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TL-606 Advice and Recommendations

#101
agedhorse said:
Yup, your experience is. Or unique. For smaller amps, it's a great option (if wight is not an issue) but for higher power use as amps got larger and music got louder, the failure rate grew to unacceptable levels. Pretty much every manufacturer that used these parts encountered the same thing.
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Kinda. Depends on Venue or Music Genre. Music in clubs is about the Same. Depends, some are ear bleeding loud, some casinos are whisper quite with electronic drums to control stage volume to ridiculous low levels.

Power Handling of say a Kappalite 3015 to a EVM 15L is very much different. then again actual " tone" is not really amazing different.
And like Wasnex mentioned a modern driver might have a little more of this and that. But a vintage driver has alot more mid clarity and unique tone.

Far as weight a 17 pound Ceramic Compared to a 11 pound Neo is impressive yes. But 6 pounds isnt some ground breaking weight standard that will save the world. Big weight savings of 15 to 25 pounds is cabinet Design. Either lighter wood or quite literally making them smaller and smaller.

Being a music dealer in the 90s id say its easy to beat the market since 70% of the market was MDF and that krap is heavy. just going back to real plywood will shed 20 pounds or more.

Its slightly ironic cause my main decision between taking on Hartke or Mesa Boogie as a new vendor back in no internet 90s. I went with Mesa Boogie and became a dealer cause of my love for EVM speakers. And the whole line. Bass Cabinets and Guitar Cabinets were using the EVM drivers

Guys on this Forum will argue and get banned arguing about mismatching drivers and how this random brand 1x12 mixed with this random brand 1x15. or this amazing 2x10 loaded with the same old cheap Eminence speakers mixed with this other dumb speaker. Is worth getting banned for.
When i think, if a majority of them actually owned a Mesa Boogie EV loaded 2x15 the wouldnt waste so much time or even loose their account if they knew how good they sounded.

Likewise when guys spend 400 dollars on some tube DI and 200 dollars on some high pass filter to get to the board. Some guys can toss a old EV 1x15 on the stage. Put a vocal microphone on it. And its not gonna blow up the channel with too much bass and go to mains just fine.
 
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#103
Seismic lows? No
Piercing highs? No
Beautiful balanced tone in the mix? Yes.
 

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#104
It depends on needs, we found that as the market evolved, the EVM 15's no longer adequately met the needs of many players. If they did, we would have continued using them.
 
#105
agedhorse said:
It depends on needs, we found that as the market evolved, the EVM 15's no longer adequately met the needs of many players. If they did, we would have continued using them.
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True enough.
Over the last 30 years I thought I needed different things (more power, more frequency range) and then I ended up coming back to the EVM15.
I went from 1400watts back to 200watts, also.
I’m getting the best bass tone I’ve ever heard atm. And I’m covering a lot of sonic territory stylistically.
It still confuses me.
 
#106
For those players who like the EVM tone, it's a unique mid character, voicing and texture that defined an era, but if you need a lot of SPL also, you need to add drivers, cabinets and respect the rating of the speaker (which for bass guitar is between 200 and 300 watts RMS based on EXTENSIVE testing and experience reconing these drivers).
 
#107
agedhorse said:
For those players who like the EVM tone, it's a unique mid character, voicing and texture that defined an era, but if you need a lot of SPL also, you need to add drivers, cabinets and respect the rating of the speaker (which for bass guitar is between 200 and 300 watts RMS based on EXTENSIVE testing and experience reconing these drivers).
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Yep, true.
I’ve concluded you need two cabs to really hang with a band easily. Using one and you’ll scrape by..!
I’ve used 810 and 410 rigs in the past.
The EVMs sound nicer to me.
Really though, it’s about expectations and experience. And your own personal needs/goals.
 
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#108
Chickenwheels said:
Yep, true.
I’ve concluded you need two cabs to really hang with a band easily. Using one and you’ll scrape by..!
I’ve used 810 and 410 rigs in the past.
The EVMs sound nicer to me.
Really though, it’s about expectations and experience. And your own personal needs/goals.
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Agreed, I also really like the sound of my EVM.

I rehearsed last night with only one 606 to see how it held up and like you said, I was just getting by.

Been keeping an eye on the local CL so if another one pops up I can snag it. Found a local post of someone selling a Music Man 115RH for cheap and tried to snag it, but it was already spoken for.

I know its not a 606 cab but curious if either of you have experience with those cabs?
 
#109
estimated_eyes said:
Agreed, I also really like the sound of my EVM.

I rehearsed last night with only one 606 to see how it held up and like you said, I was just getting by.

Been keeping an eye on the local CL so if another one pops up I can snag it. Found a local post of someone selling a Music Man 115RH for cheap and tried to snag it, but it was already spoken for.

I know its not a 606 cab but curious if either of you have experience with those cabs?
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I’ve not heard them. What speaker is in it?
I’d hang in there for another EVM. Two EVMs is sweet!
 
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#111
estimated_eyes said:
My understanding is that they came stock with EV 15L's but I could be wrong.

Can you summon one to the Portland area!? haha
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Lol that’d be handy!
There are stacks of old TL606 cabs here in Sydney. They were the industry standard in the 80s. I bought one of mine from a sound hire company that had 6 of them piled up in their loft. I just grabbed the tidiest one..!
 
#113
hbarcat said:
This. I have a TL 606 that I gig with and also an EV B215m that stays in my rehearsal space. Learned pretty quickly that too much low end (boosting below about 65Hz) will melt the drivers.

They really are fragile, because they're such an old design, but that's the exact reason why I like them. The EV 15 speakers have an amazingly rich low-mid response and can get quite loud with relatively low power, if you don't abuse them.
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In three words: Sound like crazy!

Agree with @agedhorse about technical limitation compare to today standard, used into in the correct power range I got no problem, this speaker is a musical instrument by itself. Like a Marshall head for guitar, despite technical limitation it have a unique tone.

A friend of mine bought a SW115, SW112 and a 800+ recently, I think a bass tasting party is coming soon.:)
 
#114
agedhorse said:
Note that the 400 watts continuous did not end up being rated the same nor did it survive in the same way as the 200 watt rated version. It was (in part) a re-thinking of how speakers were rated, and in practice there were quite a few more failures with the 400 watt version powered at 400 watts than the 200 watt version powered at 200 watts. The low frequency extension was not very good either but this appears to be more from the trade off that makes the mid voicing so nice and extended.

I saw an awful lot of both the series 2 and the pro line drivers in for recone during that time period, a lot of the prolines had substantial damage from being overpowered. The only difference was the voice coil adhesives and coating, all of the other parts remained the same.

In an optimally tuned cabinet, I think you could expect a -3dB response to about 50Hz and a mechanical power handling limit of about 250-300 watts RMS. (this is from memory when I did some OEM designs with these drivers for pro audio)
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The coils appeared to be coated with glyptol, or something similar, which would actually add more thermal resistance to cooling, than what it helped the coil. I don't know how many shredded coils I had to pick out of the gap because guys were working them too hard.
 
#115
The coating was supposed to improve scuff resistance under excessive excursion as well as improving the adhesives used.

In practice, I don't think the coating helped as much as the marketing suggested. The failure rates didn't appear to improve much.
 

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