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Love mine. I got it with the DITOS transformer-isolated DI out.
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I received my replacement Rumble 100 yesterday night. It is the 4 ohm speaker model. I tried it out briefly this morning. Ummmmmmm... I am not happy presently. Under the same conditions that I used for my 8 ohm unit: room, Fender Jazz with Pure Vintage 62s, EQ, etc. settings the new unit sounds notably brighter and stiffer (faster attack and decay, minimal note bloom) than my 8 ohm unit did. The 4 ohm unit has more harshness/brittleness in the upper mids/lower treble. Angry piano tone even though I am using "matured" 7250s and my tone control is at 50%. The strident frequencies fall outside the center frequencies for the tone controls on the amp. The bass frequencies of the 4 ohm unit appear to extend to the same frequency but there is less weight/authority in the low end. Maybe lesser note weight is just relative due to the increased brightness? At this initial impression stage, it seems like my 4 ohm unit is voiced quite different from my 8 ohm unit. I would love to hear other players' experience/perspective.
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I am hoping break in will help. It would be radical proof of speaker break in if it gets this unit to sound like my first unit! Oh! The controversy that would ensue. I will take measurements tomorrow. Disclaimer : I will be using a less than ideal decibel measuring tool but at least I can compare apples to apples and not just rely on my perception over time.
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Yes, Aki, hopefully, a bit of speaker break in will sort things out.
I can tame mine using my Cort B5 Element's onboard preamp or using my Two Notes Opus either into the FX Return Input or into the Instrument Input, but yeah, mine is broken in and it's still harsh in the mids-upper mids, though the low end seems to bloom just fine.
I have a Celestion BN12-300S (4) headed my way and reportedly, it is smoother in the midrange, handles power more gracefully, with more solid low end at volume.
My suggestion, give it some break-in time before you decide what you want to do with it.
I suppose you could always find an inexpensive EQ pedal or similar option.
Thanks for the support. I will take my time, experiment, do a proper break in, and see how things work out. I triple checked that I did not have the bright switch engaged. I plugged into the headphone jack with somewhat neutral studio headphones and the headphone tone is much closer to my 8 ohm unit. That would seem to indicate that the bright switch is not faulty, I assume?
Headphones a good test.
Can you hear (with headphones) a difference between bright on/off? That would definitely rule bright out.
Can you hear (with headphones) a difference between bright on/off? That would definitely rule bright out.
Brought the amp to band rehearsal yesterday and I have to say, this amp really kicks. Sounds great! Really happy with the purchase.
I got the grill made in the proper orientation. Makes the cab look almost brand new and I did use the Silver, Black, and Grey grill cloth. The head has the "aged" grill cloth and the R115 (bottom) has the older natural grill cloth.
Any chain smokers out there?
I might have you put the new grill in front of your A/C inlet for a couple weeks!
I might have you put the new grill in front of your A/C inlet for a couple weeks!
Well...it's "official"...my Rumble 800 is in the house. Can't wait to fire it up after work!!
Way to Rumbler #1848! Please put that number in your TalkBass Signature for safe keeping.
I doubt those settings would work very well for the 8 Ohm drivered version of the R100c, because it would not need that much cut to the mids.
Thanks for the suggestion to completely rule out the bright switch. I just tried it. There is a difference with the bright on/off (and the other tone shaping buttons) through the headphone out. The switches are fully functional through the headphone out.
I did some grade school science project-level measurements using the same dB app, weighting (A-weighting: good for mids but sucks for lows and highs, kinda mimics the Fletcher-Munson curve) and everything else for the speaker measurements. Not professional results but better than just my ears and possible perception bias interfering. I can then compare my past measurements of the 8 ohm unit and the 4 ohm unit under the same, less than ideal, circumstances. I am comparing wormy apples to wormy apples. Got it? With everything the same including technique, picking open E with a moderate downstroke using a medium gauge gel pick, the 4 ohm unit is loosely about 3 dB louder than the 8 ohm unit overall. The third harmonic of the open E is stronger by about 4 dB with the 4 ohm unit. The 4 ohm unit is about 10 dB hotter at 1.5 kHz, and then about 10 dB hotter at 2.5 kHz through 4 kHz.
The fundamental and 2nd harmonic are consistent unit to unit even with the A-weighting. The 4 ohm Rumble 100 had been used for 45 minutes total, at the time of the its measurements. The 8 ohm unit had tons of hours of use prior to its measurements.
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I love this approach! Which app are you using?Thanks for the suggestion to completely rule out the bright switch. I just tried it. There is a difference with the bright on/off (and the other tone shaping buttons) through the headphone out. The switches are fully functional through the headphone out.
I did some grade school science project-level measurements using the same dB app, weighting (A-weighting: good for mids but sucks for lows and highs, kinda mimics the Fletcher-Munson curve) and everything else for the speaker measurements. Not professional results but better than just my ears and possible perception bias interfering. I can then compare my past measurements of the 8 ohm unit and the 4 ohm unit under the same, less than ideal, circumstances. I am comparing wormy apples to wormy apples. Got it? With everything the same including technique, picking open E with a moderate downstroke using a medium gauge gel pick, the 4 ohm unit is loosely about 3 dB louder than the 8 ohm unit overall. The third harmonic of the open E is stronger by about 4 dB with the 4 ohm unit. The 4 ohm unit is about 10 dB hotter at 1.5 kHz, and then about 10 dB hotter at 2.5 kHz through 4 kHz.
Can you take readings from the FX send just to see what that looks like?
Now I want to do these tests against my ("identical") R100s to see if there are differences based on speaker usage time (~20 hours vs ~200 vs ~1,000).
I used HOLMImpulse to match the graphs in the wiki. Will be interested in what Akiyama is using.
Thanks! I am using decibel X. I was using A-weighting originally which skews readings to a Fletcher-Munson-ish curve. That is what I measured my original Rumble 100 with so I used the same skewing so I have wormy apples to wormy apples. Z-weighting is flat. That is a better, more neutral curve. I will use z-weighting in the future.
"Decibel X" is one of very few noise meter apps on the market that has highly reliable, pre-calibrated measurements and supports dBA, dBC. It turns your iOS device into a professional sound level meter, precisely measures the sound pressure level (SPL) all around you.
- Trusted accuracy: the app is tested and pre calibrated for all Apple devices. The precision is matching with real SPL devices
The SPL apps may or may not be accurate. The most recent testing I see is from 2020. That said, cardiologists and family medicine doctors recommend patients use home blood pressure cuffs and record their readings even though the units may not be "accurate". But trends can be seen. The trends have value. We are only getting ballpark figures for amps not making life-or-death decisions.
I use the phone's mic as I do not have access to a proper flat frequency mic. If the app is truly calibrated per phone model then it should be close enough for horseshoes. I cannot/have not used the FX send for input to the app.
Please post your results. If enough of us (ideally, 25 or more to accommodate variance) Rumble 100 users) geek out and post results, I will do a scatter plot and run regression modeling to see if there are notable statistical trends. I will post the results.
A solution to minimum sample size for regressions
Regressions and meta-regressions are widely used to estimate patterns and effect sizes in various disciplines. However, many biological and medical analyses use relatively low sample size (N), contributing to concerns on reproducibility. What is the minimum N to identify the most plausible data...
