Omni 12 / DR280 / Aguilar 2x12 for bass guitar...

[DAVID_L_PERRY]

I had the welcome opportunity to meet up with David Wlison,a fellow BF speaker builder (mottlefeeder). David has built a fine Omni 12 and offered the use of the church he belongs to as a good place to try out the cabs at more than moderate levels...

Firstly, a big thank you to David for making myself and fellow bass player Stuart very welcome.

The rigs:-
David Wilsons Omni 12 with Hartke Head (David will have to let me know what model as I forgot to make note of it)

My pair of DR280's with SWR SM900 head

Stuarts pair of Aguilar 1x12 with a Mark Bass LMK head



First thing we did was power up the SWR/DR280 bass rig and step back.
My bass is a Custom Status Empathy (a highly active 5 string with a very pronounced mid range bite, and articulate top end).

I always try and obtain that bright fresh string sound and for me the DR280 loaded with the 12bank of piezo's delivers it in plenty. Its a massive sound, buts its also a massive settup.

The Mark Bass head into the tiny Aguilar cabs was an astounding combination. It needed a little low end removing from the eq to allow for the room modes, and lifting the cabs onto castor's helped to isolate it from the wooden floor. It was incredibly loud, but then we swapped amps over...

I plugged my SWR amp into the Aguilar cabs. As soon as I did this, the level plummeted down and to me lost a lot of the definition.

With the Mark Bass head into the DR280's it was simply ludicrously powerful....the mark bass was simply turned up more than the SWR, but it certainly highlighted the efficiency of the Horn loaded 12" drivers.

I then moved onto the Omni 12 cab. This to me is an unusual sounding cab, very clearly defined mids (on my bass way to defined) and nothing like as much low end as either the Aguilars or the DR280's using my Bass, and thats the important point here.

David (mottlefeeder) was using a very nice Warwick 5 string fretless with flat wound strings...a completely different animal to my bass.
Once David tried out the same experiment, his bass shone using the Omni 12, the mid range fretless tone was brought out nicely and the lows very clearly defined and far more prominent than my Bass. What we perhaps should have done is messed more with the eq's to get the tone we like from each cab. The mid range clarity on the Omni 12 I think outstripped the DR and certainly the Aguilar.

The purpose of this was not to A/B/C trial the three setups and find which one was best, because they would all have strengths and weaknesses. The obvious thing just looking at the photos is the size comparison of the rigs.

For my taste in bass sound, The DR280 is superb, very closely followed by the Aguilar cabs (as long as you can throw enough power into them). The Omni 12 is certainly fantastic for fretless work.

The best thing for me that I got from the evening was to try out the Mark Bass head....it instantly gave me the sound I like, with nominal eq shaping, and has bags of power, but more importantly you can pick it up in one hand...lightweight the SWR is certainly not..



Once again, thanks to David Wilson for organizing the room and providing a great coffee.... it was a pleasure to meet another like minded fool as myself

Dave Perry

[Strapping Young Stu]

Dave from a size comparison perspective did you try 1 DR compared to the other rigs as that looks to be a similar size?

Does this mean you will be trading your SWR for a Markbass now?

Stu

[DAVID_L_PERRY]

Dave from a size comparison perspective did you try 1 DR compared to the other rigs as that looks to be a similar size?

Does this mean you will be trading your SWR for a Markbass now?

Stu

That was the plan, but we moved onto trying other things and forgot to test a single DR side by side agianst the Aguilars. I have currently been rehearsing with just the single DR and it is very potent single cab option. I had some early concerns about low end...I was clearly mad at the time...

And yes I will be selling my SWR SM900 on't theebay (said in best lancashre dialect) for a Mark Bass LMK probably in the next few weeks....you want it.

Probably also sell my SWR Grand Prix pre amp as it gets no use at all now....

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Making a direct comparison between two amps is difficult, because when one is obviously louder than the other all that really tells you is that the gain structures of the two are different. If you'd measured the output voltages and adjusted the volume controls accordingly, there would have been no major difference, as a watt is a watt, and a volt is a volt. OTOH, being well past the age of voluntarily carrying heavy loads I can well appreciate the benefit of an amp that plays really loud yet is also an easy carry.

[DAVID_L_PERRY]

It was for that very reason that I swapped over the cabs with the same amp settings, as it was impossibly to know without measurement what the amp was throwing out.

It was then obvious which was the more efficient cab....and as both cabs are loaded with 12" 8 ohm drivers (just talking DR280/Aguilar), I think it was a good comparison of how horn loading increases efficiency...but certainly at the cost of box size.

The Mark Bass head clearly gives plenty of power for any gig I could imagine but at only 3kg...

