Acoustic B600H Amp

[YukonCor55]

I'd mentioned a little while back that I was downsizing my bass rig and going with lighter weight stuff. A few folks asked me for feedback and follow up. Well here it is: I got a Carvin BR210 NEO Cabinet last week (38 lbs, 2 x 10, 4 ohms.) As for power, I was torn between getting a Carvin BX600 or an Acoustic B600H. I had a chance to play them both and sound wise I couldn't really say that one was really better than the other. In my opinion they are of equal quality and are very similar in price, power and features. Power is almost identical (600 watts at 2 ohms.) I did a fair amount of research (wow, there are a lot of Bass sites on the net!!) and found a good bit of info on the Acoustic. As usual, some folks loved it, some didn't, but for the most part everybody agreed it was a good amp. I couldn't find much on the Carvin beyond commercial reviews and my own experience with it.
Anyway, yesterday I made up my mind and bought the Acoustic. I love it. Very straight forward controls but still a good bit of flexibility. I'm pretty simple with my setup so for me, less knobs are better! It sounds fantastic with my Carvin Cabinet. It weighs in at just over 30 pounds so it's easy on the back! Since we pretty much only play small clubs, I'm gonna gig with just the 2 x 10 for now, it gives me pretty much what I need. I may go with the matching Carvin 1 x 15 4 ohm cab later this year. That would give me a 2 ohm load and take advantage of it's full rated power. Even if I get the 1 x 15, that's only about 40 pounds. So I figure that I can break the entire rig into 3 easily managed pieces that'll fit in my car and keep me off of the prescription grade pain killers!! If anybody's interested, I can post pics.
Best to all,
AJ

[DanJ]

I auditioned an Acoustic B600 yesterday, with the 8x10 cabinet and also with the combination of a 1x15 with a 4x10 (Brought my '74 4000 to play through them - several staffers came by to ogle it - hah!).

With the 8x10 I felt the B600 had more muscle. With the 1x15/4x10 I found myself increasing the master volume a notch or so to achieve the same volume level. Is this because of a difference in impedance?

Liked the sound of both cabinet combinations, but felt that the 1x15/4x10 combination was warmer sounding. Acoustic tend to advertise the B600 with the 8x10, so I am curious as to whether it is a good match for the 1x15/4x10 combination.

Who else has tried and/or been using the new Acoustic amps, and what opinions are there on these? I'm not ready to commit yet to this rig and would like any feedback y'all can provide before I decide to take the plunge.

[johnallg]

Dan, the 810 is rated at 4 ohms, and both the 410 and 115 are 8 ohms. So using both together presents the same 4 ohm load the 810 did. Not sure why you had to boost, except for the 115 adding your noted deeper tone. It could also be the acoustic efficiency of the particular cabs - I could not find output specs.

[teb]

Be careful boys.....Acoustic heads have been known to cause brain and hearing damage. And if you can find one of these old Sunn 18" folded horn bass bins, you won't need any other speakers.

[qwezirider]

With the 8x10 I felt the B600 had more muscle. With the 1x15/4x10 I found myself increasing the master volume a notch or so to achieve the same volume level. Is this because of a difference in impedance?

Liked the sound of both cabinet combinations, but felt that the 1x15/4x10 combination was warmer sounding. Acoustic tend to advertise the B600 with the 8x10, so I am curious as to whether it is a good match for the 1x15/4x10 combination.

More muscle with the 8x10 because you're using the same load to push 80 inches of air versus 55 inches of air with the other combination. As far as more warmth with the 1x15/4x10 combo, the 1x15 accounts for that tone being added. I get the same results when I add my 1x15 to my 4x10, more warmth.

[DanJ]

Be careful boys.....Acoustic heads have been known to cause brain and hearing damage. And if you can find one of these old Sunn 18" folded horn bass bins, you won't need any other speakers.

As I remember it, yeah those folded horn cab's of yesteryear were dangerous (I also remember watching people actually sticking their heads into them at concerts - brain and hearing damage indeed!)! You didn't need a lot of wattage to rattle the walls with those either! I dare say that the myriad subwoofers that are available today can't touch the old folded horns.

Which was the rear loaded folded horn that Acoustic made back then - the 360 or 370? Wonder if they will reissue those?

More muscle with the 8x10 because you're using the same load to push 80 inches of air versus 55 inches of air with the other combination. As far as more warmth with the 1x15/4x10 combo, the 1x15 accounts for that tone being added. I get the same results when I add my 1x15 to my 4x10, more warmth.

Never thought of it like that - interesting. Could it also have something to do with the weight and size of the magnets of the speakers in the cabinets? My understanding is that the larger/heavier the magnet, the more powerful the speaker. Perhaps the 8x10 has more efficient speakers (Read heavier/larger magnets) than the 1x15/4x10?

Here's another question re: the new Acoustic bass cab's: Are any of them ported in such a way that they have an effective forward throw?* I'd hate to find that I have all this power right next to me on stage, but it ain't carrying into the house. After all part of the reason for this investment into such a big rig is to not have to run a DI to the sound board.


*Think in terms of the old Acoustic rear loaded 18" cab - talk about something that was incredibly forward throw. I remember people saying that if you were standing directly in front of the cabinet on stage you could barely hear it, but walk out 25 feet or so and it would knock you off your feet. Is that right?

[teb]

I think, in general, it was more of an urban myth than the truth. I suppose that if your head was close to the middle of one of the Acoustic horn cabs (meaning directly behind the speaker and the box inside the cab that surrounded it) then it would seem less loud than it would be near the top and bottom where most of the sound was coming out - but I never had any problems hearing myself with horn cabs. I liked the Sunn 118Vs better, tone-wise, and they seemed a bit easier to manage (big 100 lb. cubes, instead of tall 24" wide cabs). Both brands used single Cerwin Vega 18s, which were incredible speakers. Supposedly, they were originally developed for movie theatre surround-sound to generate the feeling and low rumble of earthquakes. For bands, the goal was to produce a speaker that had both power and a much more even distribution of it throughout the room (in those days, the typical privately-owned PA system couldn't usually handle the bass, so you were on your own). I'd been using either an old B-15 or a Kustom 200 head and a 2x15 cab before the Acoustic/Sunn combo, and in terms of presence in the room without drowning out the band or blasting the folks sitting in front of me, the horn cabinet idea seemed to work quite well. It's the same sort of thing that stereo speaker manufacturers like Bose are doing with their sub-woofer boxes these days - trying to fill the room with sound, rather than having it seem to all come from one specific place. Most of those enclosures actually house a fairly small woofer and the majority of the space inside the box is used to make the horn pathway for the sound and project it.

There are diagrams of some of the old Acoustic horn cabs in this folder. There is also a small cube design, similar to the old Sunn horn cabs, but scaled to take a single fifteen. One of these days, I'm going to build one and stuff a JBL in it to see what it can do.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... 0Cabinets/