NAD! '82 Marshall 4104 with EV's

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JohnnyGtar said:
What's your take on the Eminence PF-350?
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I don't have a verdict yet. Mine are still breaking in. Currently at higher volume, a little too bright n tight, but they seem to be slowly improving the more frequently I beat them. I have a few dozen hours on them. I've seen "150 hours" mentioned as the break in. They seem pretty mid focused and so far have a smooth top end at lower volumes. The real issue is trying to move the Twin loaded with them. You're looking at 95lbs....
 
7704A said:
Alright, more clips. It was past midnight when I recorded these, but nevertheless I think things turned out fairly well for not spending much time on anything other than mic placement. Setup is my 4104 loaded with EV Force 12's, with a PZM about a foot or less from the front of the cab lying on top of the carpeted floor. Guitar is my entry-level Aria with stock pickups, going into an Orange Two-Stroke with max clean boost and a little extra bite dialed in with the EQ. No bass cuts that I recall. Pictures below of settings.
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And here are the clips. The amp was so quiet you can hear the acoustic sound of the strings fairly well. In the room I could talk over it.




You can hear my hand tire out on this next one.


I can hear myself rushing the chugs on this in hindsight. Oh well.

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Unchained sounded awesome!
 
chumbucket said:
The last two sound really good. You can tell that it would probably kill when turned up a bit.
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I think the last two are my favorite too, the others could use some time dialing in better fitting tones. Looking forward to when I can get this cooking nice 'n loud. I've done it at a rehearsal studio back in LA, but not with this cab or isolated from other guitarists playing at the same time.
 
Alright, got the MV up to around 1 or a little below while everyone was out today. Also learned the Unchained riff a tiny bit better. For these clips, the PZM is on the bedroom wall and the 4104 is about 2ft-3ft away pointed at the PZM. Amp is boosted by an Orange Two Stroke with flat EQ.

 
VonBonfire said:
If you get a chance take a look at those frequency charts of those two neos and tell me what you think. No rush though, gotta pay my property taxes first so it's gonna be a minute haha.
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Took a look a while ago and just haven't got to replying. Was there anything in particular you were wondering about them? From the very brief glance I'd say the neos look like EV and JBL clones. I haven't scrutinized specifics though, just the gestalt.
 
7704A said:
Took a look a while ago and just haven't got to replying. Was there anything in particular you were wondering about them? From the very brief glance I'd say the neos look like EV and JBL clones. I haven't scrutinized specifics though, just the gestalt.
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Which one you think is better with a Twin? 103dB on the lil Texas which seems kinda JBL-ish to me with the high efficiency and they are affordable. The EM12n I'm assuming is close to an EV but I don;'t know how to make heads or tails of those freq charts. It's quite a bit more money.
 
VonBonfire said:
Which one you think is better with a Twin?
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Aw jeez, that's outta my pay grade. Not familiar with Twins. Only thing I know right now is that the EM12N sounds pretty similar to the EVM12S per that video we were discussing, and that the Force 12 is supposed to be very close to the EVM12S (basically a lower power version I think), so the EM12N would probably sound very similar to your Force 12's. I can look at the Lil' Texas and see if there are any big differences between that and the JBL. Was it K120's you used?
 
In other news I got my foam donut beam blockers in the mail today, along with my soldering iron. So when I get a chance I'll do a quick comparison between donuts and no donuts, and also swap out the input jacks on the 4104 as one reads 40Ω across the switch contact :shocked:. The donuts should give me a more off-axis sound even when mic'ing dead center, so hopefully that helps with stuff.
 
So one of the screws holding the baffle in the cab is kinked, and when I got the amp it wouldn't tighten down well. Attempts to do so just stripped to hole. I picked up some JB KwikWood epoxy, and tonight was able to fill the hole (pic below) and reinstall the screw with a (so far) secure fit. Even trying to crank the screwdriver doesn't seem to budge the screw. :thumbsup:
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I also picked up Super 77 contact adhesive today at the hardware store so that I can attached the foam beam killers to the grill cloth, I'll hopefully get recording tests of those in the next few days.

Edit: Caveat I forgot to mention is that I had to completely remove the baffle with it's screws to get at the screw hole, and when I re-installed it I placed the screws according to how they best fit the various hole profiles as they were almost all messed up in some way. So the original problematic screw may have ended up in a different hole where it caused less problems. Not impressed with Marshall's cabinetry.
 
Oh! And I found that the transformers are stamped for January 1982, the choke for Jan 1981 (I think, might have misread), and the torn service tag indicates it was inspected the 23rd of February 1982. It is a moderate plate voltage model, sitting around 400VDC at idle and ready to play. Figured that info might be useful for anyone trying to put a finer point on when the plate voltage was increased.
 
Short-term update for others with a similar issue: the JB Weld KwikWood is holding well. Today I took out the screw to add a washer under it (there was still some play in the baffle with the screw bottomed out) and it took some effort to back it out by hand. There was some JB Weld stuck in between the threads, but after cleaning that out a bit and sticking the washer on I was able to put the screw back in and crank it down by hand without stripping the hole. With the washer there is now no play in the baffle related to the screw. I use the cabinet as an office chair, so we'll see if any develops over time.
 
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Installed new input jacks today, CLIFF UK ones with a metal nut to spruce things up. I don't like the stock plastic ones.
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Inside shots:
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So far, that's seems to have fixed the issue I was having where if I played really softly while connected to the "High" input the sound would cut out or get very distorted. The low jack measured 40 Ω across the tip switch contacts when it was in-circuit, and now that I have it out of the circuit it's reading all over the place, 15 Ω to 1.5 MΩ. I don't think that's all my probing technique, especially since I can reliably measure the new jack at < 0.5 Ω out of the circuit. Something else I noticed after the swap, and I could be fooling myself, but the amp sounds cleaner. Less fizz and fuzz clouding up notes. There were some low single notes that don't sound fuzzy anymore either, even with the bass all the way up. I'll have to record some clips for comparison to see if I'm right.
 
Screwed around and took a few quick clips without taking much time to polish them. Volume is a bit low 'cause it's evening, hopefully I'll have time in the next few days to get it louder once the neighbors are away. Settings are Gain: 7/10, Master: < 1/10, Treble: 6/10, Bass: 10/10, Mid: 10/10, Presence: 6/10. PZM was taped to the wall with the amp about two feet away pointed at it but slightly askew.



I also did a quick comparison with and without the foam beam blockers. I only loosely taped the beam blockers on, and didn't spend much time aligning them. A more thorough test will have to come later. I normalized both tracks to the same dB. Sorry for the irritating playing, I only wanted the parts of the riff that generate hash. If I palm mute too hard right now the string touches the pickup, and I didn't feel like fixing it for these slapped together clips.


This next clip is with the beam blockers taped on, but I adjusted the treble a little to compensate for the attenuation from the blockers. I don't think I added enough though.


Edit: I think I had the interface buffer too small when I recorded these, I'm hearing glitches. Oh well.
 
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