]

Originally Posted by BigOldHarry

"Obviously flats thump more than rounds"...?

Not in my experience.

Define 'thump'

[Captain Bob]

Dennis Dunaway........good call, and excellent taste.