VHC 2008 Speaker Shootout - mp3 clips!

[OldSchoolDave]

First things first, a BIG THANK YOU to Jarrett (JC103) for recording, processing and publishing these clips!

For those not in attendance, we started at cabinet 1 and worked our way to cabinet 6, then reversed the process (to compensate for the attenuation our ears experienced at the high SPL). Mark Huss was at the guitar, I was switching speaker cables. Give these a listen and let us know which are your favorites:

VHC 2008 Speaker Shootout mp3's:


forward pass:

http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab1.0.mp3 - CAB#1
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab2.0.mp3 - CAB#2
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab3.0.mp3 - CAB#3
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab4.0.mp3 - CAB#4
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab5.0.mp3 - CAB#5
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab6.0.mp3 - CAB#6

reverse pass:

http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab6.1.mp3 - CAB#6
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab5.1.mp3 - CAB#5
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab4.1.mp3 - CAB#4
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab3.1.mp3 - CAB#3
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab2.1.mp3 - CAB#2
http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/audio/cab1.1.mp3 - CAB#1



Dave

[mikhailwatt]

My son listened to them on his fancy studio monitors. He liked #6 and #1.
I forget, where was the mic placed in relation to the wall of cabs?

edit: I see OldSchool snuck a poll in here while I wasn't looking. I burned a copy to listen to in the car, so I'll wait until I can crank it up to vote.

[OldSchoolDave]

I forget, where was the mic placed in relation to the wall of cabs?

Jarrett ???

[JC103]

From left to right: cab1, cab2, cab3, cab4, cab5, cab6

Recording chain was:

MIC: Sennheiser e906
PREAMP: FMR RNP
CONVERTER: M-AUDIO Audiophile 192

Mic position as shown in the pic was probably about 8ft away from the cabs.

[mikhailwatt]

The e906 is pretty unidirectional (good isolation for live close micing) so I think the outer cabs lost a little low end in the translation. But the general character of each is pretty much as I remember them.

I have one favorite, with 2nd and 3rd place just slightly "less favorite." It took a lot of switching between tracks to decide, and I think they could all sound excellent (except maybe one) with the controls optimized for the cab.

Is there going to be a "reveal" once everyone has had a chance to vote?

[OldSchoolDave]

Is there going to be a "reveal" once everyone has had a chance to vote?

Yep. But, for the time being, we'll refer to them generically to avoid any predispositions.

Dave

[JC103]

The e906 is pretty unidirectional (good isolation for live close micing) so I think the outer cabs lost a little low end in the translation. But the general character of each is pretty much as I remember them.

The recording wasn't perfect...

- as there was no acoustic treatment in the room
- which meant we were at the mercy of the rooms acoustic effect on where the cabs were physically located
- the e906 shines its best when used for close micing
- I accidentally recorded the clips in 16bit instead of 24bit

However, the clips do pretty much sound like what we all heard in the room.

I'd say it was a pretty good experiment on many levels!

[OldSchoolDave]

I'd say it was a pretty good experiment on many levels!

Agreed! What a great resource to have filed away .

Dave

[Paul86]

I vote for 1 and 5.

[HIWATTuser1]

#3 sounds pretty good (healthy) to me.

[OldSchoolDave]

#3 sounds pretty good (healthy) to me.

But, it has no votes yet...?

Dave

[Mike B.]

The tension is killing me! Please pick a winner soon!

Mike

[bolero]

I liked : 2.0 & 6.0

and also: 6.1 & 2.1


these samples cut better & sounded more defined

it was more the eq than anything else though...I'm sure if you tweaked the others they would sound better....they were too muddy IMO

[Dr.HI-TONE]

They were all good high quality speakers. The amp was a 1974 DR504 with vintage Mullards throughout and every knob pointed at 12:00. A little tweaking of the eq would have made all of them sound great!

ps.
in person Cab#3 and cab#4 are almost identical in tonality. weird huh?

[HIWATTuser1]

I'll bet it's more or less about microphone axis/position. The cabinets were all in pretty good shape as I recall.