fEARless F212: New cab design from greenboy!

[CL400Peavey]

How does it compare tonally to other cabs you've played?
Are the low end & low mids solid, tight, & punchy?
How musical & balanced is the midrange?

I have giged the cab in a number of situations. Big clubs, small clubs, outside. All with out PA support for bass. The cab has never felt like it was near it limits. Tonally it is a little more refined but not as deep as my fEARful cabs. That isnt a good or bad thing, they are just different. The fEARful cabs do have something going on that this cab doesnt right out of the box, but I do not struggle to dial either to the others tonal range. The DuallyT is a different beast, but I would be hard pressed to choose the DuallyT or F212 as my favorite.

 

[5StringPocket]

Sounds like two flavors of good that cover different ground. DuallyT and F212 make for a great sounding dynamic duo.

 

[telecopy]

This may convince me to shell out some $ for a Greenboy! Like the form-factor.

 

[telecopy]

What came first? Greenboy or Barefaced? They sure do look similar.

 

[CL400Peavey]

What came first? Greenboy or Barefaced? They sure do look similar.

Actually they came about at the same time. Alex and greenboy tossed ideas back and forth on their first cabs I do believe.

Any updates from the field...?

Hows this. I had two gigs today. First on was in the middle of the day at a local blues bar. Indie-blues female singer, lead guit, drummer, and me on bass. It is a fairly large venue, with a great PA. I was running my AB1, fDeck HPF-3, Agi TH, Peavey Mark VIII, and my F212. I had the mid down and the tweeter off. Big thumpy old school bass. I was sending my DI signal out to the house, and had a woofer mic'ed. After the set the sound guy came up and told me he didnt even have me in the PA. He thought I sounded better just carrying the house on my own, and was more than present enough in the mix.

The second gig was with a cover hard rock cover band. Same rig, but tweeter on and mid up. We played outside and only the vocals and kick were in the PA. 2 hours of music, and I was running the amp HARD. After we were done playing I had four non musicians come up and tell me that they loved the way I sounded, and liked that they could hear me as well as they did. The bands that played before and us both commented that my bass tone was impressive outside. One bassist said that my tone was brighter than he expected, but it was well balanced, and let me sit really well in the mix.

I need some more time dialing my sound with the Mark VIII, but here is someone elses take on the F212 when I was playing outside with my tube amp.

CL- was gigging outside with his 400watt valve Peavey into this 62 lbs cab of amazing tone. Luckily I could swing by to catch a set. Band sounded great, very entertaining and fun night. Crowd was digging it.

With his amazing Dingwall and 400 watts of tube goodness, this cab nailed the gig. I was never wanting for more low end in the mix.

2 guitars playing moderately loud, decent PA and moderately loud drummer playing classic rock, hard rock.

The cab was a huge success, but man.... the signal chain all together was just sick... dripping with TONE!

Great playing J !

 

[telecopy]

These cabs are kinda pricey, due to the components cost, so the profit margins are a bit low. That being said, if a customer wants to personalize a cab , then I want them to have what's gonna make them the happiest. I don't actually make an extra nickel from custom cab colors or custom powdercoating. I charge what it costs me to get it done. Unless we get into tons of piping, or stripes, my labor is the same regardless of the cab color or hardware finish . I do have some pretty crazy stuff coming up with graphics, carvings...just labor intensive, but it's gonna make a fellow musician happy, so I'm all about it. This is probably the craziest request I've completed in awhileView attachment 377856

I have never seen a speaker cabinet quite like that. Crazy, yes. Well done. Art!

 

[telecopy]

Well the deal is done. I just dropped off a check and there will be an F212 coming my way!

Feeling charitable?

 

[CL400Peavey]

Feeling charitable?

You are more than welcome to swing by and try out any of my cabs.

 

[telecopy]

You are more than welcome to swing by and try out any of my cabs.

Reside in Oregon?

 

[alexclaber]

What came first? Greenboy or Barefaced? They sure do look similar.

Greenboy and I developed our original designs, the 15/6 and Big One in parallel, exchanging ideas but doing our own development work, back in 2007/2008, using the 3015LF woofer and similar midrange drivers. We diverged further when the 3012 drivers came out (Barefaced Gen 2 and fEarful/fEarless 12), and further still when we started doing in-house CNC allowing us to build more complex enclosures with lower weight and greater sonic integrity. At Barefaced we started developing our own unique drivers back in 2011, and our Gen 3 range was launched in late 2013. The design mindset is very similar with the Gen 3 and fEarful/fEarless designs but there's a pretty big difference in performance now because of the new Barefaced 12XN550 woofers and the 2-way design which they make possible.

 

[dukeorock]

And this is allowed?
Not to mention, not entirely true ?!

 

[DukeLeJeune]

The design mindset is very similar with the Gen 3 and fEarful/fEarless designs but there's a pretty big difference in performance now because of the new Barefaced 12XN550 woofers...

I assume you're claiming here that cabs with your 12XN550 woofer significantly outperform fEarful/Fearless designs that use the Kappalite 3012LF. I wonder if everyone is measuring with the same yardstick. So I have two questions for you:

1. One of the areas where you claim greater performance for your woofer is in displacement (cone area times linear excursion). As anyone who digs a bit quickly finds out, different manufacturers use different protocols to arrive at their claimed "x-max". For instance, Faital Pro uses a protocol that gives a much higher figure than the protocols Eminence follows. What protocol do you follow to arrive at your x-max figure, which is then used to calculate your woofer's displacement?

