I ordered the 28 a week back and looking forward to gigging with it! Going to try it in 2000 seat church ampetheature and some coffee shop jazz gigs. I’ll give a full run down when I take it through it’s paces. Just got done watching Rodney Whitaker at a great venue right up the street from my house and now inspired to go practice all night. Lol.
For me, sometimes that's inspiration and sometimes insomnia -- or something I ate.
I'm not familiar with Rodney Whitaker, though I love hearing good doublebass playing. I looked up some videos of his on the 'tube (funny how that's got a different meaning now) and he is definitely worth checking out further.
I'll look forward to your rundown -- you'll be playing six-string electric bass through it, if I remember correctly -- church music, small jazz ensemble, and some solo arrangements, right?
There is a Bodai 110 in Portland. Zach is really nice and I'm sure would be happy to show you. He goes by ProtonLenny here.
Gee, Kirk, between this and the Cali invites in the other thread, you should be able to check out a good few cabs.
...both the B28 and the B110 share the exact same top section.Both voiced very similarly. So you can hear the differences between just the woofs. The B28 has a bit more mid to upper bass and a touch more bloom. Also, as I said earlier---it's a subtle thing . The B110 feels more dead flat---not dry. The B110 is a bit more hifi in that range. No added warmth and not as much bloom in the upper bass. The B28 has a bit more power across the mid to upper bass. I think that Mark may prefer the B110 as he like the voicing of his 112 with the 18Sound in that region. I think that the B110 has a bit more low end cushion--in the low lows. The B string is better on the B110 than Mark's 112. I prefer the B28 as the mid to upper bass is more of what I'm looking for---a bit more traditional bass sound in that area. Fatter, but no bloat. The B28 goes lower and has more power in the low bass. Funny thing is that I elevated the 28 so that the mids were at the same height. About 7 inches. All of a sudden it sounded a lot more like the B110---a bit less lows and bloom but still powerful. I preferred the B28 on male vocals---more weight.
I liked the Bodai 110 when I heard it -- very open and organic, I thought. I like my 18Sound MAS 112, too -- that's still the cab I take out most often on louder stuff -- and I like how it opens up when I give it some juice, but I think my tastes are evolving a bit. Not too traditional, not too colored, but maybe with a tiny bit more bloom, a little bit more hair, than I liked before. I still like it clean, even, and dynamic.
Let me revise what I said about "colored" sounds -- sometimes I like very colored sounds, particularly when channeling old-school stuff -- I mentioned my first B-15 adventure this summer in the other thread, and playing through that amp was a joyous experience -- literally and viscerally thrilling... but I digress. I love taking a trip there, but that's not "home" for me, though some of that texture and grit finds its way into what I think of as "home". My metaphors are getting sloppy, so I'll stop there. Some of that texture can come from the amp and some from the speaker -- the 112 will grind in the upper mids but I feel like the Bodai will communicate things like woody fretless sounds better -- and was more detailed in the mids in general... might be less round in the lows than the 28, but is a little more round than my 112, which is pretty... angular, I guess you could say, in its attack. Kick more than punch.
Anyway, I liked the 110... still curious about the 28. Appreciate the rundown!
I'm redoing the 38. It's actually a bit funny. Te holly grail for us was to improve the efficiency of the waveguide and to smooth the frequency resonse of the back wave. We didn't realize that we could make them too efficient. By improving the efficiency too much the rear wave now had too much power and velocity.Because of this the "event horizon" as we call it--where the front and back waves meet---usually between 3 to 5 feet in front of the cab---moved more to like about 15 feet in front of the cab. The rear wave was so powerful that it just shot right past the front wave! On the other thread (I forgot his moniker) stated that the bass seemed to get louder in the room but not on stage.I had only played the 38 at home. I just assumed that it would function like a bigger 28. This would be uber cool as a PA main, but not on stage for a bassist. Steve had the exact same experience with the bottom part of the Bodai15. He remedied the situation and all was good.The 38 in question is being replaced---and I changed from two 4" Faitals to two 5" Faitals wit 3x the power handling...
Okay, I'm glad that you were able to address this here directly. I would have been guessing at causes for what @golfnsubie said he was hearing in the other thread and would not have come up with this. Unfortunate that there was a bit of a learning curve (I guess that this is still somewhat alien tech, and that some things might not show up under normal testing conditions), but good to know that it's being addressed/revised/improved upon...
The 38 in question is mine...spoke to Stephen today about the backwave issue... figured that back rooms and other connected rooms in the bars i have been playing have been getting pummeled as I try to get my stage volume right lol...
...good to know, too, that you're being taken care of. Hope the new cab combines everything you liked about your current/old one with the improvements that you and Mike are looking for.
For what it's worth -- though it's been awhile since I did a "walkaround" while someone else was playing my rig for this purpose -- I've noticed that my cab does sound a
bit louder just a few feet out than it does right on top of it, and that the volume (and the tone) then stays more consistent out in the house as you walk away. Subjectively, it doesn't seem to drop off as fast as with a conventional cab. I think, from old (vintage) Big E discussions that this has to do with the sound staying "turbulent" out to a certain distance (at which point the flow becomes laminar and things get "normal", for lack of a better word), but I don't remember all the details of that and am not qualified to argue the specifics. I think that the point at which the flow goes from turbulent to laminar moves further out the louder you get, but I might be misremembering that, too. Maybe it varies with the size of the waveguide, instead. Or maybe both.
And maybe the folks in the back rooms were experiencing a nice massage rather than a pummeling. Let's hope!
