mikisb

perhaps to keep in mind that a monitor is a bit more than throwing one ot two drivers in a cabinet. Aktive stuff has mostly active crossover/EQ, analog or digital. In the scond case, it's "just" a piece of software but the user cannot change or update it. (one reason for me to build my cabs myself) Small changes in this software can cause big differences in sound with the same drivers in the same baffles. it even can influence "beaming" or dissipation by changing the crossover frequency within the limits of the used drivers. Just to know that - even if it looks the same with the same drivers and the same housing, is can sound very different. So it would for example be possible to offer a preset "guitar speaker" (no frfr) Tweeter off gives the same dissipation/beaming as a conventional 12" guitar speaker. Than a bit EQing to pull the frequency response direction Celestion XX and wow - a powered guitar speaker is only a switch away. Why somebody should offer such a feature in a monitor never aimed to guitarrists? Stupid for Alto, clever for headrush. I could understand when a manufacturer/brand will not communicate such dirty little tricks. Competitors are reading too and in guitarists world, spreading mojo and voodoo seems often more important than technical facts ;)

well - an external looper adds switches accessible at the same time, but most loopers offer less switches then the helix in looper mode. OK, you have to switch between looper mode and other modes wich is'nt ideal. But what we have with the Helix would be better with a bit more time ;) I guess - it's not my priority, but to some other people it could be.

Perhaps a reason for the problem: Most people look at speakers only regarding frequency response, perhaps distortion and dissipation. A simple Honk frequency in this case is easy to eliminate by an parametric EQ, still easier when you have measuring equippment. But there is more behind the curves. Sometimes a honk is just a level/frequency Honk, sometimes, there is not only more level at this frequency but also more time. Even if you eliminate the Honk by EQ, the cone/speaker will continue to swing longer at this frequency than at other frequencies, so it is sending more energy to the room and to your ears. This cannot be eliminated by EQs or other electronics, just by changing the speaker. Sometimes it helps to overcompensate this frequency by EQ, but tis is'nt the same as a linear response with equal decay.

As i just experienced a similar effect: Did you listen before/after at about the same volume? My chain starts sounding fizzy if i turn volume too low. I know that's stupid simple but 'til last week, i did'nt realize this context. Nut sure if it's the Helix itseld at very low volume settings, the AES/EBU out, my poweramps or the speakers. It seems a bit logic to me that a digital output/input, driven at ultra low level, can cause some mess.

Hi Jim, perhaps you should post this question in Thibaults thread. Not sure, if he reads here.

perhaps a explication for a part of the problem and a part of the users. It's so obviously that i wonder why i did'nt see it before: Yesterday, i tried a new fremen preset in the afternoon using my self constructed 12" coax monitors conected via AES/EBU at moderate home level - sounded quite good - pretty close to the sound in fremen's demo video with my monitors. (just the sound, unfortunally not the playing) Did the same thing in the evening, but cause some people in the house were already dreamin, at a lower level. So low, i could hear the strings of my solidbody behind the amp sound. There it was - the fizz! From the speaker, not from the acoustic sound of my guitar. Rising Volume just a bit - fizz gone. I don't know if this effect comes from the Helix (main volume), from the AES/EBU output, from the poweramp or from the speaker but this could explain the pain of some bedroom players between us ;) - and why others get no fizz. Just a starting point for further investigation.

A free addon after purchase? Great, thank you!!

You also could configure Helix as primary soundcard/audio interface for your Mac (don't know if this works - never had a Mac), then the monitors should work for this.

Sorry - wrong :( All HiFi speakers wants to be FRFR, linear, whatever. Do they all sound the same? If your answer is "yes", check your source ;) There is no perfect linearity in speakers, still less when it comes to high efficiency and high level. Additionally, there are differences in impule behaviour, distortion, angle dependent disipation..... so some things, the biggest EQ canot correct.

i guess beein a bit irritated: I know some of the songs pretty well, and what i hear is so close to what i know that i wonder, if this is reality, 'cause that's nearly impossible. So is it real or just a playback? Sorry if i missed a joke, i'm German ;)

great - just bought and downloadad it. The next hours i will spend in my cave for a first approach - can't wait for it :)

@DunbedinDragon: You're right for shure. Thats why i cry all the time to make the mics more variable by adding different angles/positions relative to the cone center (ideascale). Running since two years - just 114 votes. Seems that still more amps are more important than this.´ for the majority. I suspect line6 is modelling its cabs with mic in center position what would explain a lot of problems people have. Why they do so? I don't know. But just adding a low- and highpass is'nt the same as the steepness of the filter is'nt equal to the losses of high frequencies at different mic positions. Eliminating Hiss leads often to a loss of transparency. Nice job for the parametric EQ like rick1966 said, but i suppose much to complicated for a lot of people.

well - if it is necessary to do all this rocket science to get rif of the fizz, something seems to be wrong, is'nt it?

