The Last Bass Outpost

What's baffel step effect?

You know how they ( home theatre salesmen/installers/manufacturers etc.) tell you that bass is non-directional (so having a single sub anywhere in the room in a stereo/surround system will work just fine)? ... but then they never tell you at what point exactly this happens.

The reason is that it is not a fixed universal frequency at which bass becomes non-directional.  It is determined by the the size of the speaker baffle - the point where the shortest dimension (i.e. either the width or height of the speaker) = 1/8 of the frequency.  At this point the sound waves wrap around the back of the speaker and radiate in all directions vs just forwards at the listener resulting in a -6db shelf (in terms of output; SPL) from that point down (and a -6db per octave slope down to that point).  Putting a speaker right up against a wall (or soffit mounting it in a wall) reduces/eliminates this effect because the soundwaves can't go backwards (or not very far before they bounce back).  Some speaker systems (notably pro studio monitors and hi end hifi) have circuits or other mechanisms (such as a duplicate woofer on the rear crossed over around the transition point) to compensate for this.  This is another reason (aside from the oft-cited "larger cones move more air" thing) that smaller woofers tend not to produce as much bass (smaller woofer goes in a smaller box, with a higher transition point).

Anyway, the things to take away from this bit of info are:

- if your amp/speakers are too boomy, move them away from the wall  *
- if your amp/speakers aren't bassy enough, put them up against a wall ... if already up against a wall try a corner *
- never buy a hifi/theatre system that has really really tiny main (L + R) speakers (we've all seen those little cubes, or superthin towers poles) + sub and expect a nice smooth integration between them (unless you litterally put the mains right up on/in the wall).  You likely will not be able to adjust the crossover point high enough, and if you did, the top end of the sub's response would be directional and make things weirder.

* Some amp/speakers (mostly studio monitors, as far as I have seen)  have a room mode selection switch - you can use this instead (and not just as intended, if a weak bass speaker you may opt to have it up on a wall and set it for middle of the room mode for more bass).  Labelling on the switch varies from the simple English "corner", "wall", "in room" (or similar) to the a more technical description of the dispersion pattern based on speaker placement: 2pi (forward only, i.e. up against or in a wall), 4pi (away from walls or other boundries), pi (corner), pi/2 or 1/2 pi (tri corner, like where the corner meets a floor or ceiling) or sometimes a middle of the road sort of thing (just to confuse people) of "full space" or 1 (out in room),  1/2 space (wall) , 1/4 space (corner) and 1/8 space (tri corner). Not all implementations have all 4 options.

Way back around 1982 when I had a TNT-130 with a single 15", I remember that you had to pay extra to get a "Black Widow equipped" amp.  I did not pay extra.  Was mine a Scorpion?  Or were there other driver models?

They had other models that they used as well.  Dunno what you had, but not all the speakers Peavey used had Metal names like these 2. I'm not sure whether all the speakers they used were branded Peavey or not, but another example of a Peavey-branded speaker is the Sheffield line.

That headline makes so much more sense since they added the word 'ceramic' - the first versionof it I saw did not have that vital piece of information.

You just can't get a classical education these days, eh?

There is probably not a single non-bass player in the hall who thought "He plays too much."

Sure there were - any guitards in the audience (there's always a few)

but a whole lot going: "Wow, look at this guy!"

And laughing.  Those twirls are ridiculous and make no musical sense.  ... then again, I'm sure his moves net him a steady catch of weird rythmnless chicks (there's one at every show, you know, bad posture, waaaay too into it, little nerdy, moves like a clutsy football player.... the one at my band's last show was epic, but a sweetheart; the one at the first show I ever played was a narc who looked like Tom Petty and after dancing to my horrible solo set with only 10 other people in the room, none anywhere close to the stage, asked to buy drugs off of me before I had even packed up my gear). with whom he goes off after the show to have horribly awkward sex with.

If it's a ho, the headstock needn't match a Gibson Grabber re the pointiness, Uwe.

My monitors are too dark to see any detail at all in the body area.

But if it's an open back cabinet you're still getting a lot of low frequency cancellation.

A workaround for that (though there aren't too many open back 4x10s out there, aside from combos, that I am aware of) is to make sure the cab is right up against a wall.   Trouble is, a wall just ain't always handy. ... and it might get a bit boomey by nearly eliminating baffel step effect.

Scorpions , although used and marketed as guitar drivers, were also used and marketted as general purpose extended range (on the top side; in the sense of them being not quite fullrange units) woofers and used in some of Peavey's smaller floor monitors and PA speakers.  They might have used them in bass cabs here and there but I'm not sure.  They were kinda like Peavey's answer to the popularity of JBLs.

Nice (ima gonna guess) Traynor amp head (looks kinda  like a  Custom Special with no badge, more knobs and Garnet style silk screening.  Only seen that colour 'grille' cloth on Traynors and Musicmans though it coulda been replaced).

Aye, tis a bonnie bass; but it's na a TBoid!

(looks like it takes more design elements from the Ibanez Iceman than a TBird to me)