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If you could only have one amp of these two
Nashville 112 The NEW one
27%
 27%  [ 14 ]
Nashville 400
72%
 72%  [ 37 ]
Total Votes : 51

Author Topic:  If you could only have one
Gary Watkins


From:
Bristol, VA
Post  Posted 21 May 2018 12:26 pm    
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Which would you get if you could only have one?
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Donny Hinson

 

From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
Post  Posted 21 May 2018 2:54 pm    
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For me, the Nashville 112 would just not have enough power. Once I dialed in my preferred tone settings, the amps total available power would likely be cut in half. Trying to play a medium-to-large gig with less than 100 watts just doesn't work...for me, anyway.
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Gary Watkins


From:
Bristol, VA
Post  Posted 21 May 2018 4:25 pm    
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Donny Hinson wrote:
For me, the Nashville 112 would just not have enough power. Once I dialed in my preferred tone settings, the amps total available power would likely be cut in half. Trying to play a medium-to-large gig with less than 100 watts just doesn't work...for me, anyway.


Thanks Donny, that is what I am trying to figure out.
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Georg Sørtun


From:
Mandal, Agder, Norway
Post  Posted 21 May 2018 6:30 pm    
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Donny Hinson wrote:
Once I dialed in my preferred tone settings, the amps total available power would likely be cut in half.
As such a statement can be misinterpreted by some, I have to ask how that can happen. Available power is determined by an amp's power stage alone – goes for all amps, and doesn't change with eq-setting used.
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Tony Prior


From:
Charlotte NC
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 1:13 am    
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The 400. If you could only have ONE, you grab the one that can cover all scenarios. It's not about weight, it's about productivity.
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Jack Stoner


From:
Kansas City, MO
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 2:17 am    
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NV112 over a NV400. I've owned both and "tolerated" the NV400 but liked the 112. I don't play lead guitar or anywhere that would require the higher power of a NV400.
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Stefan Robertson


From:
Hertfordshire, UK
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 4:06 am    
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Donny Hinson wrote:
For me, the Nashville 112 would just not have enough power. Once I dialed in my preferred tone settings, the amps total available power would likely be cut in half. Trying to play a medium-to-large gig with less than 100 watts just doesn't work...for me, anyway.


Is this really still the case. I've been to some pretty rubbish PA setups at festivals and clubs but pretty much every Audio Engineer worth a grain of salt knows to mic a speaker so realistically 40w is all that I have ever needed. It all comes through the monitors anyway.
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Dave Mudgett


From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 7:48 am    
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For clean pedal steel, 70s Session/LTD 400. By far. I just prefer the sound, I've had them all.

Not sure if this is exactly what Donny is driving at. But my take is that if one sets the EQ for a full-range response with a solid bass, that bass sucks a lot of the available power and leaves less power than one might think for the remaining program content. Add to that the fact that most pedal steel players back off the volume pedal to leave headroom to sustain phrases, which again gives less usable volume than one might think.
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Georg Sørtun


From:
Mandal, Agder, Norway
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 9:14 am    
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Dave Mudgett wrote:
Not sure if this is exactly what Donny is driving at. But my take is that if one sets the EQ for a full-range response with a solid bass, that bass sucks a lot of the available power and leaves less power than one might think for the remaining program content.
Right, and burning off sub-harmonics as heat in the amp's power stage, is not good use of available power.

Quote:
From the Peavey Manual…
The Low EQ Control is capable of more than 15 dB of boost or cut and you should be aware that each 3 dB of boost doubles the amount of power necessary to produce the desired amount of low end.

Ideally all amps for steel should be equipped with an adjustable high-order (very sharp) "rumble" filter, to cut off all below the lowest fundamental note/frequency the instrument can produce. Would leave lots more power available for what we can actually hear as intelligible tones, and in effect make the bass-notes above the cut-off frequency sound both clearer and louder.

Lowest fundamental note for an S10 E9 (with "Franklin" pedal) is 110Hz ="A". An S12 Uni can go one octave lower, to 55Hz="A". Amplification of lower frequencies (sub-harmonics, beats and "rumble") will only result in wasted energy and muddy sound.
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Gary Watkins


From:
Bristol, VA
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 9:59 am    
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Georg Sørtun wrote:
Dave Mudgett wrote:
Not sure if this is exactly what Donny is driving at. But my take is that if one sets the EQ for a full-range response with a solid bass, that bass sucks a lot of the available power and leaves less power than one might think for the remaining program content.
Right, and burning off sub-harmonics as heat in the amp's power stage, is not good use of available power.

