Totally transparent combo bass amp?

[seamonkey]

Transparent amps have little to no mojo....there, I said it.

They start the recipe with transparency, but they add the pre-amp and signal processing, like on the fender studio models, or a kemper, to give you all the mojo you can get out of any amp.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

IF your bass doesn't sound good through a flat-response amp, it's the failure of the pickups, not the amp.
I can plug mine in directly to my computer (USB interface) w/o any kind of processing & it sounds fabulous!

 

[Foz]

Response interleaved:

Good points, I should have clarified...

...The challenge that I was illustrating is that low frequency measurements in general are difficult to achieve accurately. I didn't mean to imply that 25Hz measurements were in fact done this way, but why they were difficult.

Pretty sure they still are difficult.

In fact data that low in the band any measurement would IME be viewed with a great deal of skepticism - regardless of source.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

...Anechoic chambers for very accurate 25Hz measurements would be quite large...

Oh Yeah.

Comprised traditionally of something on the order of a double butt-ton of concrete forming a chamber [which itself resides inside another massive chamber] with an interior volume in excess of 150k cubic feet, lined with absorptive wedges over 10' deep on every boundary, and the whole chamber floated on a massive array of coil springs soft enough to yield a resonance below 12.5Hz [to isolate down to 25Hz]. That said, why the hell anybody in the MI bitness would put a cab in such a facility is beyond my comprehension.

...When you get around 100Hz, things improve significantly and the errors decrease greatly...

Agreed - and at 200Hz even girls can do it. OTOH using speaker manufacturer data, added in the real world with a rational T/S parameter box guided by a functional box design app, and taking a few basic steps to validate [check your port resonance with some salt and a sine wave generator, for example], you can concatenate such elements together with the measurements your windowed measurement system yields and produce a quite reasonable model of LF performance.*

*Well, that's my opinion anyway - in fact I know a lot of small to modest sized MI and Audio manufacturers do just that = got no room in the budget to book the big chamber for a couple of days just to tell us the driver rolls off +/-10dB at 40ish [or whatever] and then nose dives, which we all kinda already knew.

I prefer outdoor measurements myself, and I have a suitable space to do these with boundaries very distant compared with the measurement distances.

Ya... I hear they pretty much let everybody go outside these days [wear a mask! - just kidding, wear insect repellent]. I have a large pasture at my farm that works OK [if I remember to turn the truck and well pump off], and I have used it to do the ground plane method - but anybody can do a lot if you can get onto a ball field or parking lot or some such that's got occasions when there are no other users and is well away from traffic noise and the like.

The point I am making is that all methods of low frequency measurement are difficult, gating has challenges, anechoic chambers have challenges, small spaces have challenges, large spaces have (different) challenges, even outdoors has challenges.

Agreed - but IMO/IME DIY folks can meet these challenges and yield solidly useful results -

 

[winegamd]

Acoustic Image and EA (the no longer made CXL combo to be exact) would be in the transparent category.

 

[chris_b]

...does such a thing exist? And how would we know?

Why would we want it, even if we could find it?

Something in your signal chain has to impart character to your sound and it might as well be a combination of you, the bass, the amp and the cab. Even if you could find a totally transparent rig, as others have said, the room is going to beat you anyway.

 

[Wisebass]

Hi Andy

It may be preferred for the REPRODUCTION of music, but I can say with certainty that it's not preferred by those who are using a bass or guitar speaker for the CREATION of music.

Who would ever use an open cab with 12 inch Celestions to listen music?

I read an interwiew with Jim Marshall (in the 80s, I think it was in "Fachblatt Musikmagazin")

He was asked how they found the right speakers for their cabs.

He told that they loaded a whole bunch of cabs with different speakers

(the best speakers money could buy and some of the worst cheapest speakers to have a "placebo")

and sent them to guitarists for blind testing...

=> the cheapest won! And Jim as a business man was very happy about that!



greetings

Wise(b)ass

 

[seamonkey]

IF your bass doesn't sound good through a flat-response amp, it's the failure of the pickups, not the amp.
I can plug mine in directly to my computer (USB interface) w/o any kind of processing & it sounds fabulous!

Isn't that the truth. The amount of time practicing technique, selecting a bass, pickups, strings and then somehow some here claim all the tone comes from the amp. More people ought to try direct into an interface to hear how what actually comes out of a good bass and technique. Record it and play it for others and get their opinions. I think a lot more people would be striving for more transparent options on amps.

Sure put in extras like eq and overdrive, but also be able to turn them off - back to transparent.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

IF there were an amp out there that's truly transparent, it would be unique, since every brand is trying to put their "spin" on how a bass-amp should sound.

AFAIK the only way to get true transparency is like I mentioned in my first post, or using a power-amp with no preamp.

 

[Redbrangus]

...and then somehow some here claim all the tone comes from the amp.

I didn't find that assertion anywhere in this thread... where did I miss that? It's certainly not what I was saying.

 

[agedhorse]

IF there were an amp out there that's truly transparent, it would be unique, since every brand is trying to put their "spin" on how a bass-amp should sound.

AFAIK the only way to get true transparency is like I mentioned in my first post, or using a power-amp with no preamp.

