GR Bass or Barefaced - Best efficiency? [a small experiment]

[Boneless]

Yet you are ignoring that with accurate, honest specs, how loud it will get without farting out is DIRECTLY related to the average sensitivity bandwidth and the rated mechanical power handling. This is why we provide BOTH of these specs.



Yet, you didn't read what I posted with ANY accuracy. I clearly differentiated between thermal and mechanical power handling (we provide BOTH specifications for every Subway cabinets), and I also stated PREMIUM products which are different from BOUTIQUE products which may look premium on the outside but not premium at all on the inside.

You are mis-characterizing musicians (and bass players in particular) as lacking in technical knowledge... to be charitable, which IMO is hugely insulting to the community as a whole. There are quite a few knowledgeable players out there and a good number are represented here on TB.

Premium cabinets made today are very much a major improvement over the cabinets of the 1960's, claiming that they aren't is either intentionally entangling or you have no idea what you are talking about. I was there, I am very familiar with the history of speaker designing as I started professionally with this in 1980, improving on the older designs with newer materials and techniques. You claim that FRFR cabinets are much more refined, yet the drivers used in my "premium designs" are in fact the same (or better) drivers than are used in FRFR claiming products. Everything I have used over the past 20 years in bass guitar speakers is directly from the pro audio side of the industry (where I worked for much of my career).

Premium products test their products and publish their specs because it insures that the customer gets what they pay for, and that it's the right thing to do. IMO, not testing a product means that the designer/manufacturer either doesn't have the necessary knowledge, or doesn't care enough about their designs to verify that they meet their own claims.

You are missing the forest for the trees.

Why are bass cabinets the way they are? Mostly echoing vintage designs? 4 10" woofers arranged in a square? 12" speakers arranged diagonally? Because "it looks good". Why, in general, do people choose 10" or 12" or 15" speakers? Because this echoes certain traditional "wisdom" related to the voicing of woofers (10" fast, 15" fat, 12" in the middle). Which may or may not bear any relation to the way those speakers actually sound. The more rational placement would be on the vertical axis, because, apart from using up less space on stage (which is often scarce) you would maximise their horizontal dispersion and make it easier to have clear sound on the whole stage. But it "looks weird"...

Why use a woofer full range (and a tweeter haphazardly bolted on next to it, with just a HPF feeding it so that it doesn't crap out) when you can have a woofer + midrange or tweeter each dedicated to their own optimal frequency range, making much better use of the incoming power? (Which is what PA audio equipment does, for good reasons). Why even use a passive crossover, when you can do that with an arguably better/more efficient/more controllable active crossover and bi/tri-amping? Better yet, why should we still go with the idea that we need a separate head + cabinet? (An amp, class D, weighs so little there is very little weight advantage in having them separate, and you still need to deal with power cables, potential user error, etc.). Why not design cabinet and amp as a whole (and optimise both synergistically), so that the musician can just plug into it and play? (With all the adjustments a musician might want to make, with all the mid boosts or scoops he may wish, compression, distortion, etc.). It doesn't even need to be "hifi", it can have as much character as a traditional amp but with little to none of the drawbacks... but the MI industry doesn't do this because for some reason there is very little demand for this. A combo amp which is the simple pairing of an amp and a traditional speaker is fine, but not this. It's growing... which is why you now see these FRFR cabinets (...just regular 2-way full range active speakers) being marketed, and mostly to "digital" guitarists who are expected to plug into them with their Kemper amp sim or whatever.

All this to say that... see, those head scratching claims on Barefaced's or GR's website only elicited some perplexity today, on a relatively little used music forum... because the MI industry can get away with it. Musicians largely have little time or wish to delve into the nitty gritty, what they want to know is: does it sound good? Does it sound loud? Does it weigh a lot? (A combination of these three depending on each musician's priorities). Now, in all honesty, do you really think that a bass amp and speaker needs more than, say, 300 "clean watts"? A 96dB speaker (so a not very sensitive one) at that power will output more than 120dBs, sustained, one metre away. An unhealthy figure, by the way. Let's say that the speaker is constrained, mechanically, to 150W at 80Hz, and that power compression may rob another 3dBs or so. We're still well over 110dB. Why should we even have more power than that? Is it to deal with those pesky transients, which could be clipped away and we wouldn't be able to hear them clipping?

