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Avatar 3 way 15/6/tweet part 2

#63
What's the general consensus among owners, now that you all have had some gig time, everybody happy ? Anything you would change ? Weight that big of a factor?
 
#64
jnewmark said:
What's the general consensus among owners, now that you all have had some gig time, everybody happy ? Anything you would change ? Weight that big of a factor?
Click to expand...

At the price I paid and what it does I can't really complain about much at all. I am HAPPY
 
#65
The weight factor has been one of the big surprises for me. My main gigger the past few years has been an Ampeg 410 with wheels. My rack has a telescoping handle and wheels. Even my backpack of cables and toys has wheels. I ordered a nice little folding hand truck to use with the 153, but half the time I just carry it. It's a full 30 lbs lighter than the Ampeg. The handles are nice and I can one hand it (cause I'm just manly like that.)

As so many others have said (myself included) the sound is stellar - I really feel like I'm hearing my basses for the first time. Transparent, sold, and authoritative are all good descriptors.

That being said, I did run into a problem over the weekend. Sounded like my 6" mid was breaking up. Pulled the speaker this afternoon and ran it on the Marantz 510M in the living room. Speaker was fine, so probably a bad connection somewhere in the jack plate/cross-over or maybe a cap going bad. One e-mail this morning, a phone call this afternoon and a new assembly is on it's way, gratis. Might be the same issue Lomo is having?

All things considered, being a new design, a new crossover, and the first batch out the door, I guess you could expect a bug or two. It's a learning experience for them as it's been for me and the fearless fearful builders who've paved the way. Hopefully, it's an isolated event. Overall, no complaints from me with the cab or the company.

(Incidently, I pulled the 15 to get a look at the crossover during my diagnostic exam and I'm pretty sure it weighs less than the mid driver. Wow!)
 
#67
I've given my new 8Ω TB153 cabs enough break-in time to judge them....about 80 hours of loud Bob Marley, Electric Wizard, Snoop Dogg, Sublime, 311, Primus, and my own bass playing of course...all through my big tube amp.

This rig KICKS ASS. Large range, loud, full, articulate.

My two TB153 cabs do not handle the full clean headroom of my 400w Hiwatt since they fart out with the master volume dimed and pre-amp volume knobs up to approximately 11 o'clock position....varies a little depending on the bass pickups. That doesn't matter too much since it's so loud by the time it reaches that point. I'll probably be getting two more of these cabs soon. A single TB153 handles tube clipping with my 100w Hiwatt DR103, so I'm thinking 4 cabs with the 400w DR405 will suffice.

This would be plently loud enough for most gigging situations:
DR103TB153.jpg


This provides doom-like full body massage. I'm having a blast with this setup...so much fun. My spine tingles thinking about it.
DR4052TB153.jpg


monkeyking said:
What's the general consensus among owners, now that you all have had some gig time, everybody happy ? Anything you would change ? Weight that big of a factor?
Click to expand...
I am very happy with the weight. A TB153 is about 63 lbs if I recall correctly. I've owned cabs that weighed more than twice that much so 63 lbs is easy. If I changed one thing, it would be moving the tweeter and mid driver closer together like on fEarfuls, but I don't tweeters often...so it wouldn't make much difference for me. There is plenty of possible treble on tap with the mid-driver...at least enough for my own needs. Also, it would be nice to have the reverse baffle option for mating the mids and tweeters near each other when stacking two cabs. Maybe that will be an option from Avatar later on.
 
#68
DavidLopezJr said:
Anyone play something lower than a low A through one of these? If so how did the cab respond? Im considering getting one for low F# use but I'm do not know if the cab will be able to handle it.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Okay, I tried this. You can play low F# to extent depending on how loud you play and how the EQ is set. You won't reproduce the fundamental F# but you can get low harmonics. These cabs will certainly work better than most for this.
 
#70
If it is indeed the port, would there be any way of increasing/improving the port area on the cab? I suppose you could peel back the tolex, cut off the bottom port area of the cab, and make a new bottom portion and scre/glue it on and then re-tolex. But at that point you may as well just build a fEarful. But would there be any OTHER ways?
 
#71
No, not worth doing (making port bigger). But if the box is tuned too high it'll fart form a lot of low frequency content easier. Tuning it lower will help some, and also reduce chuffing somewhat.

First thing to do is determine whether there as actually any farting and where it actually came from.
 
#73
I'm not sure what it is exactly but I've not been a fan of the way tube heads sound with the 3015LF when cranked up - I've wondered about whether that's just the honesty down low of the 3015LF displaying too much of the filth the tube compression is producing.

I really don't know why it is but my 15/6 didn't sound great with my Mesa 400+ - not saying that's a true case for everyone, just me.
 
#74
greenboy said:
If they are farting from that head, there is seriously something wrong with the cab tuning/porting.

Is it actually the woofer farting? Or is it perhaps the mid driver losing the plot? Or is it port chuffing? Those ports could definitely have at least 25% more frontal area.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's the woofer. That amp farts out just about any cab though. There's something about the dynamics of the huge Partridge output transformer that pushes speakers to maximum excursion easily.
 
#76
rpsands said:
I'm not sure what it is exactly but I've not been a fan of the way tube heads sound with the 3015LF when cranked up - I've wondered about whether that's just the honesty down low of the 3015LF displaying too much of the filth the tube compression is producing.

I really don't know why it is but my 15/6 didn't sound great with my Mesa 400+ - not saying that's a true case for everyone, just me.
Click to expand...

+1 for me. I did not care for my vintage SVT through the TB153. My Streamliner 900 does MUCH better with the TB153.
 
#77
AwkwardLoudness said:
Yeah, it's the woofer. That amp farts out just about any cab though. There's something about the dynamics of the huge Partridge output transformer that pushes speakers to maximum excursion easily.
Click to expand...

Well, if that answer satisfies you, fine (even if rpsands baked in bass boost is factored). But I'm thinking the box tuning is too high if that's the case. Even with the lesser xmax of the 4-ohm OEM Kappalites, in a properly tuned box it is hard with bigger power than that to go audibly past xmax.
 
#79
I feel like amp choice is really important with any of these cabs because of how honest they are. I was thinking about this last night when I was running my LMII into my fEARful rig after having used a pre/power setup last week. Even though the Pre/Power setup was a little more powerful, I could get louder cleaner than I could with the LMII with a similar tonal profile. For quite a while I've been wondering if what I hear sometime on occasional random 'breakup' is in fact the head rather than the cabs, and this tells me that I was correct.

Chasing 'distortion' on these cabs can be really tough. It can be anything from sympathetic vibration in the room, something vibrating in the cab, something in the amp's signal or possibly a speaker. I tend to think in most cases it's not the speaker, though that's usually a player's knee-jerk reaction.
 
#80
greenboy said:
Well, if that answer satisfies you, fine (even if rpsands baked in bass boost is factored). But I'm thinking the box tuning is too high if that's the case. Even with the lesser xmax of the 4-ohm OEM Kappalites, in a properly tuned box it is hard with bigger power than that to go audibly past xmax.
Click to expand...
Cab design and port size could certainly be a factor. I know from much experience that the Hiwatt 400 farts out cabs much easier than other tube amps I've had especially with the 'bass' EQ knob dialed clockwise. The output transformer has a frequency response range of 3.6 hz - 112 khz. MHuss Hiwatt Amplifier Pages - Tech Info
 

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