- Apr 3, 2003
- 35,518
- 19,954
- Disclosures
- Editor-in-Chief, Bass Gear Magazine
Awesome. That is pretty much what I expected, but nice to hear it from you! Thanks!
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The Un-Official Sadowsky SA200 Thread...
- Thread starter jokerjkny
- Start date
Awesome. That is pretty much what I expected, but nice to hear it from you! Thanks!
- Apr 3, 2003
- 35,518
- 19,954
- Disclosures
- Editor-in-Chief, Bass Gear Magazine
Awesome. That is pretty much what I expected, but nice to hear it from you! Thanks!
Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
Actually, I take it back!;-). Lee @husky123 has played the new cabs with his tube amps so I'll let him chime in. I know he has an SVT and Fender Bassman. Not sure but maybe others too. I've lost track of all his gear. How do you keep track, LOL!?Awesome. That is pretty much what I expected, but nice to hear it from you! Thanks!
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- Apr 3, 2003
- 35,518
- 19,954
- Disclosures
- Editor-in-Chief, Bass Gear Magazine
Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
We are all quite aware of that! ;-}
I've played MANY a tube amp through the entire NXT line and they all sounded great to me. Don't know what else to say....don't need to see charts/specs/build sheets/part numbers/excursion nano atoms....they just sound like thunder. Seriously though, one thing the NXT/NXV's excel at is tight, quick and punchy bass response. They don't do loose and flubby.
I have quite a large collection of tube amps. Off the top of my head I think the total is now 19. I don't own any sealed cabs and absolutely cannot stand the way the Ampeg 810E sounds. The lows are fine, but I do not like the high mids and treble response. Obviously millions of people love the Ampeg 810E so it has to be an awesome cab, right? Everyone should judge the cab for themselves; please don't let me personal opinion sway you.
I own several ported cabs and I would say amp cab/pairing is a significant factor in achieving the specific tone and feel you want. Just because you have an amp that you love and a cab that you love, does not guarantee they will work well together; this is especially true with tube amps due to their lower damping factor IMHO.
Here's an example. I have a pair of massive home built EV TL405 loaded with EVM18Bs that are setup in step down mode. Some of my tube amps sound fabulous through these cabs. In fact, I would say the TL405 is the best sounding cab in my collection for some of my amps.
But my Aguilar DB359 does not seem to get along with the TL405s very well, so I would say this amp/cab pairing is not a good choice. Basically the combination seems to produce a somewhat nasty low frequency resonance; if I remember correctly it's centered around G# on the E string; the tone is unusually loose, peaky, and uneven. To be honest many people would not even notice, but it drives me nuts.
I also own a bunch of Genz Benz GB1288Ts. The Aguilar DB359 sounds great through these cabs. My impression is the 1288Ts tuning is very well damped in the low end. None of my tube amps have any low frequency weirdness with these cabs. In fact the low end of these cabs is extremely consistent from amp to amp, which is not necessarily a good thing IMHO, because it sort of conceals or masks the individuality or uniqueness of each amp Consider how this relates to concept of the cab's quality of transparency. In other words the cab's ability to faithfully reproduce the subtle nuances in the signals fed to it.
The TL405s are truly enormous and totally impractical for gigging, but just purely on sound quality I would probably choose to use them with my SA200s over the GB1288Ts. The SA200s lows are fabulous through the TL405s, and I think the amps just sounds a bit more lively through these cabs overall than through the GB1288Ts.
Something to keep in mind is the SA200s unique tone control network. As long as a cab's sub bass response is even, rather than peaky, you may be able to get what you want out of the cab.
My impression is the SA200 is really setup to found fabulous with the tone controls set to 12:00. But here's the deal, the Bass, Mid, and Treble are laid out in the shape of what we lovingly call a Fender tone stack. The circuit has a Fat/Clean switch which changes the amps voicing and gain a bit. Also before the tone stack you have two additional tone controls circuits called Bottom and Top.
My impression is Bottom and Top loose effectiveness as you roll off the Bass and Treble controls--you might say the controls interact, or the Fender tone stack part of the circuit dominates the Bottom and Top controls.
Here's how this interaction is described in the owners manual:
The point is, as long as the cabs low end response is not peaky, you can pump up the lows with the Bass control and then roll back the sub bass with the Bottom control. IMHO the SA200s tone circuit is one of the best available in a tube amp.