All you say and have said is technically true... (even the silly distinction between "premium" and "boutique", which is a simple word choice) but we're at a stage when it doesn't really matter, we have, these days, so much power on tap and such cheap equipment performing well enough that, for GR, they don't even need to sound better than the competition. They have just needed, especially for the past four years or so, to be much lighter than the competition (because 14kg or so is fantastic for a cabinet). 103dB or 101dB 1W 1m... these are numbers the average musician can't really interpret. (I am more technical than *all* of the musicians I know personally, and I don't even know what those numbers mean in real terms, ie. how loud they feel; I only know that they're easily high enough). 14 kg, he can. It's a bit more than a six pack of 2-litre bottles of water (7 bottles, if you must). If they go to the gym, they know even better.

 

[agedhorse]

You are missing the forest for the trees.

Why are bass cabinets the way they are? Mostly echoing vintage designs? 4 10" woofers arranged in a square? 12" speakers arranged diagonally? Because "it looks good". Why, in general, do people choose 10" or 12" or 15" speakers? Because this echoes certain traditional "wisdom" related to the voicing of woofers (10" fast, 15" fat, 12" in the middle). Which may or may not bear any relation to the way those speakers actually sound. The more rational placement would be on the vertical axis, because, apart from using up less space on stage (which is often scarce) you would maximise their horizontal dispersion and make it easier to have clear sound on the whole stage. But it "looks weird"...

Why use a woofer full range (and a tweeter haphazardly bolted on next to it, with just a HPF feeding it so that it doesn't crap out) when you can have a woofer + midrange or tweeter each dedicated to their own optimal frequency range, making much better use of the incoming power? (Which is what PA audio equipment does, for good reasons). Why even use a passive crossover, when you can do that with an arguably better/more efficient/more controllable active crossover and bi/tri-amping? Better yet, why should we still go with the idea that we need a separate head + cabinet? (An amp, class D, weighs so little there is very little weight advantage in having them separate, and you still need to deal with power cables, potential user error, etc.). Why not design cabinet and amp as a whole (and optimise both synergistically), so that the musician can just plug into it and play? (With all the adjustments a musician might want to make, with all the mid boosts or scoops he may wish, compression, distortion, etc.). It doesn't even need to be "hifi", it can have as much character as a traditional amp but with little to none of the drawbacks... but the MI industry doesn't do this because for some reason there is very little demand for this. A combo amp which is the simple pairing of an amp and a traditional speaker is fine, but not this. It's growing... which is why you now see these FRFR cabinets (...just regular 2-way full range active speakers) being marketed, and mostly to "digital" guitarists who are expected to plug into them with their Kemper amp sim or whatever.

All this to say that... see, those head scratching claims on Barefaced's or GR's website only elicited some perplexity today, on a relatively little used music forum... because the MI industry can get away with it. Musicians largely have little time or wish to delve into the nitty gritty, what they want to know is: does it sound good? Does it sound loud? Does it weigh a lot? (A combination of these three depending on each musician's priorities). Now, in all honesty, do you really think that a bass amp and speaker needs more than, say, 300 "clean watts"? A 96dB speaker (so a not very sensitive one) at that power will output more than 120dBs, sustained, one metre away. An unhealthy figure, by the way. Let's say that the speaker is constrained, mechanically, to 150W at 80Hz, and that power compression may rob another 3dBs or so. We're still well over 110dB. Why should we even have more power than that? Is it to deal with those pesky transients, which could be clipped away and we wouldn't be able to hear them clipping?

All you say and have said is technically true... (even the silly distinction between "premium" and "boutique", which is a simple word choice) but we're at a stage when it doesn't really matter, we have, these days, so much power on tap and such cheap equipment performing well enough that, for GR, they don't even need to sound better than the competition. They have just needed, especially for the past four years or so, to be much lighter than the competition (because 14kg or so is fantastic for a cabinet). 103dB or 101dB 1W 1m... these are numbers the average musician can't really interpret. (I am more technical than *all* of the musicians I know personally, and I don't even know what those numbers mean in real terms, ie. how loud they feel; I only know that they're easily high enough). 14 kg, he can. It's a bit more than a six pack of 2-litre bottles of water (7 bottles, if you must). If they go to the gym, they know even better.

