roscoe5

Seriously...I just went through the factory presets again and they sounded great through this rig too. My presets with FOH path IR'S sound MUCH better also. This is the first time I have heard the IR's I made in a full range guitar rig...it's only been headphones and studio monitors before. FRFishRKAF...Full Range - Flattish Response - Kick A$$ Feel. I did not feel like I was compromising on anything. No weird frequencies to dial out with Global EQ (which I actually turned back off), just adjusted the presence knob on SV to about 75%. It was the same feel and clarity I loved about Helix amp-only models>L6 SV>Recto 2x12, but now with cabs /IR's, acoustic guitar, and synth options. Anyway, replacement tweeter diaphragms are on order. I am upgrading the caps on the crossover from 50V to 100V caps too since one blew and the other is bulging. If I'm not mistaken, 50V caps are good for about 100W and 100V for up to 200W. I'm on the fence about the 12" speakers. They are super cheap Crate SLM FST's, but sound good enough for now. I'm not sure what to get...any suggestions? I'll try and post some clips up this weekend. Never mic'd a full range cab. I have an AKG P420 condenser mic so I'll see if I can replicate what I am hearing. The only thing I have to AB it with is the Crate PB or power section of my Mesa Walkabout bass amp. The M9 would blow the speakers.

Madness in the lab...

Reporting back in. Before I spent any $ on them at all, I really wanted to try them out. I went ahead and put the tweeter diaphragm from my Mesa bass cab in the horn of one of the Crates that had the good crossover. Same type, 8 ohm still, and a perfect fit. I actually left it on the Mesa driver magnet base and bolted the Crate horn to it. I ran the Crate PB in bridged mono which is 150W @ 8ohms to it. I tried stereo previously, but it was only 75W @ 4ohms a side and very weak into the 8 ohm speakers, maybe around 40W. I ran it tilted back. Pole mount mid height would probably be fine too. I plugged the rear port as it was a little boomy for the room i was in, but an open stage would probably be ok. It is certainly gig volume. These cabs were a lot smoother than my JBL EON 515xt's and more suitable for guitar and modeler I think. I ran through my Helix presets with the cab / IR path and actually enjoyed it as FRFR as the Crate rig may or may not be. Then I hooked up the L6 SV...OMG it was killer!!! That horn made all the difference. I can't believe I can use all of my cab models and IR's, as well as acoustic IR's and/or acoustic guitar, with the L6 SV and the full range Crate cabs. And it's very close to to the live PA / headphone sound. It really seems like the best of both worlds. This would remove the need for me to split the path and I can just run the same signal to stage as FOH and still get real tube amp feel on stage. I know some guys keep saying that any tube amp will color the sound and it's not FRFR. I'm tellin ya'll, the L6 SV is VERY neutral, so unlike all of my other Mesa and Marshall tube amps. It seems to have the clarity of SS with the presence and punch of a tube amp. What do I do now? No effing idea. Just use the SV and the Crates (at least for a while) and save the cash? Drop a grand on a passive Matrix FR212? Put some Eminence Beta 12CX Coax's (used in Xitone cabs) in my Recto 212? Get two L6 SV 112 combos and replace the V30's with Eminence Beta 12CX Coax speakers for stereo? I need to let this sink in...it seems too good to be true. P.S. I really hope Line 6 and Bogner are in the woodshed working on a stereo tube FRFR hybrid.

That JBL PRX712 is an awesome speaker. I'm surprised you have a face after playing with that thing angled at you ;) We just played an all day outdoor craft beer fest gig with a cartel of local singer / songwriters and musicians. I was walking to the location from three blocks away and couldn't believe the loudness and clarity. I was surprised to see just a pair of those on poles. High Cuts and Low Cuts either on the cab or IR blocks or on the Global EQ seem to help a lot. Whether using IRs or the Helix cabs, try adjusting the high cut to around 7-8000Hz and the low cut to 70-80hz. There are plenty of good threads on the topic, but here a couple to get you going... Helix Cab / IR thread Low / High Cut thread. http://line6.com/support/topic/21136-helix-sounds-like-im-playing-in-a-box/ Global EQ thread. http://line6.com/support/topic/21316-adjust-your-global-eq-you-may-be-surprised/

Very cool. Maybe someone here will take you up on it. I've since moved on to 2cm Helix out to tube power amp in (effects return), but plenty here still run 4cm+. Pics of stuff are appreciated either way :)

This seems like a smokin deal on eBay for these Alto Pro Black 10's at $249 each. Looks like it's a refurb straight from Alto. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alto-Pro-Black10-BLACK10X110-10-2-Way-2400-Watt-Loudspeaker-with-Wireless-Conne-/272044922702?hash=item3f5724174e:g:DOAAAOSwl9BWMN7W

Whew, thanks man...from both my me and my OCD...

