Well Ken, how did the gig pan out?
Just got home. What a nice gig. Nice country club on the bluffs over a River, beautiful sounding room, great bottled IPA at the bar, and a hotel within 5 minutes of the gig. Very good band (great piano player that came in from Chicago). 5 1/2 hour gig, including a full two hours of trio work up front, and a full bore, loud dance set with no PA support for the remaining 3 1/2 hours, with the typical 'casual' gig sort of song list (polite hip hop, pop, a few oldies rock tunes, a little 70's funk, etc.).
Rig was the Nordstrand 5 string P, the Streamliner and the Fullrange. Volume was what I called 'professionally loud' for the dance portion, which I define as the band using good dynamics, and cranking loud enough to sound balanced with a relatively hard hitting drummer with no PA support.... so, pretty aggressive.
OK, this is not a simple task, since this cab is unique.
First, the 'all good'... the trio set. We were playing very softly, and I have never, ever had so much pleasure from a rig. The huge, fat, warm low end of the Streamliner/Acme came through totally. Many cabs, for whatever reason, lose that sort of 'fatness' when turned down really low. This is one of the few times (of course, the Streamliner and P had a bit to do with it) of me feeling that I had that 'DB like' authority when playing tunes. I won't say it sounded anything like a DB, but it had that girth and fatness that most EB's lack in that sort of setting (piano, bass, horn). Fantastic. The other thing is that the cab has amazing near field spread to it (I assume due to that big dose of omni-directional low end, which can be heard in front of and to the side of, and later in the night for the drummer, even behind the cab. The cab sounded very similar as I walked around the stage (very small, but still the spread was meaningfully better versus most cabs). This has nothing to do with that little slice of upper midrange that many talk about when discussion dispersion... I'm talking about the fundamental meat of the bass note up and down the entire neck. So A+++ there. If you are an EB player playing in Jazz setting, folk settings, or other moderate volume or low volume situations, and are interested in 'non boomy fat' tone that just envelopes the stage, and at least somewhat out in the room (as I took a bit of a stroll out front), this cab is a massive success if you have a bit of power.
Whew! OK, so far so good. Now for the 'good with caveate part'... the dance set.
Again, pretty much as loud as I play, so a good test. The good news, that big, full, fat but not boomy low end was there for the entire night. The band dug it, and the volume level was similar to a 'non bass oriented track' you hear on CD's or the radio... that low end and support was there, the notes were articulate with nice round voicing and a nice clean identifiable attack, but surely not 'in your face' or in any way 'grindy and aggressive'. Nice top end extension with the tweeter, but neither that clean, present, glassy upper midrange of the Thunderchild, nor the bit of grindy 'hear the windings of the B string' upper mid rough presence of my AE210.
Put another way, and with no offense to one of my favorite players, Pino Pallidino, it is the tone that I think he is trying to achieve with his P with flats and just doesn't quite hit (at least on that live John Mayer CD and a recent live concert I attended)... that warm, round, smooth, organic fat P Bass tone, but unlike some of Pino's recordings, a very defined front end attack, and some very clear, nice note definition. I'd love to get two of these cabs in Pino's hands when he plays that P.
Slapping... forget about it.... and not in the good 'forget about it' way. At the volume we were playing, the hard hits of a thumb thump totally brought the rig to its knees, so I just didn't do it (compressed so much as to almost disappear down low). Quite frankly, at that volume, I've yet to meet a 112 that didn't suffer at least a similar fate, although the Thunderchild puts up a fight longer than most.
I don't know if it is a better low end voicing of the Acme 112 versus the original B series 10's, or the wonderful hi pass filtering that the Genz engineers have done on the Streamliner, but for the MASSIVE, full, deep low end, I never once felt I was putting the drivers in harm's way like I did back in the day with my B210's (where you could see those 10's pistoning to the point of jumping through the grill (or so it seemed). Very controlled, and again, with enough power (and/or musical limiting at the power stage like with the Genz amps), you can definitely do a loud gig with one of these IF you are looking for a 'sit back in the mix supportive sort of role'.
Two of these... forget about it in the good way of that term... that would handle pretty much everything for almost anyone. (edit: Still wouldn't choose two of these for pop J Bass type playing... I still feel any sort of hard digging in or slapping would bring these cabs and most heads to their knees versus more typically voiced 410's or 212 rigs).
So, I am VERY pleased, although just like the Streamliner, this will be a 'specialty' piece of gear to use with certain instruments (in my case, the P) and on certain types of gigs.
Lots of words from me as usual, but in this case, I think warranted. Just like the older 10 loaded B series II cabs, this execution is unique for neo 112 cab, and is its own unique flavor in the Super12 category. Nice job Andy!!!!!!
To be very clear.... this is a 'think carefully what you want' cab when considering the purchase of one.