You obviously do not understand why these things are done when designing practical bass amplification, but that's ok because your livelihood doesn't depend on it, nor does it depend on understanding the real world requirements of yhje players who use bass gear in applications where the actually NEED that kind of performance.

 

[Boneless]

You obviously do not understand why these things are done when designing practical bass amplification, but that's ok because your livelihood doesn't depend on it, nor does it depend on understanding the real world requirements of yhje players who use bass gear in applications where the actually NEED that kind of performance.

This is a non-response, and that's ok.

 

[agedhorse]

This is a non-response, and that's ok.

Addressing just one of your specific "gripes", why do woofers in bass cabinets not have low pass filters generally?

The reason is that it's a desired part of the tone for the natural distortions for the woofer driven into areas of frequency non-linearity. The is especially true and necessary when overdriven tones and distortion are part of the player's tone, using a LPF strips an entire layer of the desired harmonics from the palette, making the tone lifeless and uninspiring/sterile.

This is why I say you are uninformed and uneducated specifically regarding MI bass amplification. The above is not true in pro audio however, where this is an undesirable quality.

 

[Boneless]

Addressing just one of your specific "gripes", why do woofers in bass cabinets not have low pass filters generally?

The reason is that it's a desired part of the tone for the natural distortions for the woofer driven into areas of frequency non-linearity. The is especially true and necessary when overdriven tones and distortion are part of the player's tone, using a LPF strips an entire layer of the desired harmonics from the palette, making the tone lifeless and uninspiring/sterile.

This is why I say you are uninformed and uneducated specifically regarding MI bass amplification. The above is not true in pro audio however, where this is an undesirable quality.

...yeah, and you can't hear any of those harmonics if you're not on axis with the speaker. Or maybe worse, you shape your tone based on what you hear standing *over* the amp and when you're on axis you are overwhelmed by high mins.

I get it. You're a world-famous band and you have roadies loading and setting up the stage for you, so you can use whatever huge stack of cabinets you want, really. (Even there, if you're using in-ear monitors, it's all just for show).

You're recording and you want that "miked-up cabinet" sound. Roger Waters still used Ampeg B-15s in the studio. Of course, it makes sense.

For a large portion of gigging musicians, though, they would be much better served by a "pro audio" speaker (only, bespoke for bass, with a midrange instead of a tweeter, perhaps, and with a woofer not designed to focus on midbass, best paired with a sub) since they would actually have much better projection. You can also simulate those peaks and valleys in the upper midrange and the speaker distortion with EQ (say, a fixed bank of 1/3-octave filters covering 1kHz to 4kHz) and further processing, if you really wanted to. (In my experience, you can get away with EQ alone - or IRs if you will, which are the same thing essentially, but honestly even broader strokes work well - but for added realism one may also account for speaker nonlinearities). You would actually hear them better because they would be output by a small speaker instead of a large one.

 

[Boneless]

(The point in all of this is not that these things *should* be done. It's that essentially all bass amp manufacturers are churning out more or less fancy versions of a Harley Davidson. At this point, who cares if HP is off by a digit, or whatever. It's still a HD, that's not the point of this kind of bike. Or amp).

 

[paskisti]

Addressing just one of your specific "gripes", why do woofers in bass cabinets not have low pass filters generally?

The reason is that it's a desired part of the tone for the natural distortions for the woofer driven into areas of frequency non-linearity. The is especially true and necessary when overdriven tones and distortion are part of the player's tone, using a LPF strips an entire layer of the desired harmonics from the palette, making the tone lifeless and uninspiring/sterile.

This is why I say you are uninformed and uneducated specifically regarding MI bass amplification. The above is not true in pro audio however, where this is an undesirable quality.

