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Official Barefaced Bass Cab Club

#11,861
DavidJamesNHBass said:
Oh, and DO NOT rest any type of liquid on top of anything of value while playing.
I watched more than a few adult beverages dance their way off counters, shelves and tables during Saturday's show in a club in Manchester, NH. No one could figure out why I was smiling so much...sort of like the 'Real Napster' scene at the end of "The Italian Job". Little did the crowd know the possibility of flying clothing was just a volume knob twist away.
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I can absolutely see that happening. :)

What is most amazing is how good the cab sounds when I'm not running it hard. Most cabs this size need to be pushed really hard to sound good. This cab seems to produce nice lows even though its woofers aren't smacking the grill.
 
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#11,863
Question to all: How do you get 'faced?
I get Genz-'faced. Some get Berg-'faced, others get Mark-'faced or 'peg-'faced or Hammer-'faced…
@alexclaber
994ECF2D-6ADF-4E22-B0A7-E5183A49EDAB.png
 
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#11,870
StephenR said:
Eden Navigator with an Alembic Superfilter in the side-chain, Crest ProLite 3.0 power amp. One side of the Crest drives the BB2, the other the SuperTwin. Much possibility for sonic intensity!

View attachment 4873952
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Dear God! I can only imagine the spleens that rig could rupture.

DavidJamesNHBass said:
Are we on to something here?
I'm almost ready to ask Alex if he'll make some swag in the BF font that says "Get 'faced!" and have their logo behind the type.
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New t-shirt design..."Get a facial....Barefaced Audio"
 
#11,872
alexclaber said:
This is very true - we found this to an extreme degree with one very unusual prototype driver we had made. That speaker used an XBL2 motor, with split gap and short voice coil so it could do massive clean excursion but it didn't have enough voice coil area to get rid of all the heat at high power. During testing we blew three drivers without them even distorting, they sounded really good, went super loud and then started smoking and suddenly cut out. The fourth driver was saved and went off to be a recording studio cab. The 3015LF was a bit like this too, though to a much lesser degree, otherwise they wouldn't be such popular speakers.

The way I see if, when it comes to making a driver robust you need to have a big enough gap between Xmax amd Xlim (aka Xmech) and enough thermal power handling to allow you to exceed Xmax without thermal failure.

Xmax is the point where the driver reaches 10% distortion (due to over-excursion making the magnetic force and/or the suspension non-linear). Xlim is the point where the speaker is damaged - cone creasing, buckled voice coil former, stretched/warped suspension, etc. My pre-Barefaced cabs didn't have enough margin between Xmax and Xlim so the cones got creased when they were pushed too hard.

So we've done our best at Barefaced to make cabs that you can push hard without worrying about blowing them. With the 12XN cabs you can just follow the power ratings - the 12XN very obviously goes from clean to (not very pretty) distortion when you push it too hard. With the 10CR cabs it's a bit harder to tell so here's a deeper explanation: 10CR power handling
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DavidJamesNHBass said:
I was told there'd be no math! ;-)
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#11,873
I have been using an Aguilar TH 500 with my BB3 and am happy with the sound. However, in my little corner of the world, I basically don't really have the ability to test different setups and I bought the AG mostly by flipping a coin between it and the Mesa D800 +. I read so many comments here in this thread with people loving the Mesa 800+. I admit to a certain amount of GAS, but would love to be talked into the Mesa setup, or keeping the Aguilar. My loss on selling the Aguilar I am figuring would not be too much as I keep my equipment in pristine condition.
I am mostly interested in versatility, tone, bass "punch" and ease of control use. The AG has a lot of tone control, but is not really intuitive and is very sensitive.
Apologies if folks think I should go to the amp section, but the Barefaced speakers are reasonably unique and I don't think amps compare well across different speakers, particularly with the quality of Barefaced.
 
#11,876
Oldbasslover said:
I have been using an Aguilar TH 500 with my BB3 and am happy with the sound. However, in my little corner of the world, I basically don't really have the ability to test different setups and I bought the AG mostly by flipping a coin between it and the Mesa D800 +. I read so many comments here in this thread with people loving the Mesa 800+. I admit to a certain amount of GAS, but would love to be talked into the Mesa setup, or keeping the Aguilar. My loss on selling the Aguilar I am figuring would not be too much as I keep my equipment in pristine condition.
I am mostly interested in versatility, tone, bass "punch" and ease of control use. The AG has a lot of tone control, but is not really intuitive and is very sensitive.
Apologies if folks think I should go to the amp section, but the Barefaced speakers are reasonably unique and I don't think amps compare well across different speakers, particularly with the quality of Barefaced.
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I've never played through a ToneHammer, but it gets really good reviews on TB. However, I don't have enough experience with them to talk you into keeping yours.

Buf I've been using my D-800+ with one or both of my Big Baby 2's for over four years (although two of those four were in the COVID shutdown). So I probably do have enough info to talk you into buying one. But, contrary to unwritten TB policy, I won't do that. :D

I will, however,, tell you it's got gobs of power, has a fairly neutral tone when set flat, has a very flexible EQ section, and has just about the perfect feature set for me. The variable HPF and the two bands of semi-parametric mids are the key, for me anyway, and I'm also learning to appreciate the Bright switch. The BB2's can handle lows better than my backup cabinets, a pair of Hartke HyDrive HD210's (which I also like a lot), so I tend to only use the HPF to get rid of room boominess, if needed, when using the BB2's. But, the Hartke's are sealed and don't do deep lows as well, so I'll usually boost bass and low mids a little and raise the HPF setting a bit and that seems to give me a solid low end without making them struggle. That seems to work well.
 
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#11,877
Two-day recording session this weekend. I'm going to use a speaker cab and my choices are, super midget or a BB2... What would popular opinion be?
I'm playing a Modulus Genesis 5-string active. Darkglass mt-500.
Music is Multi-genre.
Not sure if it really matters.
But these cabs are the best I have ever had.
 
#11,878
SteveBassJr said:
Two-day recording session this weekend. I'm going to use a speaker cab and my choices are, super midget or a BB2... What would popular opinion be?
I'm playing a Modulus Genesis 5-string active. Darkglass mt-500.
Music is Multi-genre.
Not sure if it really matters.
But these cabs are the best I have ever had.
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As the 12xn cab don't "color" the tone, I think you could save some hassle and probably get better results running DI. Definitely all your choice as far as how you wanna sound. The only time I'm getting mic'd up to record is to use my B-15 - but even then, I have a Khan tube DI at the front of the signal chain.
 
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#11,879
gstaats said:
As the 12xn cab don't "color" the tone, I think you could save some hassle and probably get better results running DI. Definitely all your choice as far as how you wanna sound. The only time I'm getting mic'd up to record is to use my B-15 - but even then, I have a Khan tube DI at the front of the signal chain.
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Good point. I'm thinking maybe... It will be DI thru the amp and second line will be a speaker. Or, if their is some tube goodness available like a Khan something similar. Probably doesn't make much difference from the flat response.
 

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