2. Specs for your Big Baby 2 indicate a net internal volume of ballpark 2.4 cubic feet (68 liters), a pistonic efficiency of 97 dB (comparable to the Kappalite 3012HO), and a "useable frequency range" that extends down to 30Hz. Assuming your pistonic efficiency spec is accurate, how do you arrive at the figure of 30 Hz as the lower limit of your useable frequency range? You see, my modeling program predicts no better than -12 dB at 30Hz for a 97 dB pistonic woofer in 2.4 cubic feet, and that's with the tuning optimized for 30 Hz. Once we start tuning to a more normal frequency for a bass cab, say 48 Hz, we're down something like 18 dB at 30 Hz.

Thanks in advance for any clarification you can provide.

 

[John D Harris]

And this is allowed?
Not to mention, not entirely true ?!

I believe he was responding to an earlier question.

 

[mbelue]

Subbed for das überdriver info.

 

[alexclaber]

I'm not saying better or worse - I'm just saying a big difference in performance, and I know that's the case because we've designed and built and sold lots of cabs with all four 12" & 15" Kappalite models before we launched our own drivers.

The big difference is sensitivity - yes we've got some more clean excursion (and much of that increase due to the suspension, not the voice coil overhang) but the 3012LFs already have a LOT of Vd! Faital's protocol is rather over-optimistic with high excursion PA drivers. A 3012HO has similar sensitivity but far less Vd than our 12XN. It's the combination of the two that's so effective.

I strongly disagree with the simplistic use of F6 or F10 as the definition of the lower frequency limit of a bass cab. The issue is that we are playing a musical instrument, we have a lot of EQ available to us and the average level down in the sub 50hz region is very low even though the peak level can be high. This is what all this rambling is about:

http://barefacedbass.com/technical-information/LF-sensitivity.htm

Many bass cabs state their lower limit based on F10 but don't have the Vd or porting to support useful output down there. What actually matters? A computer simulation based on small signal level T/S specs or the reality of turning up LOUD and seeing how low it can still move air?

 

[s_wood]

The OP was asking for info about a particular Greenboy cab - the F212. Perhaps issues relating to the comparison of various Greenboy and Barefaced cabs are best handled in topic-specific thread.

I've been using a fEARful 15/6/1 (by Dave Homer at Gigmaster Soundworks) as my primary gigging cab for for about 1 1/2 years now, and I love it. I've just received an F212 (also from Gigmaster Soundworks). I haven't gigged with it yet, but from what I can hear I agree with what CLPeavey400 said above: as compared to the 15/6/1 the F212 is less forward in the mids, and not quite as deep in the low end. That doesn't mean it's bass-shy: maybe less massive, but still massive.

I will post a gig report when I can.

 

[DukeLeJeune]

...yes we've got some more clean excursion (and much of that increase due to the suspension, not the voice coil overhang)...

So your answer to my first question would be, you're measuring x-max with your own unique yardstick. What would it be if you used a conventional yardstick, say voice coil overhang + 15%?

I strongly disagree with the simplistic use of F6 or F10 as the definition of the lower frequency limit of a bass cab.

And I strongly disagree with the creative use of F18 as the definition of the lower frequency limit of a bass cab. (For the record, I use F3, and I think Greenboy and Roger Baer and Andy Lewis and Mike Arnopol do too.)

You still haven't told us what yardstick you use to come up with that 30 Hz claim, but apparently once again it's your own unique one.

 

[alexclaber]

Because the suspension is sufficiently linear to this point, it is voice coil overhang plus gap/4. Voice coil overhang on its own comes up short for a lot of designs because of the flux outside the gap, whilst voice coil overhang plus gap/3 (Faital) is usually too long. Voice coil overhang plus gap/4 is often too long with longer excursion designs because of insufficient linear suspension travel. You can't just base Xmax on motor stuff - we had one prototype with 16mm Xmax based on 10% motor THD (simulated) but once you built the physical item the Xmax was much lower because it was suspension limited.

The point of all the different methods of getting Xmax is to get the 10% THD limit without the huge cost of a Klippel testing rig - it shouldn't be 'marketing creativity', it's a more accurate calculation to approximate the 10% THD limit than just using voice coil overhang alone.

I remember when I worked out and then tested our theory on what the cabs could do low down it was based on the ability of the cab to produce a certain peak SPL down to this lower limit frequency - it had to be loud enough to be usable on a real gig of the size you'd expect the cab to handle. We notice when we do an LF sweep on the cabs that the point at which the cab goes from making serious fundamental output to the 2nd harmonic distortion dominating is at about this point.

 

[alexclaber]

I'm not going to say any more in this thread because it isn't about this but I think that using hi-fi style F3 points (derived at small signal levels and in perfect half-space!) as lower frequency limits on musical instrument loudspeakers (or even PA loudspeakers in this world of big power and good EQ) is completely missing the point. That is my view as a bass player (who plays 5-string and uses FX) and loudspeaker designer.

 

[DukeLeJeune]

I'm not going to say any more in this thread because it isn't about this but I think that using hi-fi style F3 points (derived at small signal levels and in perfect half-space!) as lower frequency limits on musical instrument loudspeakers (or even PA loudspeakers in this world of big power and good EQ) is completely missing the point. That is my view as a bass player (who plays 5-string and uses FX) and loudspeaker designer.

The point of using F3 is that it's both honest and real-world useful.

And it is my view as an (award-winning) loudspeaker designer that, regardless of the convolutions one uses to get there, claiming -18 db or thereabouts as still "useable" is... oh, what's the word... let's go with "optimistic".

Once again, how do you arrive at 30 Hz? What is your cab doing at 30 Hz that you claim is "useable"?

My preference is for a level playing field where high-end bass cab manufacturers are accurately portraying what their cabs can do, and/or giving out enough information that knowlegeable bass players can make apples-to-apples comparisons. If one of us uses a unique secret yardstick that exaggerates the low-end performance by an octave or more, we no longer have a level playing field. I'm sure your cabs would stand tall on their own merits without the creative marketing.