| Hey guys-
Thanks to Ken, I got to spend a few days with this cab. I did not get any clips or pics like I had hoped, but I did get to check it out with upright and electric both gigging and in my basement.
All of my testing is with a Focus 2 S2, german upright with underwood and condenser mic (blended), Fodera Monarch.
Don's build quality continues to get better and better. The spray coating looks terrific and the cosmetics look very professional, at least as good as Epifani and/or Bergantino. I really liked the spring-loaded tilt back handle on the bottom.
I really enjoyed this cab for upright. The tone is very woody and present without any wooliness or boxiness. The HT and the LDS are similar in size and generally quite similar in tone. I found that the cab went significantly deeper than the HT112 but lacked a little bit of the upper mid/middle mid bite that the HT puts out. Overall, I actually found it more pleasing and natural than the HT but without some of the "ugly" that helps the HT cut through.
I found the LDS to be a much better upright cab than the UL110. The top end is more present (surprisingly) with the LDS, and it beats the 110 on low end hands down.
It is worth noting that the LDS is a MUCH better carry than the HT, despite only being 6lbs lighter.
With electric, I actually noticed the little "hole" in the middle mids a bit more. I think it would be a very good electric cab for Ken's style...nice lows and nice highs...but my sound lives in the mids. I didn't find that the fingerstyle stuff "jumped" out as well as it does from the UL112.
I know Ken spec'd this cab to have as much low end as Don could design into it. Nevertheless, I have found that the LDS cabs tend to go very deep. I suppose it has something to do with the crossover and/or porting? Anyway, I believe they tend to put out much more low end than other similarly sized cabs.
For my purposes, I would like to hear the same driver in a cab voiced for more mid-punch and less low end. It is an excellent sounding coax driver which, overall, I prefer to the bullet tweeter in the HT112 and the phenolic tweeter in the UL cabs.
Thanks Ken!!! Can't wait to hear from the Woods users when they get to check it out.
__________________
GrooveShoppe/AcousticImage/Schroeder
|