Deadpool_25
Fractal Fanatic
The Powerstage 700 I ordered arrived today. I connected it to my pair of custom 2x12s, each of which has a V30/Creamback combo. Of course I turned off cab modeling before even auditioning and it sounds really good. I didn’t directly a/b the PS700 vs my pair of 5153 50w FX loops but my initial impression is that it probably sounds just as good. That’s saying a lot because I love the FM9 through the pair of EVHs. I’ll probably a/b tomorrow or this weekend.
The interesting part was that at one point I turned on cab modeling. As expected the sound got quite muffled. As far as I know, cabs tend to roll off the high end (sharply) and the low end (less sharply), so I tried adjusting the tone controls on the PS700 by totally cranking the treble and also boosting the lows a little. It surprised me by sounding pretty damn good.
It obviously didn’t have quite the definition and detail of my HS7s (with matching subwoofer) but it was good enough that I thought it just might be usable live. It makes me wonder if I could dial in a finer-tuned EQ curve in the FM9 and basically turn my real cab into a close-enough approximation of an FRFR to make running with cab modeling enabled viable. My cabs are great in their own right and I could almost certainly be fine using them with cab modeling off, but it would be nice to be able to reap the benefits of IR usage even if in a less than ideal setup.
It’s a somewhat strange idea I guess but the super quick and coarse test made me want to explore this a little more before dropping $400 to experiment with a pair of F12-X200s (actually $800 since I’m using a pair of 2x12s in stereo). This is especially true because after trying some Matrix FRFR cabs and trying the Laney 212 FRFR I haven’t had much luck (outside of my HS7s).
I’m not setup well to use RoomEQ Wizard like back in my car audio days but I could probably send pink noise through the FM9 (synth block maybe?), measure it with an RTA app on the phone or iPad, and figure out what the basic frequency response of my cabs really is. That might allow me to EQ it close enough to being FRFR-ish.
Am I completely crazy? Okay, don’t answer that. Regardless, I’ll have to mess with it some more and see how it works out.
The interesting part was that at one point I turned on cab modeling. As expected the sound got quite muffled. As far as I know, cabs tend to roll off the high end (sharply) and the low end (less sharply), so I tried adjusting the tone controls on the PS700 by totally cranking the treble and also boosting the lows a little. It surprised me by sounding pretty damn good.
It obviously didn’t have quite the definition and detail of my HS7s (with matching subwoofer) but it was good enough that I thought it just might be usable live. It makes me wonder if I could dial in a finer-tuned EQ curve in the FM9 and basically turn my real cab into a close-enough approximation of an FRFR to make running with cab modeling enabled viable. My cabs are great in their own right and I could almost certainly be fine using them with cab modeling off, but it would be nice to be able to reap the benefits of IR usage even if in a less than ideal setup.
It’s a somewhat strange idea I guess but the super quick and coarse test made me want to explore this a little more before dropping $400 to experiment with a pair of F12-X200s (actually $800 since I’m using a pair of 2x12s in stereo). This is especially true because after trying some Matrix FRFR cabs and trying the Laney 212 FRFR I haven’t had much luck (outside of my HS7s).
I’m not setup well to use RoomEQ Wizard like back in my car audio days but I could probably send pink noise through the FM9 (synth block maybe?), measure it with an RTA app on the phone or iPad, and figure out what the basic frequency response of my cabs really is. That might allow me to EQ it close enough to being FRFR-ish.
Am I completely crazy? Okay, don’t answer that. Regardless, I’ll have to mess with it some more and see how it works out.