I never though why reasonably good bass cab sounds better than same bass signal + cab sim coming out of the PA set with subwoofer (2x JBL PRX 12" + 2x JBL EON 18" subs in my case). They are similar but bass cabs (210 + 410 in my case) kick better and have crispy sound compared to PA set. Audience probably doesn't care but I like to monitor myself via bass cabs in rehearsals and onstage.

 

[el murdoque]

Yet you are ignoring that with accurate, honest specs, how loud it will get without farting out is DIRECTLY related to the average sensitivity bandwidth and the rated mechanical power handling. This is why we provide BOTH of these specs.

True, yet ...
1W1M measurements can be done with two goals in mind:

1. To provide the bassist with a little technical knowledge on how SPLs work with an info on what to expect.

2. To get the highest number possible because bigger numbers sell better.
I guess that you know all the tricks. A naked 1W1M value does not tell you about the measurements of the room, the placement in said room and the frequency fed into the cab. (And maybe they have used tube watts instead of solid state watts ;-) )

The same goes for maximum Watts.
You can try and find the point where the speaker in that cabinet is maxed out and measure the power going in at that point, or you can specify the thermal rating of the voice coil.

Now all you need is a vast accumulation of experience with lots of brands to know which provide accurate, realistic measurements, which guess their numbers and which run their numbers by the marketing department.

 

[Boneless]

I never though why reasonably good bass cab sounds better than same bass signal + cab sim coming out of the PA set with subwoofer (2x JBL PRX 12" + 2x JBL EON 18" subs in my case). They are similar but bass cabs (210 + 410 in my case) kick better and have crispy sound compared to PA set. Audience probably doesn't care but I like to monitor myself via bass cabs in rehearsals and onstage.

In my experience, a lot of cab sims (IRs) are overly boomy. That is probably because they don't account for the proximity effect, since most are taken with a microphone (often a "shaped" microphone, like a Beta 52 or a D112, which already cut the mids quite a lot) right in front of the speaker grille. That close, you will invariably get a sizable bass bump (especially with a hypercardioid microphone). It's not hard to compensate for, but I suspect few do so. If I get around to it, one of these days I will upload a few IRs myself of my own amp + cabinet (a GK Neo 212), with these things accounted for, with the caveat that my amp is not exactly the best amp to do this kind of stuff (it's a GK 800RB, and its power amp is noticeably "coloured", especially if the boost is on, as well as noisy for modern standards).

 

[paskisti]

In my experience, a lot of cab sims (IRs) are overly boomy. That is probably because they don't account for the proximity effect, since most are taken with a microphone (often a "shaped" microphone, like a Beta 52 or a D112, which already cut the mids quite a lot) right in front of the speaker grille. That close, you will invariably get a sizable bass bump (especially with a hypercardioid microphone). It's not hard to compensate for, but I suspect few do so. If I get around to it, one of these days I will upload a few IRs myself of my own amp + cabinet (a GK Neo 212), with these things accounted for, with the caveat that my amp is not exactly the best amp to do this kind of stuff (it's a GK 800RB, and its power amp is noticeably "coloured", especially if the boost is on, as well as noisy for modern standards).

May be so, and I reduce the effect of cab sim by mixing it with signal without the cab sim. Unfortunately many cab sim pedals (Mooer Radar, Darkglass preamp pedals, Two Notes) won't allow to do so, but it can be easily done in DAW for recording. In live rig, I have even considered to jump into Line 6 Stomp or Helix to make this possible, but I would not want to go for simulation instead of using real Darkglass preamp.

 

[alexclaber]

I don't want to get involved with any arguments but I wanted to clarify a couple of points.

1. The sensitivity number we quote is a real world 1W 1m half-space one across a range that's relevant for efficient production of bass guitar tone. However, it isn't much use for comparing with other brands because you don't know how they've massaged their specs. (If two cabs are equally loud but one needs the lows turning up to match, then they're not the same sensitivity for playing bass!)

2. The max amp power number we quote is based on our knowledge of our driver and cab designs (yes, the cab affects it) and is what we consider the tipping point where gains in cab output start to be outweighed by the increased risk of blowing drivers. For all our cabs it's similar to the RMS (thermal) power handling number - we put a lot of work in pushing that as high as possible but also pushing up the more important mechanical power handling.