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

The other factor not accounted for was impedance. The single O12 would have been 8 ohms, assuming an 8 ohm woofer, while the dual cab setups would have been 4 ohms, and that would account for a 3dB output differential. Using one of each cab would have leveled the playing field. Using two DR280s to me is almost unimaginable, but I can appreciate that it would be a lot of fun, especially as a tool to put ham fisted drummers and stack equipped guitar players in their proper places.

[DAVID_L_PERRY]

Evan at a nominal 8 ohms I would say the Omni was louder and certainly clearer in the high mid range than the Aguilars (thanks to that horn loaded 8"), and possibly the DR's but hard to say as the DR also throws out a lot more of everything else....

David will no doubt add his own views on this in due course.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Evan at a nominal 8 ohms I would say the Omni was louder and certainly clearer in the high mid range than the Aguilars (thanks to that horn loaded 8"), and possibly the DR's .

As expected, with the horn loaded eight. Also note that two O12s would have been 6dB louder than one, making the comparison quite different to the paired Aggies and DRs. My feeling is that the most useful comparison would have been between one O12, one DR280 and a pair of Aggies, as then the total pack space would have been reasonably similar, though certainly not the acquisition cost

[mottlefeeder]

The church hall is carpeted, but has plastered walls and a plastered ceiling. The way the roof void has been panelled means that effectively we were playing in a half cylinder, with a lot of hard surfaces to reflect the mid frequencies, and a noticeable 200Hz room resonance.

Playing an Eva Cassidy CD through my Hartke 3000/Omni 12 with the eq flat gave a crisp detailed sound, with natural sounding acoustic guitar work. Playing the same track through Dave's SWR and DR 280s provided even better guitar picking sounds, but a slightly recessed vocal, and a slightly boomy bass sound. That's not a reflection on the DR 280, but shows the effect of Dave's preferred eq, and the room acoustic.

Another factor to consider was that Dave plays over the bridge pick-up, while I play between the bridge and neck pick-ups. In other words, Dave has a bright bass and a bright playing style, and I have a thudding Warwick bass, and a full tone playing style.

Dave's bass playing through the DR280s sounded good, and taking that as a reference, the Aguilars provided more floor shaking lows, but probably not much below that. Dave's bass through the Hartke/Omni 12 provided almost no floor shaking bass, and was almost overpowering in the mids.

Using the Hartke/Omni 12 but with my passive 5-string Corvette (Swamp ash body), the fretless sound really came out, and the floor shook. Moving over to the SWR/DR280s, we all commented that we had lost a lot of those critical fretless mids. The Aguilars similarly had good lows, but lost out by not having a mid range unit to give prominence to those mids.

We also tried switching out the HF horn and its X-over on the Omni 12. For bass, I felt that it honked and beamed, but Dave did not find it so noticeable. On the Eva Cassidy CD, it became much more obvious. I also find that some HiFi systems are too 'tiring' to listen to, so it might be my ears are extra sensitive to something. If you recognise the symptoms, think twice before building the two-way version of the Omni 12.

I am not sure that it would be helpful to try and badge these rigs as first, second and third, because each system contained components that make it work better for a particular application, but it was certainly an interesting evening. Thanks to Dave and Stuart for bringing their gear down the M6 in the rush hour.

[MichaelVee]

David, quick sidetrack- which Eva CD were you playing for reference?

[mottlefeeder]

David, quick sidetrack- which Eva CD were you playing for reference?

Often it's 'Live at Blues Alley - Bridge over troubled water' but this time it was 'Time after time - Kathy's song'. I've just noticed they are both Paul Simon compositions...

Another resource that could be used to check out bass cabs is the 'Ed Freidland - Walking bass lines' CD that comes with the tutorial book. It gives you consistency from one session to the next, and it is readily available if anyone else wants to try it with their rig.

[EW]

I couldnt help but notice that the Omni was on casters, was it also tried directly on the floor?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I couldnt help but notice that the Omni was on casters, was it also tried directly on the floor?

It wouldn't make any appreciable difference.

[DAVID_L_PERRY]

...I am not sure that it would be helpful to try and badge these rigs as first, second and third, because each system contained components that make it work better for a particular application, but it was certainly an interesting evening......

Absolutely true. as David said, his Warwick fretless excelled on his Omni.

Stuart brought down a few different basses to try out. One was a superb Rick 4003, I was drooling with glee...but truth be known it sounded very dull. Stuart keeps a separate small Trace Elliot rig specifically for the gigs he uses his Rick on (1x15 cabs - no horns) to get that authentic old Rick sound.

Dave