Quote:
From the Peavey Manual…
The Low EQ Control is capable of more than 15 dB of boost or cut and you should be aware that each 3 dB of boost doubles the amount of power necessary to produce the desired amount of low end.

Ideally all amps for steel should be equipped with an adjustable high-order (very sharp) "rumble" filter, to cut off all below the lowest fundamental note/frequency the instrument can produce. Would leave lots more power available for what we can actually hear as intelligible tones, and in effect make the bass-notes above the cut-off frequency sound both clearer and louder.

Lowest fundamental note for an S10 E9 (with "Franklin" pedal) is 110Hz ="A". An S12 Uni can go one octave lower, to 55Hz="A". Amplification of lower frequencies (sub-harmonics, beats and "rumble") will only result in wasted energy and muddy sound.


This is one reason that I like this forum so much! I learn so much on here and I am proud to be a member of this "family". Now, I want all of my "family" members to remember me in their wills when they die, LOL.
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Dave Mudgett


From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 11:56 am    
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Quote:
Right, and burning off sub-harmonics as heat in the amp's power stage, is not good use of available power. ... Lowest fundamental note for an S10 E9 (with "Franklin" pedal) is 110Hz ="A". An S12 Uni can go one octave lower, to 55Hz="A".

I don't think you have to adjust the EQ radically towards the bass end to push things pretty hard for some steel players. Some players like more bass than others. Depending on the situation, I like enough to "firm up" the sound. I wasn't talking about enough to exaggerate subharmonics.

Standard 10-string E9 is not taxing. But as you point out, C6 (with its boo-wah pedal going down from low C to A=55Hz) and a comparable universal (with its boo-wah going down from low B to Ab=52Hz ) go down pretty low. I don't think that requires subharmonics to tax anything but a pretty stout amp.

I think pedal steel is a very full-range instrument and needs a pretty full-range amp to really reproduce what it's putting out. Now, not everyone wants to "fully" reproduce what's coming out. For example, think of the Ampeg SVT amp, with its 8 10" drivers in that crazy refrigerator cabinet. It did not attempt to reproduce everything clinically all the way down. But it's not everybody's sound - a lot of bass players want to feel the fundamental all the way down on a 5-string bass, and use 15" or even 18" speakers to get there.
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George Kimery

 

From:
Limestone, TN, USA
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 1:01 pm     If you could have only one? Poll
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I have had both, actually two 112's, as well as the 400 ltd, 1000, and Session 500. None of them did it for
me, but if I had to choose between the 112 and 400, I would choose the 112.

Currently in my stall are Steelaire, Boss Katana, and Carvin BX-500, all being used with an Emmence PF-350 speaker. You are more than welcome to come down and
and give them a test drive.I am going to add a Stereo Steel to the herd before long.
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Gary Watkins


From:
Bristol, VA
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 1:25 pm     Re: If you could have only one? Poll
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George Kimery wrote:
I have had both, actually two 112's, as well as the 400 ltd, 1000, and Session 500. None of them did it for
me, but if I had to choose between the 112 and 400, I would choose the 112.

Currently in my stall are Steelaire, Boss Katana, and Carvin BX-500, all being used with an Emmence PF-350 speaker. You are more than welcome to come down and
and give them a test drive.I am going to add a Stereo Steel to the herd before long.

Thanks George. I may just come to see you.
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Georg Sørtun


From:
Mandal, Agder, Norway
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 8:04 pm    
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Dave Mudgett wrote:
I think pedal steel is a very full-range instrument and needs a pretty full-range amp to really reproduce what it's putting out. Now, not everyone wants to "fully" reproduce what's coming out. For example, think of the Ampeg SVT amp, with its 8 10" drivers in that crazy refrigerator cabinet. It did not attempt to reproduce everything clinically all the way down. But it's not everybody's sound - a lot of bass players want to feel the fundamental all the way down on a 5-string bass, and use 15" or even 18" speakers to get there.
Wanting "super-lows", or not wanting "superlows", is OK. In my old homebuilt rig I used a slavebass (passive) element in a cut transmission line construction, to cover the low range, resulting in a pretty linear, highly efficient and very responsive reproduction from well below 20Hz to about 16KHz. Bass players didn't like the compact but heavy contraption's low-end efficiency, as bass-notes and sub-harmonics tended to become too loud a couple of hundred feet away from the speaker well before the player got the near-field level and "punch" they wanted … real lows travel well, and the audience got the "punch" Very Happy

