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New Head: Valkyrie from Baer Amps... Thoughts?

#241
Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd post this here since this "Baer Amp" thread wound up being an "All Things Baer" discussion (and that's cool). :)

I'm very interested in the cabs. They certainly look promising and the folks that have played/demoed them have positive comments. I'm a little concerned about the custom Eminence woofer; if one blows a couple of years down the road it might be difficult to obtain a replacement. I do like the fact that the reason for going with a custom design was to put more mids into the woofer; shows attention to detail. I certainly dig the sealed mid chamber and the fact the cab has a front-exit port. Allegedly it doesn't matter where on the cab a port is, but my eye-ear-psychology tells me differently. ;) Are triangular ports more resistant to chuffing? Curious why a common round port wasn't used...would've been cheaper. (though "cheap" is not the goal with Baer products, I know).

I would be willing to pay an additional $75-$100 for a superior coating. I hate rat fur. Picks up lint and STINK almost instantly. Spilled beer and fruity umbrella drinks wipe right off tolex or spray on coating; good luck getting it out of rat fur.

I haven't seen the crossover for the cabs mentioned. Can you tell us a little bit about it, Roger? Is it an "off the shelf" design or a custom-designed deal?
 
#242
mikeddd said:
Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd post this here since this "Baer Amp" thread wound up being an "All Things Baer" discussion (and that's cool). :)

I'm very interested in the cabs. They certainly look promising and the folks that have played/demoed them have positive comments. I'm a little concerned about the custom Eminence woofer; if one blows a couple of years down the road it might be difficult to obtain a replacement. I do like the fact that the reason for going with a custom design was to put more mids into the woofer; shows attention to detail. I certainly dig the sealed mid chamber and the fact the cab has a front-exit port. Allegedly it doesn't matter where on the cab a port is, but my eye-ear-psychology tells me differently. ;) Are triangular ports more resistant to chuffing? Curious why a common round port wasn't used...would've been cheaper. (though "cheap" is not the goal with Baer products, I know).

I would be willing to pay an additional $75-$100 for a superior coating. I hate rat fur. Picks up lint and STINK almost instantly. Spilled beer and fruity umbrella drinks wipe right off tolex or spray on coating; good luck getting it out of rat fur.

I haven't seen the crossover for the cabs mentioned. Can you tell us a little bit about it, Roger? Is it an "off the shelf" design or a custom-designed deal?
Click to expand...

From what I've seen of the coverings, the Tolex Roger's using is the newest version. Very tough for Tolex. The spray on coating is maybe the best I've ever seen. Just about indestructible. As far as I know, the speaker he's using is one you could order if needed.
 
#244
mikeddd said:
...I'm a little concerned about the custom Eminence woofer; if one blows a couple of years down the road it might be difficult to obtain a replacement...
Click to expand...

Almost all manufacturers use a modified form of some stock driver. We should always be able to provide these to you to you, should the need arise. Worse case scenario, you can use a 3012HO or a 3012LF with very good results.

mikeddd said:
...I haven't seen the crossover for the cabs mentioned. Can you tell us a little bit about it, Roger? Is it an "off the shelf" design or a custom-designed deal...
Click to expand...

Custom designed crossovers with both low and high pass filters.

Matt Dean said:
...How about some pictures of the redesigned amp... even though I am broke as a stepped-on vacuum tube, I am still interested in this rig...
Click to expand...
Hey Matt, we have been working on getting the website up to date and will have new pictures soon.

mikeddd said:
...Curious why a common round port wasn't used...would've been cheaper. (though "cheap" is not the goal with Baer products, I know)...
Click to expand...

The cabs now have 2 triangular ports instead of one. In our designs, these ports also serve as structural bracing for the cabs. Those 45's brace both the bottom of the cab and the lower portion of the side walls.

NAMM1.jpg
 
#245
R Baer said:
The cabs now have 2 triangular ports instead of one. In our designs, these ports also serve as structural bracing for the cabs. Those 45's brace both the bottom of the cab and the lower portion of the side walls.
Click to expand...

