High Quality Sound with a small profile

Baltimore_Bass

Baltimore_Bass

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Aug 1, 2017
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#1
I'm looking an amp and cabinet or combo that will provide great bass tone, high quality sound, but has a small profile for those coffee house gigs. Any suggestions from the professionals out there gigging regularly and that are all about the sound quality?

I've been using Ampeg 3Pros and SVT 4 heads with 810, 610 and 410 cabinets. I also keep thinking about how nice the Ampeg SVT Classic head would be to gig with, but honestly not sure I have the muscle and don't like asking for my bandmates to help lift and move my equipment at gigs. I just joined a band that does a lot of coffee shops and small venues. Everyone has scaled back equipment with small amps. I'm feeling the shame of bringing a big 410hlf cabinet (my smallest rig) on these gigs, but I really don't want to go cheap and sound bad. After all it's all about the sound!! All the 15" speaker cabinets seem to be too low end and mid range only cutting out the highes. The 12" cabintes of course are all highes and mids and cuts the lows (not good for the bassman). That pushes me to a combo of a 15" and 2x12 cabinet which is bigger than my 410 cabinet. Seems to be no way around physics. Anyone have a great sounding, but small rig/combination to suggest? Cost is not the driver in my selection, I have a few bucks to spend.
 
#2
Barefaced One10 and a GK MB200. Less than 20 lbs total, and sounds amazing. Perfect for smaller venues, but I've done higher volume, non-coffee house gigs with it and it keeps up. You'd probably have to buy the cab new, but the MB200 is fairly easy to find used.

IMG_1916.JPG
 
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#3
As has been stated many times before, there are three factors to consider when purchasing an amp: loudness, price and size. I assume that for coffee house gigs, you are not looking to get very loud. You've already stated that you want high quality and small. You have not mentioned price. Do you have a budget in mind?

I think that you should consider one of several high quality 1x12 cabs and a micro head. I have a Fearless F112 that I think is a very good cab. I am sure others will make recommendations on equally high quality cabs. As for micro heads, there are many good amps out there. It really depends on the sound and features you are looking for. I think you are much better off buying a separate cab and head. That way you can pick the components that best suit you.
 
#4
Baltimore_Bass said:
All the 15" speaker cabinets seem to be too low end and mid range only cutting out the highes. The 12" cabintes of course are all highes and mids and cuts the lows (not good for the bassman)...
Click to expand...
This simply isn't true, diameter of the speakers don't determine highs/lows/etc, audition cabs of the size you want without regard to speaker diameter.
 
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#8
Baltimore_Bass said:
The 12" cabintes of course are all highes and mids and cuts the lows (not good for the bassman)
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Not a Genzler Amplification Bass Array 12-3. With one you can do any coffee shop or medium sized room, with two stacked you can play anywhere and you will never use your 4x10 again. BASS ARRAY12-3 | BA12-3

Of course for the amp the Genzler Magellan 800. The volume knob does not send most of the power when you you barely move it making it easy to adjust it just right for a coffee shop, but if you keep going it will go to the fillings in my teeth have come loose. Especially with those 12's mentioned above.
MAGELLAN 800 | MG-800
 
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#10
The Audiokinesis Hathor 1203 and Barefaced One10 both offer great bass tone in a very compact package. They are also capable of filling much larger spaces with high volume bass. The GK MB200 would provide plenty of power for a typical coffee house. The Ampeg PF50T would also do quite well. I was playing in an acoustic group for a while and they were rather sensitive to my too imposing amp stack. I ended up using a Fender Rumble 40 with upgraded driver (S2010) and complementary cab tuning. It produced great bass tone on a chair (rich bass with good note definition, and detailed non-aggressive mids), against the wall, and had plenty of headroom. My favorite coffee house rig was essentially Duke's Coffee House 110 driven by an Ashdown CTM-30. Same tone as the Fender, but with greater harmonic richness, and bass richness extending into the upper bass, yet with good articulation.
 
