My old rig was a Trace Elliot 122H combo with a Bass Pod XT Pro running into the effects return, missing the preamp section completely and just using it as a power amp. It's been a great rig for me for the last 5 years or so (the trace I've had for about 15) but it's bloody heavy, even after splitting it into a separate amp and speaker box and it just can't keep up with 2 Marshall stacks and a very loud drummer!!
I decided to go down the J10 route, using beta 10's (half the price of the deltalites
and found some Arauco ply at the local builders merchants, they also had BB, but again it was twice the pricelets just say that the second box is a bit squarer than the first and leave it at that
I couldn't wait to plug the first one in, but I was actually a bit disappointed, (I had a bit of a hassle wiring the cabs up to the trace due to some weird wiring) and in the end rushed bolting everything together to get to a practice (using the oldest most abused powered mixer in the history of the universe)... now after a bit of tweaking things seemed a bit more promising. The bass was clear and filled the room, it didn't sound as loud, but it sat really well in the mix and everyone could hear every note.
so back to ebay and I managed to pick up a 500W per side power amp, in a flight case, for £70 (it's not the most sophisticated amp in the world, but it's good enough for me
again, I wired everything up but with all the pots on full (pre amp output, power amp master) I wasn't getting the earth shattering bass I was hoping for... sigh...
time to hit the internet... and came up with a little nugget that I didn't realise before, the pod xt's output is notoriously low, about -10db in live mode... and whilst it only runs in mono, popping a headphone jack in the front fools it into running both the modelled and DI outputs with the same modelled signal...
ah ha... a bit of rewiring and WOW.... the power amp can't be turned up more than half before the windows start rattling
NOW THATS MORE LIKE IT
I can't wait until practice tonight, it was loud enough with the crappy powered mixer, this is going to be in a different league altogether, the bass is clear, and although it's bloody loud, it's not uncomfortable
my wife said she had to turn up the telly in the house thats about 120ft away, these cabs just seem to carry if I'd have tried that sort of volume from the trace, it would have been so distorted to have been really unpleasant
anyway, I didn't mean to turn this into an essay, thanks to Bill and everyone on the forums for help and inspiration, heres the pics
PS... CPC do some self adhesive black carpet 5m x 1440mm for about £30, it was a breeze to cover these babys
PPS... I was going to put some grills on the front, but they look waaay too nice to cover that horn, I need to show off
and with my bass to give a bit of scale
