Bass Gear Mag issue 6

[danomite64]

hope people are supporting them by buying in or it won't be around forever.

I got my subscription!

 

[One Drop]

It is interesting to see how different people read the same article and interpret the results differently... Some slam TC for marketing obfuscation, others applaud the psychoacoustic technology. As stated, it is the final tone that people crave, and SPLs.

Consider for comparison light bulbs.

A 100W light bulb is pretty bright.

Then along comes a 22W CFL light bulb. Just as bright. But what? It's not 100W? But it puts out approx 1600 lumen, same as the old bulb.

It all goes to show that watts aren't the deciding factor for loudness. Get over it. Technology changes. That said, TC's marketing should have spun it differently so it came off better, but that's another story...

Anyway, nice magazine. Only read the last couple issues online, but will have to look through the archives. Love the depth and tests!

Dekker

Exactly.

Watts is watts, but that don't mean squat.*

*Oversimplificated for poetic license.

Great issue, Tom!

 

[tombowlus]

Renewed my printed sub yesterday!

Have I mentioned lately what a fine and upstanding individual you are?

Thank you and everyone else for your continued support. We do appreciate it!

 

[silentmike]

Might I add that the I also really like the mag? It interests the bassist and massive geek in me! I love the in depth analysis of the amps!

 

[drpepper]

...and I always did think it was a bit anaemic; now we know why

That's a good one! Hahaha!

 

[kringle77]

I definitely will be renewing my paper subscription. This isn't a magazine like bassplayer where you can read it in one sitting and toss it out. I keep the BGM as a reference guide for gear. Love it.

 

[Handyman]

Then along comes a 22W CFL light bulb. Just as bright. But what? It's not 100W? But it puts out approx 1600 lumen, same as the old bulb.

It all goes to show that watts aren't the deciding factor for loudness. Get over it.

This analogy is conflating power consumption with power delivery. If amps were spec-ed this way, SVTs would be WAY more than 300 Watts.

 

[makohund]

This analogy is conflating power consumption with power delivery. If amps were spec-ed this way, SVTs would be WAY more than 300 Watts.

Somewhat. But it works for this context... watts delivered to an output device vs the desired output of the device. The socket/ballast/amp sends current to the bulb/gas tube/speaker to produce lumens/dB.

Sure, the socket doesn't really do anything but pass continuous power to the bulb, while what an amp sends to the speaker varies considerably. So add in a monkey going nuts with a dimmer knob... now it behaves a little more like an amp.

For the sake of the analogy, consider the TC running a speaker to be more like a ballast running a gas tube, instead of a socket running a bulb. It produces the same lumens (dB) with less watts. There are ballasts that will work with a dimmer knob if you REALLY need to compare exactly, or have a spare monkey wanting something to do.


SVT... um... a bunch of 100W strobes plugged into a power strip?

 

[CrackBass]

Actually from an engineering standpoint, I agree with Handyman. Power consumption has nothing to do with output power only the efficiency of the power amp. Actually by that measure the TC just became about half as efficient. What the TC sucks from the wall socket is irrelevant, the issue is what the TC puts out. I love my RH450 and won't get rid of it over this, but I feel that TC blatantly lied about the amp in order to sell it. Form your own conclusions.

 

[aborgman]

It's too bad some people will take this to mean that TC is dishonest instead of applauding the engineering going on behind the curtain and judging the amp perhaps without having heard it...

TC IS dishonest.

No matter how good the amp sounds, and no matter how psycho acoustically loud it appears - they outright lied about output power.

 

[JimmyM]

TC IS dishonest.

No matter how good the amp sounds, and no matter how psycho acoustically loud it appears - they outright lied about output power.

That's my stance, too. Psychoacoustics....pffft! It's a 200-something watt amp at best. It's very clear what makes a watt. I have no idea how it's determined but it's a standard of measurement that has been around for decades in amps and everyone uses it. This is akin to the tired old "tube watts are louder than SS watts" thing...no they're not. A watt is a watt is a watt. And if the watts are half of what is claimed, you can make excuses with all the talk about psychoacoustics and innovative implementation all you want, and at the end of the day it's still going to have half the watts that they claim.

I think TC has a lot to answer for.

 

[Fishheadjoe]

Keep checking my mailbox for my hard copy... it usually take a few more days for it to reach us north of the border.
I would really like to hear what the good folks at TC have to say about this. It in no way will affect my enjoyment of my RH450, but it does tend to make me believe that I may re-think any future investment in their product, based soley on published specs.
Fishheadjoe

 

[tombowlus]

FYI, there was a delay in getting the pint copies mailed out. My printer prefers to ship/mail everything out at once, and it took a bit longer than expected to get the Sam Ash order in, so they are going out I believe today or tomorrow. I apologize for the delay, and this will not happen again, since Hal Leonard will be handling Sam Ash and all other music stores going forward.

I apologize for the inconvenience and delay...

Tom.

 

[makohund]

Actually from an engineering standpoint, I agree with Handyman. Power consumption has nothing to do with output power only the efficiency of the power amp.

Actually by that measure the TC just became about half as efficient. What the TC sucks from the wall socket is irrelevant, the issue is what the TC puts out.

Half as efficient by what measure?