It's not that every brand is trying to put their spin on how a bass amp should sound, but that each brand is giving the player the tools to CREATE what the PLAYER might prefer. I have designed amps with a variety of native voicings, but all with the options of changing or altering these voicings through the use of switchable/tunable filters and eq. None of my products (for example) have a single, one trick pony tone.

If every manufacturer made amps, cabinets and basses that sounded the same, wouldn't that be boring and uninspiring if that's not your preference or taste?

 

[fretlessman71]

IF your bass doesn't sound good through a flat-response amp, it's the failure of the pickups, not the amp.
I can plug mine in directly to my computer (USB interface) w/o any kind of processing & it sounds fabulous!

THIS I think is ultimately what I'm getting at. With a transparent amp, you can really hear what the bass brings to the party, like tasting each ingredient (or at least being certain what it tastes like) before you make dinner. It doesn't mean you want to have a meal of just spaghetti sauce, but knowing what the sauce brings to the dish will help you choose the rest of the ingredients.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

If every manufacturer made amps, cabinets and basses that sounded the same, wouldn't that be boring

However, none of them make one that's a flat-reponse before manipulating the EQ.
Your point is just the juxtaposition to my point above, if ONE brand did make a flat amp, it would be unique.

 

[agedhorse]

However, none of them make one that's a flat-reponse before manipulating the EQ.
Your point is just the juxtaposition to my point above, if ONE brand did make a flat amp, it would be unique.

It's been tried several times and just wasn't well accepted.

 

[Wisebass]

It's been tried several times and just wasn't well accepted.

Glockenklang are still in business because they realized that all clean and neutral for bass means that

in the end you just sell a P.A.

Most bassplayers don't want that! (the flops Glockenklang had with some cabs are a good example)


greetings

Wise

 

[Wasnex]

Isn't that the truth. The amount of time practicing technique, selecting a bass, pickups, strings and then somehow some here claim all the tone comes from the amp. More people ought to try direct into an interface to hear how what actually comes out of a good bass and technique. Record it and play it for others and get their opinions. I think a lot more people would be striving for more transparent options on amps.

Sure put in extras like eq and overdrive, but also be able to turn them off - back to transparent.

I have done that and my conclusion is the biggest limiting factor is the speakers.

 

[Wasnex]

If every manufacturer made amps, cabinets and basses that sounded the same, wouldn't that be boring and uninspiring if that's not your preference or taste?

I tend to find the more heavily voiced amps and speakers the most boring and uninspiring. If I can't hear every little nuance I feel disconnected from my sound. Playing a rig like an SVT with an 810 feels like I am dragging a boulder up a hill. Lot's of people perceive this rig as producing a very immediate sound, but it feels slow and lethargic to me because of the way it is voiced.

However, give me a speaker with decent high frequency extension and a contour that doesn't produce too much gank, and the SVT will do fine.

 

[tombowlus]

I tend to find the more heavily voiced amps and speakers the most boring and uninspiring.

+1 I tend to prefer amps that tend to be on the less-colored side, but which have a usable tone stack to let me deal with problem rooms, etc. I also tend to prefer enclosures which are relatively balanced from top to bottom, and which have at least decent off-axis performance. This is partly because I am often playing through a variety of different instruments, and I like to hear what each instrument brings to the party (and choose the "right" instrument for the gig), and partly because most of the bands that I play in cover a lot of different ground, so I want a rig that can do it all, as opposed to being really dialed in as a "rock rig," or a "pop rig," or a "reggae rig," or whatnot. FWIW, I am not typically too concerned about performance below 38Hz or so (from the amp or cab), as I prefer to use a high-pass filter to cut out the super low stuff, anyway.

That all being said, I really appreciate some of the "baked-in" voices of certain rigs, and if I do find myself playing a show where all/most of the songs just really fit that baked-in voice, then it can be really fun.

 

[Wasnex]

It's been tried several times and just wasn't well accepted.

I think a better way to say it is the target market is not large enough to make this sort of product profitable.

In all actually there is no real reason to even bother making a transparent flat response preamp for bass. There are plenty of preamps already on the market already that are designed to be straight wire gain.

There was a time I considered getting a nice mic preamp from Millenia Media or Great River.

 

[tombowlus]

I think a better way to say it is the target market is not large enough to make this sort of product profitable.

In all actually there is no real reason to even bother making a transparent flat response preamp for bass. There are plenty of preamps already on the market already that are designed to be straight wire gain.

There was a time I considered getting a nice mic preamp from Millenia Media or Great River.
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FWIW, you do have options like the Bergantino B|Amp, which has very little - if any - voicing, and which allows you to load "profiles" which, when paired up with the appropriate Bergantino cab, are designed for a very neutral, balanced response. Of course, the B|Amp also allows for easily adding some splashes of color to that "blankish canvas," through the overdrive/fuzz options. This is an evolution of the IP series of powered cabs (with the DSP controlling the "profile" located onboard with the amp in the cab). Jim made up a "line driver" prototype preamp (basically wire with gain) which he let me use to demo the various IP cabs, and I personally really loved them. Still do. The B|Amp moves the amp and the DSP to the head, and allows for use with unpowered enclosures, but the goal is still rather similar.

 

[agedhorse]

To clarify, I have generally been associated with mild to moderately "colored" amps, with a couple of exceptions, but I am careful not to criticize those who prefer a more colored amp than my own personal tastes prefer because to those players, uncolored amps are just not their thing. That's totally cool.