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AudioKinesis Cabs Part VI...
- Thread starter Thor
- Start date
- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
Sorry I've been out of touch. I'm hoping to still do recordings of the two cabs I have very soon.
Thank you so much for your time and work, Selta! If you conclude that it's just not feasible and/or decide that you need to move on with your life and start devoting your weekends to something else, please by all means do so!!
I don't want to do anything that will impose a price hike without offering some worthwhile improvement somewhere.
Duke, I would consider worthwhile improvements such "intangibles" as your increased available time for R&D, and your better quality of life and well-being.
This is one of the many reasons I'm proud to be a member of the AudioKinesis family.
A general question I'm just looking for opinions from actual users of a TC212.
I have a Mesa D800 I'm using and it will be my power section.
I currently use 2, 2 cabinet setups.
2 - Aguilar db112's
2 - GK Neo212's
The GK's definitely get louder than the Aguilars but can a TC212 really compete with 2 212 cabinets with twice the speaker cone surface area?
I have a Mesa D800 I'm using and it will be my power section.
I currently use 2, 2 cabinet setups.
2 - Aguilar db112's
2 - GK Neo212's
The GK's definitely get louder than the Aguilars but can a TC212 really compete with 2 212 cabinets with twice the speaker cone surface area?
I had asked a similar question about a TC212 or two 12's vs a 4x10 a few weeks ago. I think the responses to my questions will be similar. Having owned Aguilar 112's and TC 112's and I can say that there is simply no comparison with how much louder and clearer the TC cabs are. I haven't used the Gk's directly. The TC stuff has such clarity and better dispersion that you might perceive it as louder, even if you 2x12 setup pushes a little more air.
- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
Well since I'm not a bass player, I'm not an "actual user", but here's my $.02 anyway...
I mis-read your e-mail and missed one critical detail: That you were asking how the TC212 would compare with TWO (non-Kappalite) 212 cabs. I would not expect the TC212 to be able to keep up. On paper the amount of air theoretically displaced may slightly favor the TC212, but that only compares fartout threshold, and even then only approximately. I haven't heard of a TC212 being driven into fartout, so it probably runs out of thermal power handling before it farts out... or to put it another way, the voice coils will probably overheat and be damaged before the woofers fart out. This is one of the drawbacks of these long-excursion uberwoofers - they play loud and handle a lot of power, but they don't give you much warning - you have to listen for thermal compression setting in, and/or the cab otherwise starting to sound distressed, and back off soon as you hear it.
Across the rest of the spectrum, two good 212 cabs are almost certainly going to be louder than a single TC212.
I realize there may be other manufacturers of "uber 212" cabs that have made claims indicating their 212 can hang with any other two 212s and/or with an 810. Let's just say that the yardsticks I measure with would not justify me making that kind of claim. Imo the fEARful 1212/6 would probably have the best chance of keeping up with two 212's.
I don't own a TC212, but I'll add a general comment you can take or leave.
Once you get to ear-plug SPL, unless you're playing outdoors without a PA & need to get Grateful Dead loud, I'm not sure it matters which cab has higher SPL. IMO, it would take a dang large venue w/o PA to Require more than what the TC212 can put out (given sufficient power).
Another question I have from reading up on these cabs is that term sufficient power. I don't get wrapped around spl figures and what not. What sounds good to my ears is what matters most.
I used to run a power amp / preamp setup with a sans amp RBI and a qsc plx 1602 bridged into 1600w at 4 ohms.
My opinion is you never need that amount of juice, lol. I had neighbors two streets over pounding on my door complaining that every wall in their house was vibrating. That was through a Megoliath 810. I'm more interested in the quality of the sound coming out of the cabinet. How well it can be heard in a mix with a full band, not how it sounds in my house.
I'm going to stick with my D800 and I feel 800w is plenty of power but also have read that some of these cabs don't show their true capability unless pushed with a lot of power.
So what is the actual range of power these cabs work well with?
a while back i did a pseudo spread sheet of some of the different ak cabs. the numbers are based on the ak site, some stuff duke posted in this thread and then some pm back and forth i had with duke. you can also see some blank spots.