Ha, I considered that. I also considered DI riding in on his white horse saying "go ahead bro, free the picks".

Well, my 4 year old decided it would be fun to put daddy's picks (5+) in the slot under the expression pedal ;) I thought a Helix component had broken off or something. I'd like to take it apart to get them out, but don't want to void the warranty. I guess there's no harm since they're nylon, but I'd like them out if possible. Maybe I can just remove the expression pedal by taking the allen bolt out and shake them to the slot to fish them out, but I would worry that I would lose washers inside the Helix. Does it really void the warranty if I take the bottom panel off?

Most, if not all, of the powered speakers are bi-amped with separate power amps to the tweeter and woofer and have DSP that fine tunes them separately. Additionally, I think some people either here or on other forums have had issues and / or limitations trying to use the EXH 44 magnum pedal. You might do some searches for it. A lot of users here like the Altos with Helix. If you can swing it, you might consider those instead of the EHX 44 mag pedal amp and a passive speaker. Even if you get one now and one later. FYI...I'm currently messing with a Crate Powerblock and two passive Crate 1x12 + horn PA speakers. Something is just a little off on a passive speaker with fixed passive crossover. Not that it doesn't work and sounds okay, but I'm quickly realizing some potential benefits of packaged powered systems. I'm doing a little experimentation to remove the passive crossover, wire the horn and woofer separately in one of them and power them separately with each side of the Crate Powerblock, and use Helix as a low / cut (pass) to each with even custom eq to each to really flatten the response from them. I already owned the Crate PB and only have $50 tied up in the speakers (had blown horns), so no loss if I don't use them. But if I were seriously looking for an FRFR solution right now and not having fun messing around with these, I would probably go powered speakers.

Great thread! An oldie but a goodie... When tracking down buzz / hum in Helix that only occurred while at home, I plugged in headphones to troubleshoot since they are not powered by an outlet. Unplugged cables one at a time until the noise stopped. Turned out to be the USB cable to my computer.

Thank you so much! I used an online pink noise generator over USB to Helix into my Mesa M9 2x12 + 1" horn combo and used the Free Android RTA Analyzer app and my phone mic . I had peaks at 280 Hz and 4kHz, cut them a bit with global eq, and voila...much better sound overall. A LOT closer to flat response. I could see how you could be more precise with better test mics, equipment, and 10+ band global eq. But this was a big improvement. I wonder if Line 6 could build in a response flattening, room compensation algorithm into Helix where you could plug a test mic into the mic input at a gig or space and it could run pink noise and / or a sine sweep through your rig to flatten things out via auto-adjusting a 10-30 band global eq. Could be part of your sound check. I would assume you would hold the mic near your head and stand in your stage position. Of course you would probably want to only apply this to your stage output 1/4" from Helix and not XLR to the board.

I guess if the FRFR route doesn't work with this rig, I could go back to my tube amp and traditional cab (no cab models) setup approach with these cabs with a twist...put guitar speakers in these (V30's or C90's), stereo tube amp to the woofers and stereo Crate Powerblock to the horns for acoustic patches. Use Helix to bring the horns/powerblock in and out on send / return blocks or split path. Gonna stay on FRFR course first and see how that pans out.

FYI, here's a pic of the Crate crossover. Looks like they popped a cap...add that to the repair list ;) Cap values are C1 = 15uF C2 = Empty C3 = 3.3uF C4 = 2.2uF C3 + C4 (parallel) = 5.5uF Resistors are 10 ohms each

Some of these observations my shed some light into the differences in feel from Helix into a traditional guitar rig and speaker with no horn and an FRFR with a horn. A Celestion V30 has a frequency range of 70Hz-5kHz. In a guitar rig, you are getting that frequency and feel from the woofer and its projection pattern. When you shift the 1kHz-5kHz + range to a horn, that seems to change the feel, pattern, and projection. Considering this, out of Matrix, Atomic, Line 6, and PA speakers as FRFR solutions, the Atomic CLR seems to make the most sense for close monitoring of guitar, with its concentric horn design. Intuition and my observations of my Mesa Scout cab are leading me to believe that modding / replacing the crossover in the Crate PA speaker to 3kHz along with a good woofer replacement (Eminence Deltas or Kappa lites, etc...and open to suggestions), will result in some pretty good guitar / bass FRFR speakers. Of course I have all of the components needed for testing, including Helix multi-path for bi-amp and precise horn and woofer tuning before making any physical mods to the Crate crossover. If I nail the Helix end of it, I may just run stereo bi-amp and let Helix control it all. I will always be in different rooms and venues at different distances and orientations from my stage speakers. It may be beneficial to have full control over the frequencies, cuts, and levels of the woofers and horns separately. This is where Helix output-assignable Global EQ control could come in handy.

