Here are a few preliminary thoughts. This is just running in my home studio with the amp pictured. I usually reserve full judgement until I gig something as that is my acid test.
Amp is Monique into Demeter. Basses were my Yin Yang Deluxe, Rob Allen Deep 4, and Shen upright with KK Bass Max (just installed by me - and I'm a returning upright player so my chops on that are pretty suspect at the moment). My comparison is the Baer ML112 cab which I've done about 30 or so gigs with.
The two cabs have very different voicings. If I had to put words to it:
Baer: controlled lows and low mids, fairly forward mids and upper mids, nothing above about 7K (by design).
4x6: thicker in the lows and low mids, more relaxed in the mids, more air up top.
The basses reacted differently as well. I'm typically not into thick and wooly low mids and I like a fairly aggressive upper mid area. Hence me liking the Baer. With the Fodera, the 4x6 sounds a lot thicker down low. With the Baer I tend to dial in a bit of bass on the preamp. With the 4x6 instead I dialed up a bit of upper mid (the "middle" setting on the Pope preamp - I think it is around 800-1K). Running flat the 4x6 has more meat, the Baer more bite. Both take EQ well.
At first I preferred the Rob Allen through the Baer. Those basses have a ton of low end going on and benefit from control down there as well as forward mids. A little "too much of a good thing" with the 4x6, though I could eq that and interestingly found myself missing some of that low warmth when switching back to the Baer.
The upright sounded better through the 4x6. In general I hate amplified uprights but the 4x6 works really well with it. The Baer I had to pretty radically eq to get a sound I liked.
The 4x6 will get stupid loud with tons of low end. Seriously.
I want to try the Puma as I think the taste control would really play nicely with the 4x6. I'm going to do a bigger listening test maybe this weekend and will gig the 4x6 as well. Also I know that running horizontal is probably the preferred orientation but I really prefer vertical rigs, hence me running that way.
Very cool--glad you compared it to the Baer. I couldn't imagine two more different voicings!
Roger did a super smart thing. As many new cabs are moving toward a flat, studio monitor type of voicing Roger realized that rather than going that route he went toward a very functional voicing that is missing from these newer cabs. To my ears, he baked in a voicing that has a (not unmusical) tilt in the mids that give more cut without being too aggressive. And a bit leaner lows (not thin---but not bloated as some 3012lf based designs can be) that are very punchy and focused. It's a great cab. Cuts through a band without sounding at all wanky. Just my impressions.
With the Big E's I was going for a thicker, meatier (but controlled) voicing with what I consider a flatter midrange and ---thanks to Duke---a really nice transition to the tweeter.
When I say a "more meaty" low end I don't mean thick and boomy.A very cool thing we can get away with with the Big E's--you can have more power in the low end without boom.
It's much more apparent on stage. You can have more fundamental and first harmonic where other cabs get diffuse and have that bass "blanket" over everything. The Big E's can sound a bit thick in smaller rooms (at home) to me.They tend to load a small room pretty quickly. This attribute becomes more of a strength on a live gig. While that meatier voicing is still there, the "thickness" isn't. To me.
The Big E's take eq very well. Subtle twists yield noticeable results. You're going to love the Puma "taste " control. To me--it does exactly what you're after in a really easy way. Going from 12 o'clock to eleven makes a difference.The typical center point for midrange controls on most amps brings up the mids in the area you're talking about. The top engineer at Eminence worked with me to get a driver with the voicing I was after. I knew I was after flatter mids, but I wanted them to take eq well.
I can't wait for you to get it on a gig. There are other speakers that can sound really nice to me at home. On a gig is what the Big E's were designed for. The 3 dimensionality and separation between notes is more apparent there. As is the crazy dispersion. The 46's have been described as "super punchy" on stage. It's a very different punch than the Baer. His is a wonderful midrange punch that really lets you hear what you're doing. The punch on the Big E is the physical weight of the low end (actually the low, mid, and upper bass)hitting you. What makes it "punchy" is the envelope of the immediate start of the notes to a decay with no overhang.
Thanks for the initial impressions. I would tend to agree with you in the comparisons---these cabs are as different as you can get. It's good to hear favorable impressions when compared to a great cab!
And if you're reading this, Roger---I hope I did a good job of describing your great cab---please chime in if i described things in the wrong way.
Is your speaker a V2?
