1st of all, IME Schroeder cabs are VERY shy in content below 100 Hz (the real bass freq). I mean VERY shy. As far as Epi and berg are concerned, the fEARful will go lower, clearer and be much louder per pound. A fEARful 12/6 will outperfrom most 210s, let alone a 112.
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What makes fEARFUL Cabs so scary?
- Thread starter SRCRS
- Start date
1st of all, IME Schroeder cabs are VERY shy in content below 100 Hz (the real bass freq). I mean VERY shy. As far as Epi and berg are concerned, the fEARful will go lower, clearer and be much louder per pound. A fEARful 12/6 will outperfrom most 210s, let alone a 112.
I was thinking the same thing. It's not a knock on the cabs or design, it's the basic and very common bandwagon mentality. Everyone (or even almost everyone) can't love the cabs, they haven't actually heard them IRL.
Excuse me, but what's the deal with "going very low"? Are you playing bass or watching Transformers on your home-theater?
Who in the whole world would want a boomy fest sucking up everything it encounters?
Sorry, I just don't get it...
What are you guys playing? Synth bass hip-hop style earth-shaking sub 30hz headache inducing frequencies? Most bass cabs have too much bass already. It's in the richness of the low-mids that our instrument shines.
I'd rather have all the lows I want and eq out the sub-bass than not hear the stuff I really like at 40 or 50Hz. The fEARful or similar type cab can truly amplify and project these low freq whereas many other designs do not. This also makes it easier to be heard UNDER the band, without needing to compete in the mids with other instruments.
clearly.
I dont like it when cabs fart out at gig volume when I hit my b string. I also want the sound of that string to be full and present, otherwise why would I bring a 5er?
Some times yes, with out the addition of PA support. As far as headaches go... no I have never had anyone complain about this.
Your tonal goals are your own. I want content below 100 hz.
Passinwind
I know nothing.
- Dec 3, 2003
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The cabs' designer plays an extended range instrument tuned at least a few steps below low B, at one time as low as F# below low B IIRC.
Fair enough.
I've never played a gig larger than a small bar without PA support.
To each their own, I guess...
Who wants to hear that?
I've never played a gig larger than a small bar without PA support.
To each their own, I guess...
Who wants to hear that?
Go out of your way to hear a fearful cabinet, please.
I'm not sure where you got "a boomy fest sucking up everything it encounters", but playing through a cabinet that truly sounds full is quite enjoyable. The cabinet line is easily capable of producing an overpowering amount of bass, but that is erroneous input, not design flaw.
You might be unhappy hearing something different, but a lack of cabinet-based, bottom end roll-off on the electric bass isn't something to complain about.
Maybe you don't get it, because you can't "get it"...not from most commercially available (and affordable, and lightweight) cabs anyway.
Clean low end below 100Hz DOES NOT create "boom" or "mud". Distorted low end does and so does 100Hz to 150Hz that comes from most commercial offerings when the lows are boosted. That is the main reason for so many thinking they don't want true fundamental bass frequencies...because most cabs can't produce it (at gig volume) even if you tried to get it out of them...and when you do it sounds like crap.
Deep lows still might be a sound one likes (just to placate the crowd who doesn't want deep lows and is just just fine without them).
+1
Hey Martha, where are you located? Might be a fEARful close enough for you to take a listen.
Actually...the kick drum really kicks in the chest at 90Hz. If you boost a PA's EQ at around 120Hz (that area so many commercial bass cabs shine with that "mid-bass" hump designed into them) THAT effects the sinus cavity and THAT causes headaches (along with a distorted PA which, because of ear fatigue can also cause headaches).
BECAUSE I use a fEARful (along with an appropriate EQ) I can totally kill that boomy, muddy, most often offending frequency (125Hz) completely out of my bass rig and still boost well below it and all around it and I get full true bass with no headache inducing "false" low end that is accentuated in so many other cabs.
We all gotta use what works for us, no matter what that may be.
See? Who's right here? This is REAL LIFE experience, not chart reading... Bergantinos can get stupid loud and very low, Schroeder's will get a lot louder than Bergantinos... A LOT.
I don't know about the rest here, but I use my ears. Oh, and I also use frequency charts and graphs. Knowing the science behind sound reproduction doesn't negate the ability to hear.
I can get stupid loud with any number of bass cabs...even a lot of cheap (and pretty crappy) ones. What's your point?
I can get stupid loud below 100Hz with clarity with my fEARful if I want to. Can you with yours?
My point is that our friend above A/B'd a fEARful with a similar commercial cab and the fEARful couldn't hold it's own in the comparison.
I would expect the voltage to each cab to be very different. The reason the 12/6 is louder than a standard 112 is that it has a much larger displacement. You will have to use sufficient power to push the cab that far. Were you using a streamliner 600?
You seem to want to dismiss fEARFuls outright by giving the VERY few examples of commercially available cabs that can compete with them. There are other cabs available that can compete with fEARfuls. Very few that can hang with them in all areas. They're out there, but not many.
fEARfuls excell at true low end output, so you dismiss them by saying "who wants to go that low anyway?" Which does nothing but discredit your opinion because you are simply changing the subject, which I do believe was "What makes fEARFUL Cabs so scary?"
What next? Clarity with great off-axis dispersion in the mids not important because "Who wants to stand anywhere but in front of their rig?"
If loudness with lower wattage is your only goal, then get a cab that isn't tuned as low. Everybody knows that's the tradeoff for having a cab that goes low, or at least everyone in this thread should know it. Some people like cabs that go low, some don't. I happen to be one that doesn't. But it doesn't make anyone else's choices less valid. See? That's the beautiful thing about it...not everyone likes what I like, and I've long come to grips with that. Oh sure, it made me suicidal and homicidal at first, but then I got over myself 