The analogy has nothing to do with power consumption. The point was similar work performed by different means.

And that the work performed should be measured in lumens or average dB gained, not by how much electrical current happens to pass through a cable at some point in the process.

Watts are watts, but so watt?
Decibels are decibels, and that's what counts in the end.

If the TC, with the same signal, through the same cab, delivers equal average volume (measurable in dB by a meter... has
nothing to do with psycho acoustics), who cares if it happens to do it with fewer peak watts or not?

From what I can tell from the article, the only issue is that peak wattage is lower than advertised, and cannot be delivered. But put up against an amp that can produce the advertised power, it actually delivered more power on average.

It's a power punch vs. combination argument. The single punch may hit you harder, but the combo can deliver just as much or more damage.

I feel that TC blatantly lied about the amp in order to sell it. Form your own conclusions.

That I agree with.

I'm not arguing that TC is in the right at all. Just that the analogy wasn't really that bad, for pointing out what is going on with that amp. Getting the same desired end result (light or sound) with less.

No matter how good the amp sounds, and no matter how psycho acoustically loud it appears - they outright lied about output power.

That too.

Psychoacoustics....pffft! It's a 200-something watt amp at best. <snip> A watt is a watt is a watt. And if the watts are half of what is claimed, you can make excuses with all the talk about psychoacoustics and innovative implementation all you want, and at the end of the day it's still going to have half the watts that they claim.

I think TC has a lot to answer for.

And that too, 100%. But read the article... it's not "psycho acoustically loud" or any other mumbo jumbo. It actually did deliver more power than the equivalent 450W amp, most of the time. Just not the peaks. (If I'm wrong, slap me... I'm no expert. But that's what I read.) Not sure how without making it sound over-compressed, but... that's basically what is going on. Optimizing gain structure and compression continually and automatically to get the most out of the power available, and actually deliver more to the speakers, minus the biggest transients. Something like that.

TC blew the wattage rating. Stupid. They should've just called it what it was. But at the end of the day, it appears that it really does put out volume like a much higher wattage amp. And it does it by putting out more real power, more of the time. Pretty nifty trick. They should've been trumpeting how loud their little low-wattage amps were, instead of claiming them to be higher than they were.

 

[JHAz]

Couldn't any fool who knew how to set up a compressor scrape say 10 dB off the top of their bass ahead of any amp's input and achieve essentially what TC did? I understand that their power management compression only kicks in at higher power, but still . . . if I understand it, it's just compression/limiting. Isn't it?

So if you compress it yourself in a way that's similar to TC, your amp that puts out 450 watts, really, could be as psychacoustically loud as a 1000-ish watt amp, right?

 

[lookiel]

TC IS dishonest.

No matter how good the amp sounds, and no matter how psycho acoustically loud it appears - they outright lied about output power.

I agree with this but was trying to say that maybe we should focus on the technical achievement instead of blacklisting the company.
Besides, c'mon, who doesn't lie in the MI industry?
A watt is a watt is a watt for sure, but is there any one given standard for measuring them between manufacturers?
I do not believe so.
Cab power handling, same BS from pretty much everybody.
And for the record it's not psychoacoustics, the articles deserve to be read and understood.

 

[77PBass]

Beginning with issue #7 (the next issue), our distribution in music stores world wide will be handled by the Hal Leonard Corp. We are very excited about this, as HLC is choosing to enter this market with a limited number of titles, including Premier Guitar and Modern Drummer, in addition to Bass Gear Magazine.

Tom...that is mighty good company to keep. Premier Guitar is the best Geetar porn on the newsstand. Modern Drummer is very good as well. Keep up the good work.

 

[Handyman]

From what I can tell from the article, the only issue is that peak wattage is lower than advertised, and cannot be delivered. But put up against an amp that can produce the advertised power, it actually delivered more power on average.

That's certainly not how I read it, but we can let Tom comment on that.

 

[aborgman]

I agree with this but was trying to say that maybe we should focus on the technical achievement instead of blacklisting the company.
Besides, c'mon, who doesn't lie in the MI industry?

About amp power ratings?

Ampeg is generally pretty honest.

Cab power handling, same BS from pretty much everybody.

Yeah, cab power handling is horrible - but their numbers are REAL, under their useless contrived testing conditions that don't apply at all to reality.

The TC numbers are just plain made up... under ANY testing protocol.

And for the record it's not psychoacoustics, the articles deserve to be read and understood.

No, it (like mp3 compression) is all about the ability to remove parts of the signal (that eat up lots of power) because folks won't notice... and then once you remove those bits, you can boost the remaining signal much louder.

It's basically just a complex multiband compression/limiting scheme. You could throw the same thing in front of any power amp and get the same "sounds like" more watts effect.

Heck - look at what throwing a rumble/lowpass on can do for your ability to crank the volume. Same idea.

 

[makohund]

Couldn't any fool who knew how to set up a compressor scrape say 10 dB off the top of their bass ahead of any amp's input and achieve essentially what TC did?

On one hand, yeah. But I think you could probably tell from listening to it.

That seems to be the nifty part of the trick... doing something like that without sounding like it.

Look at their background... a lot of signal processing gear. I don't think that is a coincidence. They should build a bass preamp.

(Edited to include quote)