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Most tonally neutral cab

#21
I was playing a Demeter Bass 600 head through an F115. Very hi-fi sound. Deep bass, crisp highs, very clear mids. I never got to try it in a band setting, but at home I felt "too naked". Every "mistake" or poor technique seemed amplified. Nothing to hide behind.

Great rig for maybe a soloist with a 6 string - but me just slapping or thumping along on a Jazz bass, not so much.
 
#22
Fearless and fearful get the most attention, plenty of reviews on YouTube, I intend on building one... someday...

I use a Bose L1 Model 2 for many purposes. You want to carry a room with uncolored bass sound? Holy crap. It's insane. I looked for for a YouTube video to link, and what do you know, there aren't any featuring bass guitar, so I guess I'm gonna have to make one :-)
 
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#24
I was in a similar situation (no in-ears but wanting to get my direct sound perfect and not colored by my amp). What I simply did was borrow a small full range PA speaker (like a powered 2-way) and used that with my pedal board to get "my" sound.

Then at practice and gigs I treated my amp like a monitor. I didn't worry that the amp and cabs have a baked-in tone. I just adjusted the lows/mids/highs to get a sound I liked while knowing that the FOH was getting my "actual" tone.
 
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#27
father of fires said:
I was in a similar situation (no in-ears but wanting to get my direct sound perfect and not colored by my amp). What I simply did was borrow a small full range PA speaker (like a powered 2-way) and used that with my pedal board to get "my" sound.

Then at practice and gigs I treated my amp like a monitor. I didn't worry that the amp and cabs have a baked-in tone. I just adjusted the lows/mids/highs to get a sound I liked while knowing that the FOH was getting my "actual" tone.
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That's one way to do it, just have to make sure it's got the power to compete with whatever you need it to. Were band mates able to hear you? The fearful/less cabs are 2 or 3 way full range speakers, that are capable of handling high volumes of the frequencies bass instruments push out. Many off the rack PA speakers don't have the guts to do it well. I have my EV ELX12p's loaned out, I'll have to try those out for kicks.

I was wondering a little while ago if fearful/less speakers would in fact work as PA speakers, and I guess I wasn't the only one. Apparently they'd work TOO well as PA speakers :)
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#28
pfschim said:
you are coming off a pretty baked in curve type cab with the HLF's, lot's of low end baked into those cabs.
are you asking about ruler flat reproduction from 20hz to 20mhz ? .. as far as I know, it does not exist in a current commercial bass cab.
are you asking about reasonably flat, studio monitor type cabs ? - maybe consider the Accugroove or fEARful range of 3 way cabs. Both of them will reproduce a very wide range of frequencies and are considered natively pretty flat/neutral.

Can you perhaps explain why you are seeking "tonally neutral" cabs after playing a decidedly not tonally neutral cab ?
It might help you get better answers to your question.

personally, I discovered several years ago, thru trial and error, that I actually liked some color in my cabs and neutral/flat cabs did not do it for me at all.

good luck
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Cabs going into the 20mhz territory might piss off the FCC. Stick to the range of human hearing, most cabs top off around 16khz ;)
 
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#29
Funny how everyone is recommending very expensive Cabs. Keep looking and get more bang for your Buck. There are other options not unless you just have to pay for a name and certain cost to validate whatever it is. Notice I did not recommend Tecamp. Why? because it's not for everyone and they are not cheap. Not the most expensive either. You didn't mention Budget. I have friends who run PA Cabs and during and at the end of the Gig, the Audience couldn't tell one bit of a difference.
 
#33
bass40hz said:
I find Markbass cabs to be pretty true to what goes into them, I've used their 410s, 210s, 115s...love them all.
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I find the exact opposite to be true. I find most of their cabs have this low mid hump that balances out the MB's amps tonal characteristics. Pair it with a different amp, and I find the cabs to be pretty colored.

phillybass101 said:
Notice I did not recommend Tecamp. Why? because it's not for everyone and they are not cheap.
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But isnt your endorsement in itself a form of recommendation? ;) Also look at the OP and the title of the thread:

Jrussblues said:
Just lookin for some suggestions here... I'm open to any ideas and please share your actual experience and thoughts.
Rules - about the size of a 410 or half stack is as big as I want to go and 500 or so watts handling power.
Outside of that - there are no rules, just what works, weight, size of speakers, number of speakers whatever else you can think of doesn't really matter.
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That does seem like the OP is asking for people's suggestions on what works for them.
 
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#34
CL400Peavey said:
I find the exact opposite to be true. I find most of their cabs have this low mid hump that balances out the MB's amps tonal characteristics. Pair it with a different amp, and I find the cabs to be pretty colored.



But isnt your endorsement in itself a form of recommendation? ;) Also look at the OP and the title of the thread:



That does seem like the OP is asking for people's suggestions on what works for them.
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I use the MB cabs with GK MB Fusion 800 amps...the rigs could punch thorough concrete and I find they balance each other out pretty well and give me whatever bass I put into them right back out. We all hear things differently and my beat up ears hear it like that ;-) YMMV.
 
#35
bass40hz said:
I use the MB cabs with GK MB Fusion 800 amps...the rigs could punch thorough concrete and I find they balance each other out pretty well and give me whatever bass I put into them right back out. We all hear things differently and my beat up ears hear it like that ;-) YMMV.
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Low mid bump = punch through concrete. Probably a good match for a modern scooped head like a GK
 
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#36
ubernator said:
Low mid bump = punch through concrete. Probably a good match for a modern scooped head like a GK
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Again I find it interesting how we all hear or interpret things differently...in a good way, always stuff to be learned and taught even after playing 37 years, I dont find the MBF800 scooped at all, in fact it has a contour control for scooping that I keep off. Gonna let this one go for now as it starting to seem like a topic for a different thread and for respect to the OP, I'm good!
Rock on my bottom end brethren!
 
#37
Jrussblues said:
Easy breezy, you are overthinking it. I recently switched from running in ears with the rest of the band in them to just running myself in my ears. I know that the ears will color the sound some but I would like to be able to tune my pedals so that they sound like my ears and everything is congruent.
I should point out that I don't want to build my own cab so fearful may be out. I just want a nice reproduction of my preamp. Foh handles the rest so accurate support would be nice.
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now i'm confused, if you're in ear why are you needing a cab?
 
#40
bass40hz said:
Again I find it interesting how we all hear or interpret things differently...in a good way, always stuff to be learned and taught even after playing 37 years, I dont find the MBF800 scooped at all, in fact it has a contour control for scooping that I keep off. Gonna let this one go for now as it starting to seem like a topic for a different thread and for respect to the OP, I'm good!
Rock on my bottom end brethren!
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True there is that too. They always did have a contour knob on them.
 

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