You wasn't so wrong ;) The HF driver in a coaxial system leads into a horn or something similar that the coax developpers call horn :) If you cannot switch off the HF driver out of the box, it should be easy to implement a switch doing this. But perhaps it would be better to wait until the unit is out of warranty. The idea itself to switch HF of would reproduce the beam pattern of a reglar 12" speaker, so it would beam far more. If someone liks it, OK, i'm happy that the times of changing sound with every degree are gone. And to design IRs for this scenario it would be helpful to know the frequency response ot the woofer.

Yeah, but you have to take care (as always) with the manufacturers curves. Keep in mind that Faital uses a 100 dB scale and i'll bet that there's some smoothing too. Some manufacturers do the same, others use 50 dB scales and perhaps less smoothing. Makes a huge difference on the spec sheets. So for my taste and my measurements, the Faital is better overall then the Beta12CX but not as good as the curves say. And yes, my intention was to use a pair of them for guitar, bass and party - so "just" loud studio monitors ;) I don't think that the Faital is much better for bass than the Emi, cause the linear displacement of the cone is similar and in the right baffle with the right tuning, the Beta12 woofer should work for bass too. It all depends on the net volume and reflex tuning. If the powercab is mainly designed for guitar, i suppose a smaller net volume, so less bass performance. For me this works just fine. It works great with the Helix as well as reproducing music from FLAC files. Nearfield: No problem due to the coaxial driver. Not high end in HiFi sense, but better than most monitors/PA speakers i've heard. And flexible as hell cause i can program the filters as i want (even with guitar-speaker characteristics as the powercab) and store 4 presets in the amp module. Could'nt really test the abilities for bass as even at some percent of the power, every wall and every everything in my cave starts to rattle :) I've built the 2 cabs with about 50 liters net each, reflex tuning at about 37 Hz (but variable). For amplification, i use for each cab a Hypex PSC 2.400D with 2x 400W/4Ohms and a powerful DSP (15 filters/chanel, programmable by usb/PC). But keep in mind that both together only can provide 500Watt/4 Ohms due to limitations of the power supply. But for the 12HX230 it's just fine. Each active cab has about 11 kg and i wait for Faital to build the same driver but with neodymium motor instead of ferrite, as my goal was sub 10 kg each.

I think the Beta12CX could be an interesting base for improvements. The main point seems to be the physical transition from the tweeter to the woofer cone wich includes some steps and barriers. But honestly, it was still much better in construction and in sound than the 12"coaxial speaker i found in my cheap monitor "Thomann The Box ProMon 12". So with a bit of tweaking from line6, it could get a pretty good construction for the price. We have to keep in mind that some other professional grade coax drivers coast as much as the whole Speaker with baffle and amp. The reason for me to build the things myself was that i wanted to get FRFR but in a more traditional guitar amp look and with less weight than usual solutions. Both had nothing to do with the sound as i think, there were some pretty goot FRFR speakers on the market.

Could have been a good idea. For my selfmade FRFR monitors, i first tried the Beta12CX. Not bad, especially for the price, but lots of peaks and dips and the active digital crossover is hard to handle cause the woofer beams far below the tweeter can take over. There are some hardware tweaks provided in the net to make the 12CX better (concerning the "horn" of the tweeter with all his steps) but hopefully, Line6 uses a better base in their cab. I ended up using the Faitalpro 12HX230 as coaxial driver and it was still not a cakewalk to get it pretty linear in different listening angles. What i wanna say: Most so called FRFR monitors are not really FRFR compared to good HiFi speakers or studio monitors. That seems to be the price for more dB/watt and higher SPL max.