Ha, sometimes you just gotta read the back of the cereal box... The crossover on the Mesa Scout 1x12 cab sounds best with Helix guitar cabs & IR's to me in the 3K - Bright position. This indeed sounds like it is passing more highs to the 12". The Crate PA speaker crossover must be at around 1.6 kHz, like zooey's Alesis 112's. Crossover point could be what makes or breaks a PA speaker for guitar FRFR use.

I was wondering specifically about the crossover point of the woofer and horn, i.e. f > 1khz goes to the horn and f < 1kHz goes to the woofer. 2-way crossovers on the Eminince site or listed at 500, 800, 1.6, 2.5, & 5 kHz models. When comparing playing through my Mesa 1x12 + horn bass cab and Crate 1x12 + horn PA cab, the same 1x12 speaker in the PA cab does not have the upper end it did in the bass cab. The horns in both are foster type compression. When I set the Helix global eq high cut at 1kHz, it sounded about like it did when connected to the Crate crossover. I can see how you may want a lower crossover point in a PA cab for booty bass music playback where you are going for thump in the woofer. But the crossover design seems different in the bass guitar cab, and I suspect in the FRFR cabs design for guitar. More of the high frequency range seems to be coming through the woofer. Letting the woofer carry a bit more of the high frequency to say 1kHz - 5kHz could be more pleasing for guitar and bass and may project differently from the front of the cab. So just for discussion, per the cut sheets for the 12" Eminence Deltalites the upper end of the usable frequency range is 4.3kHz. The foster usable frequency range starts around 1kHz. So selecting an Eminence crossover at 3kHz could sound better for guitar and bass than one at 800Hz or 1.6kHz. Now this is where I can really see the benefit of active bi-amped speakers with digital DSP, different speaker modes, etc. I never thought about it when I owned the L6 Stagesource L2M, but the different speaker modes could have been changing the crossover points of the woofer / horn. What could be really cool is to give the user control of that active crossover setting to adjust for their different rooms, venue, like they would global eq. Highs seem to project differently from the horn than they do from the woofer. This could potentially help out the FRFR users that struggle with position, projection, beamyness of horns, etc. Really it's just old school bi-amp and active crossover approach. Maybe since I am hacking these cabs anyway, I'll remove the crossovers and wire the horn to a 1/4" jack, and the woofer to the other 1/4" jack on each speaker. I well set up a 4-ch biamp system with Helix taking advantage of the multi-paths. I'll run stereo amp to the woofers and the lower wattage stereo Crate Powerblock to the horns. No physical crossovers on anything. Then use Helix to Low Cut and High Cut the paths, and maybe even 10 band eq block, to fine tune the woofer paths and horn paths. It would certainly be cool to have this level of custom control per patch to fine tune IR's, acoustic guitar, bass, synth, etc. but could easily turn into high maintenance overkill and send me to the asylum. This may drive me to request optional global eq settings for each Helix output so that we can setup bi or tri amp systems. We'll see. If it all works out, maybe I can look a a more elegant amp solution like the Carvin 4ch power amp or something. Maybe this type of control from Helix over L6 Link to L6 Stagesource speakers could be developed to give the best possible FRFR experience to L6 Helix users. I think it currently exists somewhat in the form of Stagesource speaker modes.

I plugged straight into the 12" and it sounded much better. I'm not sure what frequency of the crossover is. I pulled a data sheet for a foster horn and it seems to pick up at 1khz. I would guess that crossover is at about 1khz as dark as the woofer sounds through it. I wonder if dedicated guitar FRFR speakers have different crossover designs than PA speakers. Modding the caps on the crossover board may be worth exploring. They seem high quality with nice thick traces.

Speakers acquired. The bad news is that both horns are blown. The good news is I got them for $50 because of it and can order replacement diaphragms from Amazon for about $30 a pair. They are very generic, typical bass cab Foster type horns. They are actually smaller than I thought at 15"w x 14"d x 22"h, and about 37 lbs each. The woofers are very dark sounding, almost guitar speaker-ish. I'm not sure yet if it's the speakers or the crossover. I will probably wire them up direct and test. The 12" custom Mesa Eminence Deltalites in my bass cabs are much brighter. So if I decide to keep them, a speaker replacement is likely in the future. Once the replacement horn diaphragms come in, I will probably pull the Deltalites from the Mesa bass cab to test before ordering replacement woofers. But these are far tighter than my bass cabs! I think they will make great guitar cabs, and maybe even good bass cabs. The stereo Crate Powerblock sounds nice too. It is 75w a side at 4ohms and these are 8ohm speakers, so less power there. The rig is definitely loud enough for home and may be just loud enough for a gig. The L6 SV was okay, not as good as I thought it would be, but hard to tell with no horns and the darker Crate 12" speakers. I think the Crate PB was clearer with the current Crate speakers.