The simple fact is that regardless of what the speaker can or cannot deliver as audible sound, the power amp will (try to) pump out all the lows it is fed. As the average open-back cabinet will provide a 12"/15"/18"/whatever speaker with a low-end (50Hz down) efficiency of only 2% to 5%, 95% or more in the low end will end up as nothing but heat. Higher-power amps will of course produce more heat, and not much more sound, when pushed in the low frequency range that we, and our audiences, do not get to hear properly anyway. For steel we may as well cut those pretty inaudible lows off and stop wasting precious energy on them, if we want our amps to deliver to anything but the electric bill.

(For comparison: my "slavebass / cut transmission line" contraption has an efficiency of about 25% at 20Hz, and more like 50% at 50Hz. That's at least 10 times more efficient in the low range than any open-back and most closed-back/ported speaker cabs, so it does extremely well with 80Watt of amp-power. But, it's too heavy, and also too "HiFi", for anything but large venue and outdoor PA systems – which it originally was designed for anyway. Definitely not "voiced for steel", but I sure liked the sound of my steels through it back when it was my main rig, and I also liked that it was so transparent that it didn't/couldn't cover up for any of my mistakes.)


I'll choose NV112s over just about any combo on the market today for my steels. Not because the NV112 is an exceptionally good amp if I have to list them all up for individual qualities, but because it is a reliable, "honest-sounding" and light little workhorse of an amp that will cover most situations I may find myself in these days. If I need to go "louder", I'll simply cut the lows and turn up the rest. As I do not use the input/eq sections of my NV112s, I'll cut lows externally if I need to.
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Donny Hinson

 

From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 9:21 pm    
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Georg Sørtun wrote:
Donny Hinson wrote:
Once I dialed in my preferred tone settings, the amps total available power would likely be cut in half.
As such a statement can be misinterpreted by some, I have to ask how that can happen. Available power is determined by an amp's power stage alone – goes for all amps, and doesn't change with eq-setting used.


I'm happy to oblige, Georg. Maximum audio output power from an amplifier is obtainable only with the proper amount of drive. As the tone or EQ networks of many amps are passive (read: subtractive), the lower the bass, mid, and treble controls are set, the less the amount of audio output that is available from the output stage. With some amps, like a Twin Reverb, there is little or no output at all with the tone controls turned all the way down. Compounding this problem is the fact that the lower (bass) notes take far more power to reproduce than notes in the mid an high ranges. Guitar players are usually happy with 50-75 watts, while bass players often use amps with hundreds of watts.

As to miking the instruments, if it's possible, I would always prefer to hear music where everything isn't all jammed through the same set of speakers. Indeed, most if the best and most memorable music I've heard, sound-wise, has been from either acoustic bands, or from small combos in venues that do not require humongous sound systems - venues where i can get that "up close and personal" feeling with the performers. IMHO, there is nothing like listening to a small jazz combo or an acoustic group from 10-15 feet away. And perhaps, for me, this preference has come from decades of doing just that. Cool
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Georg Sørtun


From:
Mandal, Agder, Norway
Post  Posted 22 May 2018 10:14 pm    
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Donny Hinson wrote:
I'm happy to oblige, Georg. Maximum audio output power from an amplifier is obtainable only with the proper amount of drive. As the tone or EQ networks of many amps are passive (read: subtractive), the lower the bass, mid, and treble controls are set, the less the amount of audio output that is available from the output stage. With some amps, like a Twin Reverb, there is little or no output at all with the tone controls turned all the way down. Compounding this problem is the fact that the lower (bass) notes take far more power to reproduce than notes in the mid an high ranges.
Sure, some amps can subtract to almost zero, but the NV112 you apparently found to lack available power, has active eq stages centered around nominal levels, and also plenty gain and volume ranges to compensate for subtractive eq-settings for those who want to drive the power stage to peak (DDT™) compression with a steel as source. Those who can not get enough "drive" behind the NV112's power stage, don't know how to adjust those knobs. The NV112 is a small amp, but only marginally lower in available – and audible – power compared to most other combos.


Donny Hinson wrote:
IMHO, there is nothing like listening to a small jazz combo or an acoustic group from 10-15 feet away. And perhaps, for me, this preference has come from decades of doing just that. Cool
That's one thing we can agree on Very Happy
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