We have a clean/any tone power rating for our smaller 10CR cabs, as explained on our website. For larger 10CR or any 12XN cab its just one number for each. We removed the minimum amp power thing when we launched our current website in 2018. The barefacedbass.com website is just there for google et al to find and redirect people to barefacedaudio.com

I don't think we're into double figures yet on blown 12XN drivers and there are now thousands in use. For the 12XN the thermal power handling is v high, the mechanical power handling is v high and the margin of error between mechanically induced distortion and permanent damage is v high. (I really hate stuff breaking!)

If people get in touch with us (which is the normal process when buying a Barefaced product) we can skip all the guesswork and just use my knowledge of bass gear to work out what someone needs in terms of tone and output. I don't often get it wrong. I'm very specific in my questions because I know that amp specs are also somewhat variable - I ask about exact gear people are using or planning to use.

I hope that our more honest specs than some aren't causing too many to miss out on asking me those questions! Because we have a one month trial period for customers within Europe, and are in a very small and interconnected market that shares its experiences, it would be very silly for me to recommend products that won't perform as needed, just to get short term sales. We've been working like this for over 15 years now, and I think I've been pretty consistent thus far.

 

[YourGuitarist]

Readings I see listed are often at 1khz at 1 meter. I might expect their sensitivity curves to differ at lower freqs. The GR's higher sensitivity may be more evident at higher freqs. Just guessing.

Thats pretty much standard when it comes to sensitivity to measure it at 1khz. Some companies will do a broadband sensitivity but there's no guarantee. Not to mention that a lot of speakers feature a rise around 1khz as they approach cone break-up (At least in my understanding). You can look at the frequency response graphs of say Eminence speakers to see what I mean.

It'd be interesting to run the same tests with a hot signal to see how much the cabs compress at high volumes too.

Just found this article, worth a look. I find this magazine to be consistently good.
Loudspeaker Sensitivity: What’s a Watt, Anyway? | audioXpress

 

[YourGuitarist]

It's always a distance of 1 meter, but there are many other parameters.

Funnily enough, while always specified for 1 meter, its actually valid to measure at 2 meters, 4 meters, .5 meters etc. They just scale the measurement by the 6dB/doubling of distance so a .5 meter measurement will be halved (-6dB) after the fact and a 4 meter measurement will be quadrupled (+12dB).

Source:
AppNote-Loudspeaker-EA-Measurements.pdf

 

[YourGuitarist]

I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that your readings are A weighted. A weighted readings do not read frequencies evenly distributed. Specifically, dbA de-emphasizes low frequencies quite a bit and has a slight emphasis on 1,000-10,000 Hz.

Get those dBzs!

 

[YourGuitarist]

FYI. The whole reason I started bringing attention to the sensitivity rating is because many people equate loudness to power. But power alone is not really a useful figure.

Here's a example from post 351 to illustrate my point.:
350W into 93dB 1W/1m cab = ~118dB
260W into 103dB 1W/1m cab = ~127dB*

* I assume this figure to be somewhat overstated. However, this cab did have significantly more headroom than the 93dB cab. This is confirmed by my real world experience with both cabs.

In order to get the 93dB cab to 127dB, the usable power would need to be over 2500W. It should be obvious to everyone that a 210 bass cab can't handle anywhere near 2500W.

My Position:​

Yes (all) specs to include Power Rating, Frequency Response, and Sensitivity are suspect. But they are all we have when there is not an opportunity to actually demo and AB test different gear choices. My advice is use the specs, but view the results with a healthy degree of skepticism. Also do a bit of research to try and get a feel for how accurate the specs are.

Always best to validate your choice with an in-hand demo that includes an AB test between the gear you are considering.

You have done an excellent job breaking down the physics and practice of it.

 

[Wasnex]

I don't want to get involved with any arguments but I wanted to clarify a couple of points.