i agree that perfect handling of the Helix has to be learned like it has to be learned to get ones personal perfect tone out of all these originals. The difference is: If i plug my guitar in a real amp, i usually get instantly a tone with less fizz than what comes out with the factory presets. Perhaps not a god tone, but with a little bit tweaking on the tone stack, it will be mostly OK to start. Try this with a simple amp+cab in the Helix. To my ears, it's not really the same. and i think that's what many people complain. I know it depends on the chain, but even with a pretty linear speaker without peaks in the upper mids/hights, fizz is there when overdrive/distortion is dialed in. In know that Helix is moddeling not the amp in the room but a miced amp. But really - did you ever mic an amp and have this fizz? OK - if you place the mic directly in the speakers center beam - in this case you have to use filters and equalizers to get a good tone. Perhaps, that's the point. Possible solutions: - the proposed "idiots guide" (i'll buy two :) ) - Different mic angles, not only distance, as i think line 6 is modelling pretty on axis for what reason ever (perhaps cause its tecnically better to cut something wich is to much than boosting something that is to less. If i record a conventional guitar speaker at the center, i get fizz too. - i like rd2rk's idea of a virtual "Fizz killer pedal". Could be a good and intuitive thing to start and should be not too difficult to implement. - accepting that nearly every day someone is complaining 'bout fizz - with a certain reason

it's always easy to cry "troll", "idiot" or "learn to use it" if somebody has a problem. Me too, i found lot of posts and threads here and elsewhere complaining about fizz and harshness. Perhaps not thousands, but a lot. And there are a lot of discussions why the modeled cabs sound like they sound. Why the use of the Highpass is recommended in every second thread here if there would be no fizz. I learned a bit to handle it but i never really understood why to need a highpass when using a modelled cab with a modelled mic. Some people seem to ignore this fact for any reason and that's not more serious then complaing by opening a dozen of threads or not delivering detailed informations. But i guess, some samples would be really helpful. Perhaps it's not everybodies problem because perhaps not all Helixes are exactly the seme like they should, specially in the digital world: My box had the effect in an earlier software version, that it seemed sometimes to loose the cab. I switched from one preset (sound ok) to another preset and back and suddently it sounded like an amp without cab and mix sim. Restarting the unit solved the problem. And 'til today, it does'nt appear again in later software versions. So if my Helix can do such things, others can do perhaps too and - more nasty - perhaps they can do even different mistakes. So the thinking "If i can't reproduce the problem, nobody can have it" is perhaps thinking a bit too short - even in the digital world.

It should be possible anyway, even it's not that easy: You could use a measurement mic with extremly linear response, like a earthworks M20, M50..... You could record responses not in a room but in the free field to avoid reflections in this recordings (usually, measured/published frequency responses are made like that) and you could do this in different angles. Then you could mix these recordings to get a natural response of the speaker/box, without mic coloration and without recorded room effects. Using the result as EQ with a real FRFR speaker should come pretty close to the original. All other effects - influence of the real room, ears..... remain the same.

the solution is simple: use no cab, use no IR but use a parametric EQ instead ;) There's a proposition here in the subforum, the idea came (as far as i know) from a guy named Chad Boston. I tried this concept and for me (and my selfmade FRFR amps) it works great. Feels like a real guitar amp and is flexible as hell. Since this experience, my interest for IRs is drastically lower. But i would appreciate if Line6 would add some "pure cab sims" without mic, without room. The origin of this idea sems to be here: https://thefriendlygearfreaks.com/threads/outside-the-box-presets-line-6-helix-platform-60-presets-all-amps.5717/ Did'nt try the presets but only the suggested EQ settings with my own presets and some of Glen Delaune and Fremen Hope it's OK to post it here.

well - i can't see a midi connector on the cab and i wonder why this should be important using the Helix or any other modelling device with build in cab sims/IRs? As it's not possible to simply switch physical speaker charakteristics, there must be some modelling in the cab or some EQing in the amp/dsp wich means about the same. But a nice gimmick for a conventional tube top.

Great job, even if i prefer for me a complete and ready solution (as i'm a electronic noob except pickups ;) ) and a dsp managed two way setup to use the Helix even for bass, acoustic....... So i've chosen for me a Hypex module with a coaxial driver. But i congratualate to build this solution for just a few bucks - that's hard to beat. A proposition to make things more long term stable: Putting the electronics in a separate compartment to reduce vibrations probably would make their live longer. There's a pretty shockwave storm inside a cab. I know that most combo amps are build open too, but that's no argument. (well - where are the smileys gone?)

So does this mean that input impedance in Helix is really physically present? I'm not sure if it's like this or if the influence of the input impedance on the guitar signal is just modelled. In the first case, Impedance setting would have nearly no effect to the active (low Z) signal, in the second case, lower settings would lower the pickups resonance peak. B)

..and there are snapshots now :wub: