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more streamliner 900 tone voicing tests

#21
well, for me, there's no denying that the UA is my favorite out of all of them, but the one with the EQ3B runs a pretty close second. the UA just has a certain smoothness/eveness about it and a bit nicer attack/bloom. it just feels a bit more natural and organic to me while playing thru it.

the one with the EQ3B would easily do it it for me with a live band on the gig.

IMO, using the 900's eq alone is also very nice, but it's a bit brighter up top with a tiny bit of harshness in the upper mids compared to the other two, but that might also work to one's advantage with a full band,

with the controls at noon i wouldn't be able to use that tone with my 2x15 cab, but it might work well with a cab that's alot more mid oriented.
 
#22
The Genz's extra fullness must've compensated for the crap that I'm listening to it on.:D

Just looking at it's curve, and knowing the curve of my own bass rig, I think that bass knob would be coming down some for me too.
 
#23
christw said:
rodl, what cabinet were you using?
Click to expand...

Berg NV610, NV215, AE410, AE212, AE112, Mark Bass HR115 (sometimes x2), Ampeg SVT 810E(MIV), Mark Bass 104hf, EV TL606, GK410-RB(I think), Mark Bass 102p

& I TRIED pulling ALL the bass eq/control out, adding low mids, honestly, I tried everything I could think of. Did LOTS of research on here. Really, really wanted it to work-heck I brought it to AUS from the USA! So,I was gonna lose $$ by selling it.
I did find it to work better with the NV610 than any other cab. Ok with the AE410, MUSH with the others.
I wanted an amp that'd work with a few diffrrent cabs-my Walkabout does, so all's cool.
Still, I'm curious. :-/
And, interesting thread & info as usual John.
 
#24
Clips sound great! I would be interested in hearing how different your modded streamliner sounds compared to stock. You have a pretty pricey set of preamp tubes running in there.

Thanks for all the clips you have posted here and in your cab thread!
 
#25
i could actually see it working well with just about all of those cabs. you'd just have to get a handle on its low end, which can be deceiving and somewhat tricky sometimes.

i've found my self cutting bass and at mid bass at 220Hz as well as turning down the treble to bring up the mids.

i've also done it by boosting the 600Hz or 2.5K control to bring them up while slightly cutting the bass control.

when i was rolling the eq in the RTA tests, it wasn't just affecting the specified mid frequency that i had it set on.with the treble and bass controls turned down slight 2.5K was actually doing alot in the 500-800Hz range.
 
#26
3rdcurve said:
Clips sound great! I would be interested in hearing how different your modded streamliner sounds compared to stock. You have a pretty pricey set of preamp tubes running in there.

Thanks for all the clips you have posted here and in your cab thread!
Click to expand...

you're most welcome. ;)

yeah,i'm running all three NOS RCA's in mine which have really opened it up in its response, tone and clarity. for me, they gave it a much more transparent 3D effect with a wider sound stage.

unfortunately i don't have the original tubes that came with it anymore, but IMO, they didn't sound bad at all. i just figured if i already had the NOS ones (which i have 100's of) why not put them to good use in it?
 
#27
and just for comparison's sake, here's the RTA curve of my GK 1001RBII with all of the controls set at 12 o'clock. the orange line is with the 5 string switch set in the 'in' position and the blue line without. you can see that it's also voiced pretty far from flat.

1001RBII12oclockwandw-o5stringsw.jpg


and here it is using the tone controls to get it as flat as i could:

1001RBIIsetflatwithandw-o5stringsw.jpg


in order to get it flat, it's knobs were set like this:
GK1001RBIIflat-settng.jpg
 
#28
johnk_10 said:
i could actually see it working well with just about all of those cabs. you'd just have to get a handle on its low end, which can be deceiving and somewhat tricky sometimes.

i've found my self cutting bass and at mid bass at 220Hz as well as turning down the treble to bring up the mids.

i've also done it by boosting the 600Hz or 2.5K control to bring them up while slightly cutting the bass control.

when i was rolling the eq in the RTA tests, it wasn't just affecting the specified mid frequency that i had it set on.with the treble and bass controls turned down slight 2.5K was actually doing alot in the 500-800Hz range.
Click to expand...

Yeah, iirc, I tried pretty much all that. Guess I've got bassy fingers ;)
All the others said the same, so wasn't my EARS! Thank God.
Ppl also say it's great with a Pbass, & that was the worst for me too.
O_o
 
#33
That is very cool... I do have to say that i find the preamp of the Streamliner to be one of the smoothest and most pleasing sounding preamps that i have heard.. Even when in a stand alone situation..


johnk_10 said:
i really love my streamliner 900, but as some of you might also know, i REALLY love the sound of my UA 6176 channel strip when used as a bass preamp.

last week, i experimented with a presonus EQ3B to make my streamliner sound closer to my SVT with good results, but having to unplug the speaker back and forth between the heads, flip the SVT in and out of standby and switch playing thru the STM900 & SVT to compare them was very time consuming and actually pretty difficult. since i like my UA 6176 just as much as my SVT, plugging the UA into the STM900's aux in made it super simple to go back and forth until i got them to sound identical. all i had to do was plug into the UA and then plug into the 900's input jack to compare them, using the 900's power amp for both preamps.

STM900-UA-SVT.jpg


for those of you that own one, you probably have realized that the streamliner has a very 'voiced' preamp, and IMO, a very nice sounding one, however, for me, there are a few areas in it's tone that are a bit more 'voiced' than what i'm used to playing thru. the presonus EQ3B works great in the 900's send receive jacks and it allowed me to 'flatten' some of the STM900's 'peaks and valleys' to capture the sound of my 6176.

here's a pic of the eq settings on both the streamliner 900 and EQ3B that i found that make it sound indistinguishable from the UA:

STM900-EQ3B-UA6176-eq-setting.jpg



some of you might ask, why go to all the trouble, but to me, adding a tiny parametric to the super lightweight 900 in order to make it even more versatile is hardly any trouble at all, especially since this little $100 parametric makes the STM900 rival the tone of a $2800 channel strip.
Click to expand...
 
#34
Very nice thread! When my band does difficult load-in gigs like weddings in French Quarter hotels where it's best to transport equipment in individual small cars that can access in-house parking garages I also use a 900 with an EQ3B. My cabs are two BFM Jack 112's. Guys familiar with the BFM horn-loaded designs will know that they're inherently strong in the mids. The Jacks fill in that mid scoop valley shown in the above streamliner "set flat" chart quite nicely, actually a little too well, and I actually cut mids a bit centered around 5-600 Hz with the Presonus. Then when I need it back for a more cutting tone my Sad Will Lee mid-boost switch is the key. Ain't it great being a bass gear nerd?
 
#36
Nice work.
Is it safe to say the the Strmlnr power amp section behaves like your Crown pwr amp?
Also, bottom line, at a gig, assuming tone really does sound the same as what the RTA shows, would the SVT and 6176 smoke the others in terms of 3D soundstage, tube response/spongieness/compression, bloom, sustain, etc?
Or do the new little boxes get that close to the King?
 
#37
ganttbos said:
Very nice thread! When my band does difficult load-in gigs like weddings in French Quarter hotels where it's best to transport equipment in individual small cars that can access in-house parking garages I also use a 900 with an EQ3B. My cabs are two BFM Jack 112's. Guys familiar with the BFM horn-loaded designs will know that they're inherently strong in the mids. The Jacks fill in that mid scoop valley shown in the above streamliner "set flat" chart quite nicely, actually a little too well, and I actually cut mids a bit centered around 5-600 Hz with the Presonus. Then when I need it back for a more cutting tone my Sad Will Lee mid-boost switch is the key. Ain't it great being a bass gear nerd?
Click to expand...

Man, you may have just nailed it with the Streamliner/Jack combo. If you lay those curves over each other on the same chart, they'd be close to self-correcting.
 
#38
well, i think that the STM900's poweramp sounds really good, and is on par with my crown sonically, which is pretty amazing in itself.

as far as my SVT and 6176 goes, i've yet to play thru anything that can beat them. with the EQ3B the overall 'color' of the tone is pretty much exact, but there are a few differences as far as depth response and bloom goes. both the UA and SVT have a bit softe, yet punchier feel to them, whereas the STM900 feels just a tiny bit stiffer. in a live situation, that might even be a good thing.

i think that we're fortunate these days to have such a small 6.5lb head (with the miniscule EQ3B riding 'piggyback' (and weighs next to nothing), that has tone for days and power to spare.

the trouble that i've had with most SS and hybrids is that they never felt like a tube amp, nor had the heft behind the notes. the STM900 has it in spades and probably too much, but i can deal with that (ALOT easier) than having to coax it out of an amp that doesn't have it in the first place.
 
#39
johnk_10 said:
the trouble that i've had with most SS and hybrids is that they never felt like a tube amp, nor had the heft behind the notes. the STM900 has it in spades and probably too much, but i can deal with that (ALOT easier) than having to coax it out of an amp that doesn't have it in the first place.
Click to expand...

+1 and well said
I tried to like a LMII but it just never had the umphh behind the note or the depth, although the basic tone was good.

Does the little amp & EQ box currently rank #3 in your all time 300+ watt favorite amp category?
 
#40
Really great work, John! As usual, your work is well thought out and meticulously done. Always great stuff.

To my ears, the UA track sounds amazingly like the Lakland recordings on their website - ultra clean, deep and bright. Pure tone goodness leaning to the cool side.

I actually was more impressed with the straight Streamliner than the EQ3B version.
Both the EQ3B and straight Streamliner were warmer and more "hairy" (or grindy as some people say) in the uppermids/highs. I thought the plain Streamliner was a bit smoother and more balanced.

The EQ3B seemed less balanced across the eq spectrum to me - slightly weaker in the bottom end with peaks in the range where the D and C notes reside, although I'm sure this could be tweaked out. And anyway, that's just one man's ears and mine have certainly been affected by years of loud volume, so in the end it's all relative to the individual.

With the volume of a gig situation where nuances are lost, I could see how any of these would work.
 

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