***these were up to date in december 2016***
delete original jpg file. updating in a later post.
a while back i did a pseudo spread sheet of some of the different ak cabs. the numbers are based on the ak site, some stuff duke posted in this thread and then some pm back and forth i had with duke. you can also see some blank spots.
***these were up to date in december 2016***
***these were up to date in december 2016***
delete original jpg file. updating in a later post.
a while back i did a pseudo spread sheet of some of the different ak cabs. the numbers are based on the ak site, some stuff duke posted in this thread and then some pm back and forth i had with duke. you can also see some blank spots.
***these were up to date in december 2016***
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i use 2 H1203 and a D800 - can't imagine ever trying to wring all loudness available. hathors are relatively power hungry, yes, but 2 1203 and 800 ( sic ) watts is waaay loud, brutha'.
That amp should be in the sweet zone for this cab.
There's always caveats as previously mentioned.
I had the PLX1602 at one point with a Bergantino HT322 running bridged mode - cops did come a-knocking more than once.
From what I've read the D800 has a decent HPF in front so that's some extra protection for the woofers.
I think it'd be a great match for that cab.
Here's a riddle. Give me some slack. I'm on vaycay.
When is a Hathor 1203 not a Hathor 1203? Ans: when the cab has been upgraded with a rear firing 3 and still has all the features of the H1203.
@DukeLeJeune can supply details. This "Changeling 112" arrived today. I'm pumped. A while back I mentioned to Duke that some gigs I can't hear myself well when my cab is next to me instead of behind me. With this switch-controlled rear firing speaker it sounds like the sound is coming from everywhere.
First gig with it on Thursday in a jazz quartet. Can't wait for all of us to hear the bass better.
Thanks Duke.
Some pics attached.
Okay, that's pretty damn cool.
- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
So the cat is now officially out of the bag!!
My thanks to Ken and to all the rest of you who took an oath of secrecy and didn't spill any beans before the new cab - the Changeling 112 - became a reality.
If you look close at Ken's excellent photo of the back panel, you'll see a switch marked "0" and "-7". That's the shelving switch for the rear-firing mid, which is in its own little open-format chamber, identical to the one on the Hathor 1203. In the "0" position, the output of the rear-firing mid is actually about 3 dB down in level relative to the front-firing mid over most of its spectrum. At the bottom end of its spectrum, it is actually a little bit louder than the front-firing mid and rolls off a bit slower, as this gives a better blend with the woofer from its back-of-the-cab location. With the switch in the "-7" position, the rear-firing mid is shelved down by another 7 dB or so, for a total of -10 dB relative to the front-firing mid. This puts it in the same general ballpark as the rear-firing tweeter on the "acoustic friendly" versions of my Thunderchild cabs. And since I've never had anyone say that the rear-firing tweeter is too loud on those cabs, I think that the "-7" position should be sufficient attenuation for situations where stage volume is an issue.
Of course virtually everything in the world of speakers is a tradeoff, and in this case, one of the tradeoffs is portability. The rear-firing mid + associated crossover circuitry adds three pounds relative to the Hathor 1203. So I don't expect the Changeling 112 to replace the Hathor 1203.
I'm hoping that "sound coming from everywhere" characteristic takes us into new territory. That's sort of like what I hear from a good open-back guitar cab, and I'm hoping the Changeling cabs will be a bass-cab-equivalent, or pretty close anyway, but without the drawbacks that an open-back guitar cab has: poor low-end definition, and sometimes too much stage volume.
Very interested in hearing your impressions and your bandmates' as well My theory is, everyone in the band benefits from hearing the bass player, and so in turn everyone in the house benefits.
Thank you!! And we can thank Mike Arnopol for raising the dispersion bar pretty darn high.
- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
It's a 4 ohm cab. The woofer is a custom Kappalite with excursion and parameters about halfway in between the 3015 and 3015LF, but with a cone more like the 3015 so the top end is likewise more like the 3015.
Sorry if my cabinet generations were unclear! I may have been inconsistent, and probably was.