I do agree on the faithful reproduction perspective. I am probably going through a typical evolution from traditional guitar amp to FRFR. It's hard to find the inspiration and motivation to make a major FRFR investment when Helix sounds so good through my traditional guitar and bass rigs. Knowing myself, if / when I do it, I will likely go all out and get one of the top solutions. I probably focused a little too much on the power amp and derailed my own thread. I am certainly open to clean, transparent solid state power with full range speakers. I just happen to be really up on the L6 SV right now. The real point of this thread was the Crate speakers and some basic similarities to the current top FRFR solutions that I am interested in from Matrix, Atomic, and Line 6. I know that the cab engineering of the FRFR solutions is where a lot of the magic is, not just in the components. I am hoping they are similar enough for me to experiment with, get a basic feel and comfort for FRFR, and to inspire me to go big.

Oh and congrats in the eBay score! That is a great deal.

Yep. I totally understand the goal of true FRFR. I'm of the mind to find a solution that offers both Helix into tube amp feel and Helix into FRFR. I believe a bit of feel and response could be missing from the digital amp powered FRFR solutions that is present with Helix into tube power amps. I think this is what Atomic was attempting with the Reactor series. I believe the L6 SV power amp is the cleanest, flattest tube power amp I have ever encountered. Running it with cab models or IR's into my Mesa Walkabout Scout 1x12 cab with horn is VERY close to the sound in headphones, while having a better response and feel while playing. Plugging the back port brings it even closer. It sounds and feels better than running Helix into the SS power sections of my Mesa Walkabout or M9 (which the M9 is supposed to be very flat). The presence knob on the L6 SV really controls the highs intuitively. Running presence at around 75% up really lets the cab models & IR's shine through, not to mention my acoustic sim IR's. Those Crate PE-12H speakers are just about the same size as that Scout cab with about the same type of rear port. And of course they don't have the down-firing bass radiator which should make them less boomy than the Scout. They have a 1" foster compression horn of a similar design to the Firehawk 1500 and Matrix FR12 & FR212, so I believe the horn will be fine. I may or may not want to change the 12" drivers. Considering that even with a mic'd tube amp and cab, the FOH sound is still slightly different than stage sound. I know Helix can deliver stellar direct XLR out sounds to the FOH. I believe L6 SV and full range speakers can get very close to that sound, enable me to use cab models and IR's, along with my current acoustic sim IR's and any future Line 6 acoustic models, synths, etc., all while letting me keep a tube amp feel and response I am used to on stage while I play. Plus I bet I can just keep it all behind me on the floor guitar amp style. And of course I can be totally wrong about it all and will hang my head in shame while I eat crow ;) But at least it's good fun for just the cost of a $100 pair of speakers that I can return.

I'm really interested in a cheap passive solution to test my working theory on the full range potential of the L6 Spider Valve HD100. If it pans out, I may go for the Matrix FR212...or not if I'm happy with these. 100 watts tube into two 12" guitar speakers has proven to be plenty loud. This should be the case for full range speakers as well.

I came across a pair of Crate PE 12H speakers today in great condition for $100, but I can't find any info on them as far as frequency response. I can return them to the shop if I don't like them. But I wouldn't mind upgrading components for that cab size and form factor. Together they are about the size of my Mesa Recto 212. They are from the USA SLM era and seem solid. I like the size and form factor. The design seems vaguely similar to current FRFR speakers. They have 1" foster compression horns and 12" Eminence FST drivers. I'm totally expecting them to sound like poo, but worth the experement since I can return them. Will try them with my Crate PowerBlock 75w x 2 and L6 SV HD100, maybe other things too. Heres to hopefully discovering a hidden jem. Wish me luck! Crate PE-12H 1" compression driver in a mid-sized horn 12" Eminence FST Driver Rear ported Line 6 Firehawk 1500 1" compression driver in a mid-sized horn 12" Custom Driver 2 x 6" mid drivers Front ported Matrix FR12 1" compression driver in a mid-sized horn 12" Custom Driver Front ported Atomic CLR 1" compression driver in a mid-sized horn 12" Custom Driver Ported?

Oh no that's great! Thanks for the pic. MPS has switched to steel pads instead of aluminum. I've ordered parts from them before, so I may order a set of cheaper steel ones to drill out. I'll post a pic of the dry-fit Helix, mission EXP pedal, and Markbass Synth, Boss RC-2 looper, and a couple of others.