Reference Headphones vs. ASM-12

[CactusTone]

Still a newbie here, but boy have a learned a ton since my last post. This thing just keeps getting better the deeper I go.

First off, thank you Cliff for the amazing new 4.0 firmware. It's hard to Quantum-ify what's happening, but it is happening, and I like it!

So my biggest hurdle at the moment is centered around the difference in tone between my reference headphones and my Friedman ASM-12. Is it just me, or is the ASM-12 really dark? I can dial it brighter, but I'm wondering if it's better to dial in the headphones for a more accurate reflection of the tone color that will be delivered to a console at gigs. Seems if I dial it in for the Friedman, the signal to the console might be too bright.

Anybody have experience with this?

 

[Ben Randolph]

Have you tried flipping the switch on the Friedmans that cuts the low end? Normally, I leave mine at default settings and tune them by ear. I haven't found them too dark, but that switch is an option that might work for you.

Another thing you could do is experiment with the Bright switch on the amp block. The Bright knob, too!

 

[REDD]

To me they are a little darker and have more bass than my Atomic CLR's which are labeled reference type speakers. Friedmans sound good. More cab like. I let my buddy play through the Friedmans when we jam and I use the CLR's.

 

[CactusTone]

To me they are a little darker and have more bass than my Atomic CLR's which are labeled reference type speakers. Friedmans sound good. More cab like. I let my buddy play through the Friedmans when we jam and I use the CLR's.

So do you think it's best to dial in tones to the heaphones?

 

[CactusTone]

Have you tried flipping the switch on the Friedmans that cuts the low end? Normally, I leave mine at default settings and tune them by ear. I haven't found them too dark, but that switch is an option that might work for you.

Another thing you could do is experiment with the Bright switch on the amp block. The Bright knob, too!

I have the low cut on. I'm trying to find a balance between what the preset sounds like in the headphones vs. the cab. Perfect headphones=too dark cab. Perfect cab=too bright headphones. I'm wondering if, for the ear of the audience based on what the console receives, is it better to stick with what sounds best in the headphones?

 

[Hellbat]

If you're not using the loop you can do copy out 1 to out 2 and apply global eq to out 2 to get a ballpark match. It just means using TRS instead of XLR to your monitors, but it leaves the XLR's that match your reference headphones going to a flat (hopefully!) FOH.

 

[RoshRoslin]

I have an ASM 12. I also live down the street from Dave Friedman's shop. Directly from the man himself he says it's a darker FRFR cab because it's designed to sound more like a guitar cab than a full range cab. He wants the "thump" from a guitar cab and the darker cutoff from most guitar speakers.

Dial in your tones at gig volume in rehearsal. Since you're not going to be using headphones live, why use them to dial in tones.

 

[CactusTone]

If you're not using the loop you can do copy out 1 to out 2 and apply global eq to out 2 to get a ballpark match. It just means using TRS instead of XLR to your monitors, but it leaves the XLR's that match your reference headphones going to a flat (hopefully!) FOH.

Thanks!

 

[CactusTone]

I have an ASM 12. I also live down the street from Dave Friedman's shop. Directly from the man himself he says it's a darker FRFR cab because it's designed to sound more like a guitar cab than a full range cab. He wants the "thump" from a guitar cab and the darker cutoff from most guitar speakers.

Dial in your tones at gig volume in rehearsal. Since you're not going to be using headphones live, why use them to dial in tones.

 

[CactusTone]

Thanks!

I'm using the headphones while the wife sleeps This is how I came to hear such a difference. Dial at night, listen at rehearsal.

Sculpting like this made me think, "if this is what my guitar sounds like," (in the headphones), "is this what the audience is hearing, or are they hearing the tone as I hear it in my ASM-12?" I imagine it's the former, but I don't know. I'm trying to make a decision on whether I should dial for the FOH, which I assume is like the headphones, or if I should dial for myself, using the ASM as the reference, and trust that the audience is hearing what I am. I've been suspicious that the FOH is pumping a much brighter signal than what I'm hearing on stage.

 

[paulmapp8306]

I have an ASM 12. I also live down the street from Dave Friedman's shop. Directly from the man himself he says it's a darker FRFR cab because it's designed to sound more like a guitar cab than a full range cab. He wants the "thump" from a guitar cab and the darker cutoff from most guitar speakers.