I own several ported cabs and I would say amp cab/pairing is a significant factor in achieving the specific tone and feel you want. Just because you have an amp that you love and a cab that you love, does not guarantee they will work well together; this is especially true with tube amps due to their lower damping factor IMHO.
Here's an example. I have a pair of massive home built EV TL405 loaded with EVM18Bs that are setup in step down mode. Some of my tube amps sound fabulous through these cabs. In fact, I would say the TL405 is the best sounding cab in my collection for some of my amps.
But my Aguilar DB359 does not seem to get along with the TL405s very well, so I would say this amp/cab pairing is not a good choice. Basically the combination seems to produce a somewhat nasty low frequency resonance; if I remember correctly it's centered around G# on the E string; the tone is unusually loose, peaky, and uneven. To be honest many people would not even notice, but it drives me nuts.
I also own a bunch of Genz Benz GB1288Ts. The Aguilar DB359 sounds great through these cabs. My impression is the 1288Ts tuning is very well damped in the low end. None of my tube amps have any low frequency weirdness with these cabs. In fact the low end of these cabs is extremely consistent from amp to amp, which is not necessarily a good thing IMHO, because it sort of conceals or masks the individuality or uniqueness of each amp Consider how this relates to concept of the cab's quality of transparency. In other words the cab's ability to faithfully reproduce the subtle nuances in the signals fed to it.
The TL405s are truly enormous and totally impractical for gigging, but just purely on sound quality I would probably choose to use them with my SA200s over the GB1288Ts. The SA200s lows are fabulous through the TL405s, and I think the amps just sounds a bit more lively through these cabs overall than through the GB1288Ts.
Something to keep in mind is the SA200s unique tone control network. As long as a cab's sub bass response is even, rather than peaky, you may be able to get what you want out of the cab.
My impression is the SA200 is really setup to found fabulous with the tone controls set to 12:00. But here's the deal, the Bass, Mid, and Treble are laid out in the shape of what we lovingly call a Fender tone stack. The circuit has a Fat/Clean switch which changes the amps voicing and gain a bit. Also before the tone stack you have two additional tone controls circuits called Bottom and Top.
My impression is Bottom and Top loose effectiveness as you roll off the Bass and Treble controls--you might say the controls interact, or the Fender tone stack part of the circuit dominates the Bottom and Top controls.
Here's how this interaction is described in the owners manual:
Further, the relative level of the Bass control directly influences the effect the Bottom control has, and the relative level of the Treble...
The point is, as long as the cabs low end response is not peaky, you can pump up the lows with the Bass control and then roll back the sub bass with the Bottom control. IMHO the SA200s tone circuit is one of the best available in a tube amp.
Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
I appreciate your thoughtful response and am happy you were able to find your tone with your various setups, but bass amplification shouldn't be this complicated to find a good tone, IMO. The major issue I see is that you have amp designers and speaker designers working in two separate "vacuums", neither one knowing what the other one is doing or how the two components will meld with one another. And the unintuitiveness of the tone stacks and accompanying controls can send many players down never ending rabbit holes trying to dial in their tone only to get more frustrated and end up doing the very expensive buy/sell tango. JMO of course but it makes no sense to me why one amp can sound great with one speaker and almost unusable with another. Im an engineer and not a bass player just to be clear, but I believe if manufactures and designers took more time to learn and understand the needs and interactions of the components their designing, less time and money would be spent by players trying to dial in their tone and more time would be spent playing and enjoying it. Again my opinion and YMMV, etc, etc.
Not exactly the response I expected. Seems odd that you offer so many different cabs if this is truly they way you view things. IMHO, the reality is life is complicated and messy and sometimes you get lucky and experience a bit of gestalt.
This gestalt could be purely subjective. For example one amp, one speaker, and two people. One person thinks the amp/cab pairing is the best he/she has ever heard and the second thinks the combination sucks. Always best to try before you buy IMHO, rather than taking the word of a bunch of people on the internet.
After a recent acquisition, my collection is now up to 29 amps. I am pretty confident that if I were to play each of my amps through every cab in your current catalog, that I would not pick one of your cabs as my absolute favorite. In other words, I would choose different models from your product line for various amp/cab pairings. It's also likely these amp/cab pairing would change depending on my mood and tonal goals.
I do agree there are poorly engineered products in the market that sound and perform badly. However, some of them actually sound fantastic, but they may be quirky and/or unreliable. There are also some very well engineered products that sound awful to my ears.
Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
I certainly didn't mean to infer there's only one right answer, if I'm understanding your comment about us offering several different models correctly. What I was trying to convey was that from an engineering perspective it shouldn't be that difficult to at the very least be able to dial in a usable tone if the two components are designed with the other one in mind. Just like food, we all have are favorite dishes and restaurants, but if other chefs know what he or she is doing, we can still enjoy different recipes from different restaurants, just maybe not as much as our favorite one. I wasn't in any way implying anything negative from your post. Just the opposite. I think it just highlighted my thoughts on bass amplification and how I feel it can often times be too complicated or frustrating for some to dial in a usable tone because some designers don't, IMO, understand the relationship between what they're designing and any associated equipment it will be used with. And just to make sure, I was careful to express in my posts that these are my opinions based on my experiences as a designer of both amps and cabs. I certainly appreciate and respect those who's opinions and experiences differ from mine.
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No worries, we probably just need to agree to agree
. This comment is a bit hard for me to really put in proper context.
What I was trying to convey was that from an engineering perspective it shouldn't be that difficult to at the very least be able to dial in a usable tone if the two components are designed with the other one in mind.
I agree, but AFAIK products from different companies with full product lines are not generally designed with a priority towards compatibility with products from competing companies. In fact design intent may vary significantly from company to company, or even internally within a company from one product line to the next.
Another very important aspect is the match between designer intent and user goals. Just because something is well designed and perfectly hits the target does not mean everyone will love it. For example I mentioned that I can hardly stand to play through Ampeg 810Es, although the tone would certainly be usable and millions of people love it! To be honest, I am still very curious to try one of your NV610 or NV412s. But I would not be surprised if I did not care for them and found it difficult to get what I consider a usable tone out of them--and for the record I own a 69 SVT and an 87 SVT. That does not say anything about the engineering you put into the cabs, they are both well respected and highly coveted
.Let's keep in mind the gestalt idea I mentioned involves some serious cork sniffing on my part. I am getting older and losing faith in my ability to hear (or perhaps) care about the subtle nuances that once seemed hyper-important and plain as day to me.
I greatly appreciate your grace and patience, and wish you a pleasant evening.
Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
It's all good. And just to offer my quick thoughts regarding your italicized quote from my earlier post, I would just like to say that based on my first 15 years in the business solely as a speaker designer, that if my cabinets weren't designed from a proper engineering perspective, IMO, they wouldn't have enjoyed the reputation of playing well with most if not all amps designed by other manufacturers. And I wouldn't be here sharing an enjoyable evening of talking "shop" with you!;-)No worries, we probably just need to agree to agree
This comment is a bit hard for me to really put in proper context.
What I was trying to convey was that from an engineering perspective it shouldn't be that difficult to at the very least be able to dial in a usable tone if the two components are designed with the other one in mind.I agree, but AFAIK products from different companies with full product lines are not generally designed with a priority towards compatibility with products from competing companies. In fact design intent may vary significantly from company to company, or even internally within a company from one product line to the next.
Another very important aspect is the match between designer intent and user goals. Just because something is well designed and perfectly hits the target does not mean everyone will love it. For example I mentioned that I can hardly stand to play through Ampeg 810Es, although the tone would certainly be usable and millions of people love it!
To be honest, I am still very curious to try one of your NV610 or NV412s. But I would not be surprised if I did not care for them and found it difficult to get what I consider a usable tone out of them--and for the record I own a 69 SVT and an 87 SVT. That does not say anything about the engineering you put into the cabs, they are both well respected and highly coveted
Let's keep in mind the gestalt idea I mentioned involves some serious cork sniffing on my part. I am getting older and losing faith in my ability to hear (or perhaps) care about the subtle nuances that once seemed hyper-important and plain as day to me.
I greatly appreciate your grace and patience, and wish you a pleasant evening.
Thanks so much for continuing to share your (highly informed) perspective on TB. Can an outboard HPF (in pedal form, for example) help make a tube amp/ported cab combination less boomy, perhaps giving it a sealed-cab vibe if set properly? I had an NV610--for the record, my favorite-sounding cabinet ever--but it ultimately proved to be too big and bulky for the practice and gigging situations I find myself in in Chicago.
Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
As you know, I don't play but I listened to others while they're playing. One thing NAMM would consistently remind me of every year is how much an individual player's style and approach to the instrument will dictate more which amp/cab combination sounds best than the cab or amp itself. For example, one year I listened as one player compared the NV610 and NV412 in a side by side shootout and thought the NV412 sounded better than the NV610. Then shortly there after another player (both very good players I should add) played thru the same two cabs and I preferred the 610 to the 412. They were both using our newly introduced B|AMP at the time so the player was the only differentiating factor (can't remember if it was the exact same bass or not, but all our basses that year were from the same luthier). So the best answer to your question I can give is my favorite amp is whatever amp sounds best given the specific player who is playing thru the rig. And if you want me to base it on my playing thru the rig, than no amp sounds good! ;-}
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Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
Hi Greg, A good HPF is a very useful tool to have for any gigging bassist. It can help eliminate the low end rumble in any system or room without robbing you of the critical mids that help define your tone. In fact, you'll be surprised how high you can set it before you feel like your missing any usable low end. The higher you can set it and still have enough bass in your tone, the more detailed you'll find your mids which helps you cut thru a busy mix that much better, not to mention the additional headroom you'll gain from your amp and cab. As for getting a sealed vibe, that depends on how critical your ears are. As you probably know, one of the main differences between a sealed and ported cabinet is the rate of roll off in the low end. A sealed cabinet gives you a shallower 12db/octave roll off while a ported cab give you a steeper 24db/octave roll off. These slopes or rates relate to the group delay of the cabinet and why sealed cabinets tend to have a more coherent, natural bass quality to them because of the lower group delay. The trade off for a ported cabinet is they are more sensitive than a sealed cabinet and give you an additional 3db more output in the tuning range of the cabinet.
When you add to this a higher order HPF, you're increasing the group delay of your system even more. So while I still recommend the use of a HPF for reasons stated above, for the critical ear it's not going to give you the same bass quality of a sealed cab with no HPF. But the trade off is worth it, especially in a live gigging situation. One thing to consider when choosing a HPF is to check what the order of the filter is. 2nd order, IMO is more than adequate enough and will give you less group delay than a 4th order one. So while a 4th order HPF (or even higher) is desirable in a large PA subwoofer system driven by a 2000 watt amplifier to reproduce sub lows to 10,000+ people, it's too steep and unnecessary, IMO, for a bass guitar system where you're still trying to retain as much of the bass quality as possible. Hope this helps and hope I didn't make your eyes glaze over and roll back in your head...I've been known to do that! ;-}
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This is absolutely the best answer!
Also I wanted to say. It's been years since I had the opportunity to sample your gear, but long ago a couple of my peers were using some of your HT series cabs and I thought the engineering was absolutely top notch. One guy had an HT310 and an HT212 and the other had an IP112HT and an EX112.
I felt the IP rig was better for my somewhat unique approach. The lows on the HT310 and HT212 were truly phenomenal, but for live work I find strong extended lows to get in the way, so I typically prefer a more aggressively voiced cab, with somewhat lean lows. Basically my preference is for my stage sound to sort of jump out of the mayhem, so I can monitor at the lowest possible volume. The idea is to avoid competing with the PA; especially in the low end.
My impression is the big HT Bergs were super HiFi, and they were a great choice to produce a full-range, natural sound when you don't have adequate PA support. I mixed some shows on a small PA for the guy running one of the big HTs and the bass always sounded great!
Jim Bergantino
Commercial User
Thank you for the kind words and you are spot on regarding the sonic signature of the HT series, primarily the larger ones(310,212, and322). One of the descriptions I often heard regarding the HTs was "piano" like for there very full range, detailed and musical tone. And speaking of PA, our very own @tombowlus sometimes used our HT cabs for his PA system!;-)This is absolutely the best answer!
Also I wanted to say. It's been years since I had the opportunity to sample your gear, but long ago a couple of my peers were using some of your HT series cabs and I thought the engineering was absolutely top notch. One guy had an HT310 and an HT212 and the other had an IP112HT and an EX112.
I felt the IP rig was better for my somewhat unique approach. The lows on the HT310 and HT212 were truly phenomenal, but for live work I find strong extended lows to get in the way, so I typically prefer a more aggressively voiced cab, with somewhat lean lows. Basically my preference is for my stage sound to sort of jump out of the mayhem, so I can monitor at the lowest possible volume. The idea is to avoid competing with the PA; especially in the low end.
My impression is the big HT Bergs were super HiFi, and they were a great choice to produce a full-range, natural sound when you don't have adequate PA support. I mixed some shows on a small PA for the guy running one of the big HTs and the bass always sounded great!
