The last time Martin, John and I met Martin I think it was, suggested I try some more beefy amps on my bass channels.
John and Martin kindly offered to bring their amps round.
John uses a Behringer Inuke 1000 DSP on his open baffle bass and Martin uses a Chord power amp circa £9000mrp!


The day arrived and we got down to business.

First we had a listen to my setup - the two cheap Topping TP-60 amps on mid bass and sub (tapped horn) bass.
John and Martin commented on how things sound better bass wise - I had gone back to my earlier (slightly cruder) room correction setup in Najda) than the one they had heard... I was also using the JBL2482 compression drivers on the mid horns down to 300Hz instead of 350 or 400Hz. The latter measured better, the former sounds more natural and interesting!

First we plumbed in the Chord on the mid bass channel. This is crossing in at 90Hz and out at 300Hz. Hardly using the Chords beautifully engineered capabilities of 20-20000Hz!
Vol equalisation was done in Najda so we got an appropriate integrated sound.

Here's a pic of the Chord.



Firstly it is quite difficult to hear a change to just one of five channels!
However we perceived better attack and edge on the double bass from the Armstrong / Ellington together track we used.
Zero 7 was also improved, more texture in that freq range.

We then tried comparing just the mid bass Chord vs Topping and to me the topping sounded rather flat and dull!
Listening to just one channel is hard work...

We persisted and then tried the Chord on mid bass and the Berhringer on the sub / tapped horns.
Again listening to just these two channels was hard - things don't sound like they should! Too much of the harmonics etc missing.

We gave up with that and went over to listening to full 5 way.

Now the speed and control of the bass was evident!

We swapped the Chord and Behringer over (John was convinced the Behringer would be best on lower freqs only - and so it proved).
The sound was a bit mushy in comparison!

Back with the Chord on mid bass and Behringer on subs, really rocked. The rhythmic underpinnings of the music were rock solid.

I'd never heard the Tapped horns sound so dynamic, with speed and control!

Here's a pic of the Behringer (John has painted it black)




I am never going to afford a Chord so we then tried the Topping on mid bass and Behringer on sub bass. 

This was not a bad sounding solution at all - All of the deep bass punch and control and yes, less clear and dynamic mid bass but the improvement in the deep bass was so clear - I loved it!

A Behringer Inuke 1000 will set me back all of £145 delivered off the bay! A very worth while investment indeed I think!

I will investigate other beefy silicon amps for the mid bass upgrade, but there is definitely more low hanging fruit with the Behringer and sub / tapped horn channel to be had - huge, huge payback!

I would never have thought an amp that you can lift with one hand would sound so good on my 15" Eminence Kappa Pro LFII drivers!
They are of course PA drivers rated at 650w RMS each and the Behringer is a PA amp!
John has disconnected the fan - it is so noisy he says. We are just tickling the thing in our hifi systems - it didn't eve get luke warm!

I'll leave it there for John and Martin to chime in.

an apology to Mike (musicmike), who also came round a little bit later on, but we where so engrossed playing loud music that we did not hear the doorbell, knocker or see him waving at the window!

You are welcome round Mike to hear the new atomic bass once I get me a PA amp!

Should I go for an even bigger one the 2000, 3000, 6000 or 12000 ?  er the 1000 sounded just fine though.

Just plumbed in a 3000 yesterday, I note in the above picture that one of the led rings has gone red - the same happened to mine ( I'd removed the fan as it was too noisy). I assume this is a heat issue? 


Tried some resistors to slow the fan down but not successful, too little makes no difference, a little more and the fan doesn't kick in, so have ordered a silent fan replacement.