Hum, which is all well and good, but by definition makes them Not FRFR...... They may be full range, but there not flat response.

 

[RoshRoslin]

Hum, which is all well and good, but by definition makes them Not FRFR...... They may be full range, but there not flat response.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that Dave didn't make the cab to be the flattest cabinet on the market from 20-20k, nor was that the goal. Again, he made it for guitarists who wanted something that would bridge the gap between guitar cabinet and full range speaker. There are plenty of options on the market if that's what people are looking for.

 

[Johan Allard]

I would probably go as far as not call the ASM-12 FRFR at all. They are not Full Range and they are not Flat Response, not even close. I've tried one for the last couple of weeks and if you're just looking at something that sounds really good on its own, it's pretty unbeatable. It really does sound awesome. But, and it's a big but, with presets dialled in for FRFR (reference speakers, headphones, ...) it's going to sound really dark and I found myself getting really lost in the mix with the band with presets that otherwise work really well. And it gets even worse in my book, if you try to dial in presets for the ASM-12, they are going to sound horrible if you also feed the same preset to Front of House, unless you mic up the ASM-12, but who want to do that.

If you just want the most enjoyment playing at home, by yourself, or if you only use the ASM-12 as a backline and never worry about FoH, the ASM-12 is easily the best I've heard. It's just really fun to play through and sounds fantastic. So much fun. Much closer to a guitar cab for sure.

But if you want to play in a band and also feed the same preset to FoH, or want to dial in presets using anything else that would also work with your powered speaker, I would pick pretty much anything over the ASM-12. I think it's going to be a constant source of frustration in the battle between what you hear and how the preset really sound through PA or reference speakers. Any cheap PA speaker is likely going to be better, not to mention the usual suspects CLR, Xitone, Matrix FR10/12, ...

Anyway, that's my experience after a couple of weeks with one.

 

[lqdsnddist]

I wouldn't worry about it all that much, because no matter if you use a CLR, ASM-12, Headphones etc, your not going to exactly get that tone at a gig. House systems are going to vary, the mix engineer might throw some EQ on (even if you tell them your giving them a perfect direct signal), the venue is going to sound different when its full of bodies verses empty etc etc

Even if the ASM-12 is a little "dark", its still a pretty accurate reproduction of what your tone sounds like. Its not going to vary that much, to the point of where it won't translate. Wont sound exactly like what is does playing at home, even at a good volume, but that is just the nature of things. Tone sounds different gig to gig, venue to venue, even when you do everything you can to control for it and keep it the same.

We've got it so good, and so much easier these days, with things like the Axe II, than back when we used real amps, mic'd cabs, and had way less control over variables like how loud we could crank the amp.

Bottom line is that if it sounds good on one system, it will sound good on another. If it sounds awful at home, it will probably sound awful at the gig, though you obviously may want a little brighter tone for a band mix, than listening to your guitar in isolation, but that has and will always hold true with anything

 

[CactusTone]

I would probably go as far as not call the ASM-12 FRFR at all. They are not Full Range and they are not Flat Response, not even close. I've tried one for the last couple of weeks and if you're just looking at something that sounds really good on its own, it's pretty unbeatable. It really does sound awesome. But, and it's a big but, with presets dialled in for FRFR (reference speakers, headphones, ...) it's going to sound really dark and I found myself getting really lost in the mix with the band with presets that otherwise work really well. And it gets even worse in my book, if you try to dial in presets for the ASM-12, they are going to sound horrible if you also feed the same preset to Front of House, unless you mic up the ASM-12, but who want to do that.

If you just want the most enjoyment playing at home, by yourself, or if you only use the ASM-12 as a backline and never worry about FoH, the ASM-12 is easily the best I've heard. It's just really fun to play through and sounds fantastic. So much fun. Much closer to a guitar cab for sure.

But if you want to play in a band and also feed the same preset to FoH, or want to dial in presets using anything else that would also work with your powered speaker, I would pick pretty much anything over the ASM-12. I think it's going to be a constant source of frustration in the battle between what you hear and how the preset really sound through PA or reference speakers. Any cheap PA speaker is likely going to be better, not to mention the usual suspects CLR, Xitone, Matrix FR10/12, ...

Anyway, that's my experience after a couple of weeks with one.

Yes! This confirms my suspicion. Thanks for the response!