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#12
Baltimore_Bass said:
All the 15" speaker cabinets seem to be too low end and mid range only cutting out the highes. The 12" cabintes of course are all highes and mids and cuts the lows
Click to expand...

Baltimore Bass: you have been given incorrect information! Don't pay attention to speaker diameter. Get a Bergantino REF112 cab, feed it 300 to 400 watts, and spend the rest of your life smiling! :)
 
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#14
Baltimore_Bass said:
The 12" cabintes of course are all highes and mids and cuts the lows (not good for the bassman).
Click to expand...

Imo there are quite a few 112 cabs out there that are not "all highs and mids". First and foremost would be Greenboy's 112 cabs, which do a decent job on the first overtone of a low F#, and for whom a low-B is a walk in the park.

Baltimore_Bass said:
I'm looking an amp and cabinet or combo that will provide great bass tone, high quality sound, but has a small profile for those coffee house gigs... After all it's all about the sound!!
Click to expand...

Imo dispersion is an overlooked factor in getting good sound in a relatively small room. In a coffeehouse setting, you'll probably have listeners sitting well off-axis, and everyone in the room will be hearing a lot of reflections (an outdoor gig being the polar opposite as far as reflections go). Most unamplified acoustic instruments have much wider dispersion than typical bass cabs, especially in the top end. For instance an unamplified acoustic guitar not only sounds really good, it has pretty much the same tone from anywhere in the room, both of which are imo related to the fact that it inherently "gets the reverberant field right". So in my opinion, you might want to look at small cabs that use a midrange and/or tweeter to not only extend the top end but also improve the dispersion.
 
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#15
DukeLeJeune said:
Imo there are quite a few 112 cabs out there that are not "all highs and mids". First and foremost would be Greenboy's 112 cabs, which do a decent job on the first overtone of a low F#, and for whom a low-B is a walk in the park.



Imo dispersion is an overlooked factor in getting good sound in a relatively small room. In a coffeehouse setting, you'll probably have listeners sitting well off-axis, and everyone in the room will be hearing a lot of reflections (an outdoor gig being the polar opposite as far as reflections goes). Most unamplified acoustic instruments have much wider dispersion than typical bass cabs, especially in the top end. For instance an unamplified acoustic guitar not only sounds really good, it has pretty much the same tone from anywhere in the room, both of which are imo related to the fact that it inherently "gets the reverberant field right". So in my opinion, you might want to look at small cabs that use a midrange and/or tweeter to not only extend the top end but also improve the dispersion.
Click to expand...

+1
 
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#16
Baltimore_Bass said:
I'm looking an amp and cabinet or combo that will provide great bass tone, high quality sound, but has a small profile for those coffee house gigs. Any suggestions from the professionals out there gigging regularly and that are all about the sound quality?

I've been using Ampeg 3Pros and SVT 4 heads with 810, 610 and 410 cabinets. I also keep thinking about how nice the Ampeg SVT Classic head would be to gig with, but honestly not sure I have the muscle and don't like asking for my bandmates to help lift and move my equipment at gigs. I just joined a band that does a lot of coffee shops and small venues. Everyone has scaled back equipment with small amps. I'm feeling the shame of bringing a big 410hlf cabinet (my smallest rig) on these gigs, but I really don't want to go cheap and sound bad. After all it's all about the sound!! All the 15" speaker cabinets seem to be too low end and mid range only cutting out the highes. The 12" cabintes of course are all highes and mids and cuts the lows (not good for the bassman). That pushes me to a combo of a 15" and 2x12 cabinet which is bigger than my 410 cabinet. Seems to be no way around physics. Anyone have a great sounding, but small rig/combination to suggest? Cost is not the driver in my selection, I have a few bucks to spend.
Click to expand...
EA Wizzy cab with GK MB500 head..
 
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#20
I agree with those who suggested the Ampeg B100R. Especially since you're an Ampeg guy. Used one currently on the GC site too.

There's a small-ish room I gig regularly that has one as backline. It's easy to dial in, great sound, has no problem filling the room even when full of dancers carousing.

No need for the big-ticket reinventing-the-wheel stuff.
 
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