2 birds w/1 stone. Brilliant.

Also, maybe a minor thing, but I think a triangular port would avoid internal resonances in the midrange region that a rectangular port might have.

Finally, that fairly large angled surface inside the enclosure helps reduce internal standing waves, especially since it's in a corner.

I really hadn't stopped and thought of all the cool things a triangular port does until just now.
 
#247
DukeLeJeune said:
2 birds w/1 stone. Brilliant.

Also, maybe a minor thing, but I think a triangular port would avoid internal resonances in the midrange region that a rectangular port might have.

Finally, that fairly large angled surface inside the enclosure helps reduce internal standing waves, especially since it's in a corner.

I really hadn't stopped and thought of all the cool things a triangular port does until just now.
Click to expand...
I've done some testing of triangular ports and they have another advantage. They behave exactly the same as round ports where area and duct length are concerned with respect to cabinet tuning, so there's no need to mess around with compensation factor as is required with shelf ports.
As to the driver issue, the inability to replace OEM drivers with off the shelf drivers, because the cab manufacturer won't reveal what off the shelf products will work, is hardly a news flash. A manufacturer telling you up front what you can substitute for the OEM driver, however, is.
 
#248
mikeddd said:
Very nice! Thanks for the detailed reply, Roger. Just thought of something: The handles; they appear to be spring-loaded. Correct?

Will you be offering the poly-coat still? Pricing figured out yet? Availability date? Good luck; we're all pulling for you. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, the handles are a heavy duty spring handle. I just don't like the concept of going through all the effort to design a very stiff and rigid cabinet only to cut really large holes in the cabinet for recessed handles made of plastic, or very thin metal. Our spring handles require a much smaller opening and are very heavy gauge steel.

The cabinets will come in a heavy gauge vinyl (Tolex) as the standard covering. We are going to offer the poly urea as an upgrade on this initial run and see how it goes. Just like many other bass amp companies, we do not build the cabinets one at a time here at our shop. The cabinets are manufactured to our exact specs by a very well respected company within the industry that has been producing top quality bass cabinets for decades. In order to take advantage of their manufacturing expertise, we have to commit to larger batch orders and as such, each batch represents a significant outlay of capital for us. Offering the poly urea coating means we have to commit to two separate runs of each cabinet. It's an amazing product and the poly urea being produced by our shop is simply the nicest finish I have ever seen on a cabinet, but of course, there will have to be sufficient sales of this option for us to be able to make it available. We are going to try it out on this first run of ML series cabinets and see how it goes.

We will be taking pre-orders for the first run of cabinets here very soon and pricing will be available on the website at that time. We've also updated the cabinet specs with a little more information at the request of many of you here. We really do appreciate all the support the TB crowd has shown for us. Thank you!
 
#252
5StringPocket said:
I'm pretty well set for cabs but man that ML-212 looks superb.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, it does! The price will make or break it for me. I have no issues with paying a little more to get a little more. Better materials, better fit and finish better engineered product etc.

I'm not into, however, paying a huge premium just for a name. There are some cab manufs that put out a well-made and great sounding cab, but seem to charge way more than what seems to be a fair price for them. I mean, a 1x10 or 1x12 in a box with a tweet only costs so much to manufacture, no matter how good the parts inside are.
 
#253
The cost of great parts, for a great 112+horn would surprise you.
the 12, a great compression driver and wave guide, custom built crossover, grill, handles, corners etc could run ~$400.
Add premium wood, labor costs and enough profit to stay in biz, and a $600 112 isn't crazy talk.

As a reference point, a Berg AE212 lists at ~$1,000.
 
#254
mikeddd said:
I'm not into, however, paying a huge premium just for a name. There are some cab manufs that put out a well-made and great sounding cab, but seem to charge way more than what seems to be a fair price for them. I mean, a 1x10 or 1x12 in a box with a tweet only costs so much to manufacture, no matter how good the parts inside are.
Click to expand...

... if you take the time to acquire the knowledge, then the additional time to design it yourself , yes ...
 

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