flite sound cabs

[mongo2]

My only gig cab over the last 10 years or so had been a Flite 1x15. I ordered it made for an EV driver and have since put in a PV BW and I have never problems with thin sound at all. The thing has always been capable of thunderous lows.

Mine has gotten dinged up a little (less than my previous wood cabs) but it still works fine.

 

[Mitchthebassplayer]

About 7 or 8 years ago I discovered their booth at a Florida all state orchestra convention in Tampa and just showed up with my fender jazz bass to check them out. The two guys there gave me a whole tour of their product line and freaked out over my playing (all I was doing was slapping). Then they set me up next to the booth to demo their cabs and I drew a crowd of maybe 35 people. They asked me to come back the next day and demo a few other cabs and put on a little show every 2 hours. I said sure! So after all was said and done they told me they wanted to endorse me and build me a custom 1x15 cab. I was stoked that they wanted to do that for me, but I really wasn't that impressed with the sound of their cabs. I was floored at how light they were, but the tone was a little sterile for me, and I was playing in a band at the time and needed something a little bigger, but I hooked my upright teacher up with them and she bought a 1x12 cab from them and was utterly disappointed. It really sounded bad and couldn't get any louder than a small combo amp. Maybe their new stuff is better?

 

[fretlessrock]

Maybe I was a bit touchy about the "horrible" comment, but I could say the same thing about many of the first neo drivers to appear in bass cabs (Ampeg, for instance). Many of them couldn't handle their rated power, sounded weak, and in my case, died a quick death accompanied by a muffled frying sound and the smell of burning bakelite. It was a new technology, and the early attempts had some problems. I don't go around saying that Neo drivers are bad technology. They needed progressive engineering and field testing.

Flite started out as a garage operation run by a guy who had made stressed-skin laminates in aerospace (IIRC) and applied them to speaker cabs. The first one I tried, at Kurt's shop, was a 123W that had the bottom firing woofer and a buzzing baffle panel. IMO, the simple cabs with less internal structure held up better. He had a simple ported 110 and that one sold me. I play a lot of gallery gigs while sitting on my cab. I weigh 260! The cab has no structural issues.

Kurt was well known for massive delays and long turn around times. I don't know about the guys running the show now. They came out of the gate making a lot of promises about better customer response, and in some cases delivered. But I think the best idea is to follow up with folks who have dealt with them recently and get some info from Flite about their product policy in case you buy a new one and don't like it.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

As a current owner with hundreds of gigs with my Flite rig, I can honestly say to the negative comments, those opinions couldn't be farther from my experiences.

I run a bi-amped rig with 1 15" with mid, about 135hz and below so the mid isn't even functioning, and 2 10" with Horn. I have replaced the horn with a Selenium since I like it better. Also replace the 2 10's with some Schroeders my uncle gave me. Each cab is 4ohms powered with an older QSC 1602.

As far as rattles go, my guitarists Marshall cab produces all the obnoxious rattle live. I've played outdoor shows and it pushes plenty, indoors it's fantastic. I like stacking them on an Auralex Gramma pad to help isolation. What's amazing with the cabs is if you feel the cab when other sounds like PA or drums are in the air they really do resonate with all sounds, very reactive.

Yes they are a sandwich of thin ply and foam, both my cabs are sub 30 lbs. and I can carry both into a gig. And yes these were pre Neo's at that weight especially with the 15. Originally I was dealing with Guy LaPointe when I got mine, and he got them to me in time to play a local Jazz fest. But this was well over 7 years ago. If I recall I got them within 2 weeks.

The only bad thing I can say is I had to glue the port back in the 15 as the wind it was pushing pushed it right out of the cab.

Oh yeah I've had several players say to me it's the best bass rig they have ever heard. Glad to see they are still around, but I haven't needed anything else in years and my back and ears thank me every gig.

Cheers,
Dirk

 

[Bloomworks]

I've been using Flite Sound cabinets for guitar since the mid 90's. I drove out to the factory under the original owner and figured out that the closed back version sounded better with my Walter Woods than the open back.

I'm on my 2nd or 3rd 112 cabinet, with a rear port. Never had any trouble with any of my cabinets. They are super light and sound amazing. All soundmen can't believe the huge sound I get out of such a small rig.

A couple of months ago I started doing gigs on electric bass and discovered that I didn't have to change my rig at all! Really cool. I didn't have to buy any new equipment. Walter Woods head into the same Flite cab which has an Eminence Beta 225 watt speaker in it.

I recently (3 or 4 months ago) got onto Eminence's artist pages but I was using their speakers since the mid 90's before that. Also, I have been able to find better deals on the internet than their "artist discount" prices. Oh well!

In any case, my Flite sound cabinet is just as good with Electric Bass as it was with guitar.

I don't know if I got lucky, but all the cabs I had from Flite have been excellent.

Cheers!