1. The sensitivity number we quote is a real world 1W 1m half-space one across a range that's relevant for efficient production of bass guitar tone. However, it isn't much use for comparing with other brands because you don't know how they've massaged their specs. (If two cabs are equally loud but one needs the lows turning up to match, then they're not the same sensitivity for playing bass!)

2. The max amp power number we quote is based on our knowledge of our driver and cab designs (yes, the cab affects it) and is what we consider the tipping point where gains in cab output start to be outweighed by the increased risk of blowing drivers. For all our cabs it's similar to the RMS (thermal) power handling number - we put a lot of work in pushing that as high as possible but also pushing up the more important mechanical power handling.

We have a clean/any tone power rating for our smaller 10CR cabs, as explained on our website. For larger 10CR or any 12XN cab its just one number for each. We removed the minimum amp power thing when we launched our current website in 2018. The barefacedbass.com website is just there for google et al to find and redirect people to barefacedaudio.com

I don't think we're into double figures yet on blown 12XN drivers and there are now thousands in use. For the 12XN the thermal power handling is v high, the mechanical power handling is v high and the margin of error between mechanically induced distortion and permanent damage is v high. (I really hate stuff breaking!)

If people get in touch with us (which is the normal process when buying a Barefaced product) we can skip all the guesswork and just use my knowledge of bass gear to work out what someone needs in terms of tone and output. I don't often get it wrong. I'm very specific in my questions because I know that amp specs are also somewhat variable - I ask about exact gear people are using or planning to use.

I hope that our more honest specs than some aren't causing too many to miss out on asking me those questions! Because we have a one month trial period for customers within Europe, and are in a very small and interconnected market that shares its experiences, it would be very silly for me to recommend products that won't perform as needed, just to get short term sales. We've been working like this for over 15 years now, and I think I've been pretty consistent thus far.

Thanks.

The one spec I am still curious about is your max SPL figures. The website claims 126dB on the 12XN Bass Cabs page, ~127dB on the Super Compact page, and 124dB on the 12XN comparison table.

Calculated Figures:
500W RMS (Thermal) into a 97dB 1W/1m cab = 123.99dB
600W RMS (Max) into 97dB 1W/1m cab = 124.78dB

 

[Barticus]

Here is another observation (Not a measurement):

I compared a Super Compact to an AT212 Slim (700watt version) in a 10' X16' room with some modest sound treatment (corner bass traps).

I am very familiar with the Super Compact as it has been my main gigging cabinet for years. I just got the AT212 Slim.

I played my bass through a Tone Hammer 500 at modest volume with the cabs side by side. all I did was swap the cable between cabs. The AT212 was noticeably louder and had a fuller frequency range To My Ears. I could feel the bass more with the AT212 and the overall level was like the difference between talking normally and raising your voice but not yelling.

I know this isn't scientific at all....just an observation that in the case of the AT212 the 103db efficiency number might be closer to correct

This was the basis of my test as well, I did a very similar comparison with a Super Twin and an AT212, I was not going for loudness at all. I was more focused on tone and clarity. I was currently gigging a regular AT212 carbon fiber cabinet, but read the TB BF owners thread and was convinced that I had to try the Super Twin. I bought one used that was nearly new and had never been gigged.

And for the record I’m not complaining about either of these cabinets or the manufacturers, just sharing my experiences with them. I think they’re both pretty amazing pieces of high-end gear. They’re both great cabs, I just discovered one was a better fit for me than the other.

No scientific measurement just my rig, plugged into one cabinet, then plugged into the other, listening back-and-forth to what I was hearing. No P was harmed or even used during this unscientific testing .. just different styles of playing from rock, heavy rock to more of a jazzy, percussive style playing and some pop rock content.

As much fun as it might be, to only focus on the academic exercise of comparing just the specs and scrutinize over those… I’m much more interested in how they sound for my particular style of playing and my usage (to my ears)… which includes a lot of load-ins with frequent weekend gigs at a variety of indoor and outdoor venues. Keep in mind, I always have fantastic front of house sound support so I don’t need to max out and play at Stadium-Loud levels like most TB’ers. I’m just looking for the clarity in my sound that my band and I can hear on stage at reasonable stage volumes.

