TC Electronics RebelHead 450 - Rebel with a Cause

[tombowlus]

Hey Bowlus-
Would sure like to see a review of these in your MAG.
(good job on the latest edition by the way)

Thank you for the kind words! TC is going to get me a head and cabs ASAP. I really enjoyed talking with the lead designer, Uffe. He is a bass player, and really poured a lot of himself into this products.

We'll get a Quick Look up as soon as we can, but it will likely be a couple of issues before I can get them in as a full review (we have a LOT of gear to go through!).

Tom.

 

[lindseyp]

Bowlus--
When you do that review will you try to use the Yamaha BBT500H for comparison? Its my backup amp, purchased new for 1/3 the price TC seems to be asking. I'd definitely like to know the sonic difference using the same bass and cabinets for each.

 

[tombowlus]

Bowlus--
When you do that review will you try to use the Yamaha BBT500H for comparison? Its my backup amp, purchased new for 1/3 the price TC seems to be asking. I'd definitely like to know the sonic difference using the same bass and cabinets for each.

I have a BBT500H, so yes, I could do that. Good call.

 

[synaesthesia]

Yes, the cabs deserve some hype, too. TC owns Tannoy, and the Tannoy folks were definitely involved. It's hard to tell just how something sounds from playing it at NAMM (sooooo much background noise), but I can say that off-axis dispersion seemed to be above average.

Tom.

Other than the coaxial driver, there is not much to give away Tannoy influence. It did seem odd at first that given the EU manufacturers like Beyma, B & C, 18 sound, and various Danish speaker manufacturing plants, that the choice of drivers are Eminence. I know some OEM Eminence are made in China, but am not sure if these made it to TE. Maybe they use OEM US Eminence. Maybe the Cabs are made in Asia and they use OEM China Eminence. I have no idea where they are actually manufactured.

There was a time when Soldano used to ship empty cabs to UK because there was no point in the end customer paying for double import taxes for the Celestions.

If it is OEM US Eminence that TE uses, and the cabs are made and loaded in EU, it would impact on the US pricing.

 

[WillPlay4Food]

I love the user interface on this head. In this case, I think a comparison to iPod / iPhone is valid because there is tons of functionality that is all very easy to use as in, you won't need to bring a manual with you to the gig to remember how to futz with the para EQ / compressor settings. TC has managed to pack tons of functionality in an easily accessible format.

If you follow the eBay link on the previous page or so, there is an owner's manual for this head. In there it says the Rebel can run 3 TC cabs, or any other type of cabs with 4 Ohm minimum impedance.

 

[tombowlus]

Other than the coaxial driver, there is not much to give away Tannoy influence.

I'm just going on what Uffe had to say (though I did also talk to the Eminence folks).

Tom.

 

[xsubs]

If they are anything NEAR what tc electronics line of studio monitors, Dynaudio, are like, these things ARE going to be revolutionary, trust me.

FYI - Dynaudio is NOT part of T.C.! They are distributed by T.C., but that's it. They are two very different companies.

 

[macmrkt]

Yes, the cabs deserve some hype, too. TC owns Tannoy, and the Tannoy folks were definitely involved. It's hard to tell just how something sounds from playing it at NAMM (sooooo much background noise), but I can say that off-axis dispersion seemed to be above average.

Tom.

There's a clarity to the sound of the 2x12 stack that might be unique. Like Tom says, and several feet away at a minimum for this configuration.

 

[fokof]

I wonder what's the latency with this thing......

Probably in the +-4ms

 

[AlexanderB]

Speaking of tc electronics and latency:

I have a tc electronics C300 digital multiband compressor. A very nice (and cheap) rackmount unit with lots of interesting stuff "under the hood". Just dialing in one of the presets gives you a "set and forget" compressor for live use (up and running in 3 seconds) - and it sounds good enough to use in the studio, too!

However, the latency in this thing is quite noticable. If you try to blend the processed output with the original source, it will suffer from ugly phase/delay problems.
What tc did, was then to add a "blend" knob on the front panel. You can actually choose to compress only a part of the signal, leaving some transients with the full dynamic range. Both signals still go through the A/D/A, but not all is compressed.

Voilà - no latency related problems!

Odd solution, but it works OK...

/Alexander

 

[seamonkey]

I wonder what's the latency with this thing......

Probably in the +-4ms

-4ms - that would be it plays the note before you do. It's not that smart.


For the speed of sound you can look at 1ms as equal to 1ft away. So 4ms would be the speaker is 4ft away from you. I doubt most people could even tell 4ms latency.

Maybe Bass Gear needs to do some latency tests? Analogue gear has latency also. Digital gear these days isn't bad at all.

For the record, A/D and D/A takes microseconds. It's the signal processing algorithms and hardware capabilities that adds the latency. Still once a signal is in the digital domain you'll cut down on noise and mixing problems by feeding it to the next signal processing by using a digital feed. Even this may be too little to tell.