 

[CactusTone]

I wouldn't worry about it all that much, because no matter if you use a CLR, ASM-12, Headphones etc, your not going to exactly get that tone at a gig. House systems are going to vary, the mix engineer might throw some EQ on (even if you tell them your giving them a perfect direct signal), the venue is going to sound different when its full of bodies verses empty etc etc

Even if the ASM-12 is a little "dark", its still a pretty accurate reproduction of what your tone sounds like. Its not going to vary that much, to the point of where it won't translate. Wont sound exactly like what is does playing at home, even at a good volume, but that is just the nature of things. Tone sounds different gig to gig, venue to venue, even when you do everything you can to control for it and keep it the same.

We've got it so good, and so much easier these days, with things like the Axe II, than back when we used real amps, mic'd cabs, and had way less control over variables like how loud we could crank the amp.

Bottom line is that if it sounds good on one system, it will sound good on another. If it sounds awful at home, it will probably sound awful at the gig, though you obviously may want a little brighter tone for a band mix, than listening to your guitar in isolation, but that has and will always hold true with anything

I understand there will never be a perfect translation of sound, but I wonder if the CLR or a powered PA wedge would be closer. Yes, life is much better without having to mic a cab, rely on crappy house monitors to hear yourself while butchering your tone, etc., but since the AXE is so powerful, I'm trying to figure out how to deliver what I'm enjoying tone-wise to the audience, knowing that there will be slight variations from venue to venue. I agree with lqdsnddist's comment above.

 

[REDD]

I understand there will never be a perfect translation of sound, but I wonder if the CLR or a powered PA wedge would be closer. Yes, life is much better without having to mic a cab, rely on crappy house monitors to hear yourself while butchering your tone, etc., but since the AXE is so powerful, I'm trying to figure out how to deliver what I'm enjoying tone-wise to the audience, knowing that there will be slight variations from venue to venue. I agree with lqdsnddist's comment above.

I made some presets on my Friedmans and ran them through the P.A. and they sounded brighter and thinner than the Friedmans but not bad. Nothing that the sound man couldn't fix with a little adjustment just like he would do with an amp and mic. My CLR's translate well. I would not worry too much.

 

[lqdsnddist]

For what its worth, I returned a ASM-12 due to some noise issues and got a CLR for a replacement, I tweaked nothing on my patches between them. I will say the ASM-12 did sound a touch bassier/darker than the CLR, but not to the extent that I had to adjust anything. For that matter, both of them sounded essentially the same as my studio monitors as well, with some slight differences in placement on a desk vs as a floor wedge, maximum volume etc.

Realistically as well, most of us are going to dial in some high and low cut on the cab block anyways, which really ends up negating most differences. Its like maybe monitor X can go to 50 Hz and monitor Y only to 65 Hz, or one is a little brighter, but then you go and dial in 100 Hz cut on the lows, and maybe a 6000 Hz high filter to best represent guitar tones and sit well in the mix and those differences largely go away

Now if my application was a 5 string bass or something, then maybe there would be a difference between say a CLR and the ASM-12, but for the the cab blocks I run, either is shelved way before its limit of low frequency response

 

[barhrecords]

Realistically as well, most of us are going to dial in some high and low cut on the cab block anyways, which really ends up negating most differences. Its like maybe monitor X can go to 50 Hz and monitor Y only to 65 Hz, or one is a little brighter, but then you go and dial in 100 Hz cut on the lows, and maybe a 6000 Hz high filter to best represent guitar tones and sit well in the mix and those differences largely go away

The differences are most critical for me in the midrange. So the differences don't go away in my experience.

I find cheaper monitors very unsatisfying in the midrange. They seem to lack clarity and energy. Both of which contribute to better feel when I'm playing electric guitar.

 

[lqdsnddist]

The differences are most critical for me in the midrange. So the differences don't go away in my experience.

I find cheaper monitors very unsatisfying in the midrange. They seem to lack clarity and energy. Both of which contribute to better feel when I'm playing electric guitar.

Cheaper monitors sure, but we are talking about Atomic CLR's and ASM-12's, which are $999 and $799 (though some places are asking $899) respectively. While that isn't Meyer or other ultra high end expensive, I wouldn't call them cheap either.

Point essentially being, that once you get past a certain price point, and into the Friedman, Atomic, Mission Engineering, XiTone, etc range of stuff, its all pretty darn good and accurate "enough".

$150 Behringer PA wedge ? Maybe not so much.....