I had both cabinets side-by-side, my D800+ plugged into one cabinet, then plugged into the other, listening back-and-forth. Not scientific measurements, just playing and listening for what I wanted to hear tone-wise. I also had my son who is also a guitarist in his mid-20s there and listening as my objective observer. And, to our ears the AT212 sounded significantly better with more clarity, punchy mids and lows. Now there was definitely the difference of the GR having the tweeter and that’s likely a big part of the difference we were hearing. I also did not attempt to re-EQ the D800+ to get the best out of each cabinet I pretty much went with my standard settings which I’ve used on these and my previous cab, which was an SL212.


And before you ask, I did record some video, but both both cabs, even at low volumes caused vibrations in both of the rooms that I attempted the recordings from so I didn’t feel the videos were worth the effort to post produce and publish for others.

I’m not saying at all that the Super Twin did not sound good, it just did not sound as good to me for my style of playing and what I expected to hear. I’m sure that cab is a great solution for many folks, and I’m not complaining at all, it just wasn’t a fit for me.

I resold the Super Twin to its new happy owner within a week of buying it. Then I received my new AT212 Slim (yes it IS 23lbs) and sold the original AT212. I have since added an AT212+ Slim combo… and no I don’t need to play those together with the 1400W because that is way too loud for any of my scenarios.

 

[Hamrlik]

This was the basis of my test as well, I did a very similar comparison with a Super Twin and an AT212, I was not going for loudness at all. I was more focused on tone and clarity. I was currently gigging a regular AT212 carbon fiber cabinet, but read the TB BF owners thread and was convinced that I had to try the Super Twin. I bought one used that was nearly new and had never been gigged.

And for the record I’m not complaining about either of these cabinets or the manufacturers, just sharing my experiences with them. I think they’re both pretty amazing pieces of high-end gear. They’re both great cabs, I just discovered one was a better fit for me than the other.

No scientific measurement just my rig, plugged into one cabinet, then plugged into the other, listening back-and-forth to what I was hearing. No P was harmed or even used during this unscientific testing .. just different styles of playing from rock, heavy rock to more of a jazzy, percussive style playing and some pop rock content.

As much fun as it might be, to only focus on the academic exercise of comparing just the specs and scrutinize over those… I’m much more interested in how they sound for my particular style of playing and my usage (to my ears)… which includes a lot of load-ins with frequent weekend gigs at a variety of indoor and outdoor venues. Keep in mind, I always have fantastic front of house sound support so I don’t need to max out and play at Stadium-Loud levels like most TB’ers. I’m just looking for the clarity in my sound that my band and I can hear on stage at reasonable stage volumes.

I had both cabinets side-by-side, my D800+ plugged into one cabinet, then plugged into the other, listening back-and-forth. Not scientific measurements, just playing and listening for what I wanted to hear tone-wise. I also had my son who is also a guitarist in his mid-20s there and listening as my objective observer. And, to our ears the AT212 sounded significantly better with more clarity, punchy mids and lows. Now there was definitely the difference of the GR having the tweeter and that’s likely a big part of the difference we were hearing. I also did not attempt to re-EQ the D800+ to get the best out of each cabinet I pretty much went with my standard settings which I’ve used on these and my previous cab, which was an SL212.
View attachment 5399123

And before you ask, I did record some video, but both both cabs, even at low volumes caused vibrations in both of the rooms that I attempted the recordings from so I didn’t feel the videos were worth the effort to post produce and publish for others.

I’m not saying at all that the Super Twin did not sound good, it just did not sound as good to me for my style of playing and what I expected to hear. I’m sure that cab is a great solution for many folks, and I’m not complaining at all, it just wasn’t a fit for me.

I resold the Super Twin to its new happy owner within a week of buying it. Then I received my new AT212 Slim (yes it IS 23lbs) and sold the original AT212. I have since added an AT212+ Slim combo… and no I don’t need to play those together with the 1400W because that is way too loud for any of my scenarios.
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Good write up and thank you for that.

Anyone GR users with previous/current Fearful or Fearless experience who can give some comparisons?

 

[Stephen Moore]

You are missing the forest for the trees.