 

[Psychicpet]

I doubt most people could even tell 4ms latency.

you'd be surprised

whenever I've dealt with latency issues, I sure as heck couldn't tell you how many milliseconds it was but even just a hint of it feels soooo bad. hopefully there isn't an issue with that with the Rebel.

 

[fokof]

-4ms - that would be it plays the note before you do. It's not that smart.

I thought I was clear , sorry.
+-4ms means plus/minus 4ms
It means 2,3,4,5 ms
Hope that helps.

For the speed of sound you can look at 1ms as equal to 1ft away. So 4ms would be the speaker is 4ft away from you.

I don't see the link between speed of sound and speed of light (electricity/transfer of electrons) you are refering to.
Can you explain ?

I doubt most people could even tell 4ms latency.

You are right.Below 6 ms , it's pretty hard to tell , but the phase problems can be drastic as other mentioned.

Maybe Bass Gear needs to do some latency tests? Analogue gear has latency also. Digital gear these days isn't bad at all.

It depends on the product.
And latency means a difference between two sources, so if you split a signal and compare a A/D D/A to the analgue , your reference is gonna be the analgue (fastest) so there is no latency there since it IS your reference.
The delay between the vibration of the string and the cone moving must be in the nano/seconds or pico/seconds ???

For the record, A/D and D/A takes microseconds. It's the signal processing algorithms and hardware capabilities that adds the latency. Still once a signal is in the digital domain you'll cut down on noise and mixing problems by feeding it to the next signal processing by using a digital feed. Even this may be too little to tell.

Yes but if the algorithm is not program cerrectly ,it can sound really bad. There is bad plugins in this world.....

 

[seamonkey]

I thought I was clear , sorry.
+-4ms means plus/minus 4ms
It means 2,3,4,5 ms
Hope that helps.

I was just joking.

I don't see the link between speed of sound and speed of light (electricity/transfer of electrons) you are refering to.
Can you explain ?

If you had a speaker up next to your ear and counted this as 0ms latency. Moving the speaker 4ft from your head would be 4ft of latency.

i.e. the speed of sound in air is around 1ft = 1ms

You are right.Below 6 ms , it's pretty hard to tell , but the phase problems can be drastic as other mentioned.

It depends on the product.
And latency means a difference between two sources, so if you split a signal and compare a A/D D/A to the analgue , your reference is gonna be the analgue (fastest) so there is no latency there since it IS your reference.
The delay between the vibration of the string and the cone moving must be in the nano/seconds or pico/seconds ???


Yes but if the algorithm is not program cerrectly ,it can sound really bad. There is bad plugins in this world.....

Sure that's a good reason to keep stuff in the digital domain once it there.

Sure analogue gear has latency. They exploit it to make chorus, phasers, etc. It can be low, sure, but it does happen that mixing signals from two paths can hit phase issues even with analog gear.

And yes - there's some bad plugins out there. There are many that are fabulous. I bet TC will have updates that can be downloaded to this head should there are any problems. That's one of the cool things with digital - the software can be updated.

 

[seamonkey]

you'd be surprised

whenever I've dealt with latency issues, I sure as heck couldn't tell you how many milliseconds it was but even just a hint of it feels soooo bad. hopefully there isn't an issue with that with the Rebel.

Here's a Whirlwind article that has some subject tests.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

They're talking 10-15ms before anybody could even tell if "something's there"

 

[JimmyM]

Well we'll all see how the latency is when we get our free amps

I wonder if TC will offer those cabs with a regular woofer instead of a whizzer cone. I don't particularly care for much above what a 10" can do. Also, I don't know that I'm feeling the 212 and 210 having the same size box, but OTOH, I guess they could make it work with the right drivers and porting.

 

[synaesthesia]

I wonder if TC will offer those cabs with a regular woofer instead of a whizzer cone.

The top driver is coaxial with a tweeter as opposed to a whizzer cone.

 

[JimmyM]

The top driver is coaxial with a tweeter as opposed to a whizzer cone.

There's a difference?

 

[synaesthesia]

Yes, for a description of a whizzer and how it works:
http://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center/glossary/t--WhizzerCone

A coaxial driver employs a proper tweeter. You can attenuate the tweeter or turn it off, or disconnect it electronically, - you cannot attenuate the 'top' end with a whizzer design without affecting the woofer itself, or without some physical interference with the make up of the cone.

 

[JimmyM]

Yes, for a description of a whizzer and how it works:
http://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center/glossary/t--WhizzerCone

A coaxial driver employs a proper tweeter. You can attenuate the tweeter or turn it off, or disconnect it electronically, - you cannot attenuate the 'top' end with a whizzer design without affecting the woofer itself, or without some physical interference with the make up of the cone.

Oh really? Well that's good news for me.