Why are bass cabinets the way they are? Mostly echoing vintage designs? 4 10" woofers arranged in a square? 12" speakers arranged diagonally? Because "it looks good". Why, in general, do people choose 10" or 12" or 15" speakers? Because this echoes certain traditional "wisdom" related to the voicing of woofers (10" fast, 15" fat, 12" in the middle). Which may or may not bear any relation to the way those speakers actually sound. The more rational placement would be on the vertical axis, because, apart from using up less space on stage (which is often scarce) you would maximise their horizontal dispersion and make it easier to have clear sound on the whole stage. But it "looks weird"...

Why use a woofer full range (and a tweeter haphazardly bolted on next to it, with just a HPF feeding it so that it doesn't crap out) when you can have a woofer + midrange or tweeter each dedicated to their own optimal frequency range, making much better use of the incoming power? (Which is what PA audio equipment does, for good reasons). Why even use a passive crossover, when you can do that with an arguably better/more efficient/more controllable active crossover and bi/tri-amping? Better yet, why should we still go with the idea that we need a separate head + cabinet? (An amp, class D, weighs so little there is very little weight advantage in having them separate, and you still need to deal with power cables, potential user error, etc.). Why not design cabinet and amp as a whole (and optimise both synergistically), so that the musician can just plug into it and play? (With all the adjustments a musician might want to make, with all the mid boosts or scoops he may wish, compression, distortion, etc.). It doesn't even need to be "hifi", it can have as much character as a traditional amp but with little to none of the drawbacks... but the MI industry doesn't do this because for some reason there is very little demand for this. A combo amp which is the simple pairing of an amp and a traditional speaker is fine, but not this. It's growing... which is why you now see these FRFR cabinets (...just regular 2-way full range active speakers) being marketed, and mostly to "digital" guitarists who are expected to plug into them with their Kemper amp sim or whatever.

All this to say that... see, those head scratching claims on Barefaced's or GR's website only elicited some perplexity today, on a relatively little used music forum... because the MI industry can get away with it. Musicians largely have little time or wish to delve into the nitty gritty, what they want to know is: does it sound good? Does it sound loud? Does it weigh a lot? (A combination of these three depending on each musician's priorities). Now, in all honesty, do you really think that a bass amp and speaker needs more than, say, 300 "clean watts"? A 96dB speaker (so a not very sensitive one) at that power will output more than 120dBs, sustained, one metre away. An unhealthy figure, by the way. Let's say that the speaker is constrained, mechanically, to 150W at 80Hz, and that power compression may rob another 3dBs or so. We're still well over 110dB. Why should we even have more power than that? Is it to deal with those pesky transients, which could be clipped away and we wouldn't be able to hear them clipping?

All you say and have said is technically true... (even the silly distinction between "premium" and "boutique", which is a simple word choice) but we're at a stage when it doesn't really matter, we have, these days, so much power on tap and such cheap equipment performing well enough that, for GR, they don't even need to sound better than the competition. They have just needed, especially for the past four years or so, to be much lighter than the competition (because 14kg or so is fantastic for a cabinet). 103dB or 101dB 1W 1m... these are numbers the average musician can't really interpret. (I am more technical than *all* of the musicians I know personally, and I don't even know what those numbers mean in real terms, ie. how loud they feel; I only know that they're easily high enough). 14 kg, he can. It's a bit more than a six pack of 2-litre bottles of water (7 bottles, if you must). If they go to the gym, they know even better.

It seems to me that speaker technology is quickly moving away from onstage, and now focusing into line array front of house sound reinforcement. The general move is towards in ear monitors to eliminate the need for pesky amplification of unwanted sound on stage.
That being said, you kinda answered the majority of your own questions with regard to speaker and cab technology, with a few semi critical details left out, such as cabinet design and amplification options. I do like the onstage enery created with speaker combos but the mud it creates through microphones is kinda crappy, also hearing is easy to damage. Systems like the p16s are really nice for the user control, and eliminates the need for onstage amplification.

 

[agedhorse]

Bass amplified sensibly on stage does not cause issues for FOH mixes once you get pros involved.