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Mark Weiss

An Exclusive Tour of the Bass Pig's Lair

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Here it is, folks, the first tour of the Bass Pig's Lair in high definition!
We take a tour of the amplifier and control racks and 15,000-watts of driving stereo. Then we take a peek at what all that amplifier power is connected to, and then we shift to a musical topic, with a look at the music production equipment from Kurzweil, Yamaha and Roland. Then we move over to the work area, with general-purpose workstation and my new quad-core HD editing workstation. (Please pardon the mess!)
Finally, we get a peek at the MotU 896, multi-channel digital audio interface that I use to record concerts, and back once more for another look at the MIDI gear..
For those that may be curious, yes, the sound system has a dedicated 125-amp 240vac power line to the racks (each of the big QSC amps can pull up to 92A of current off the mains!). 8AWG wire feeds the woofers and subwoofers. One DCX2496 feeds the main speakers, the other is feeding the surround and (coming soon) center channel speaker(s).
The most notable hardware here is the new Bassmaxx ZR18 subwoofer, which was designed to take the place of four double 18" woofer cabinets. It achieves this with an absurdly large piston displacement linear stroke capability.
Enjoy the tour!

For more details, visit www.basspig.com

Comments

Shiv Kumar

July 16, 2008 05:51 AM

So get the username now! That's an incredible amount of hardware Mark. Do you compose music as well?

I can't imagine what you could be doing with 1500W of power. Even with 89db spl speakers you'll be in the danger of going deaf (threshold of deafness being 110db) at just a quater of that in the space that I saw.

I also noticed your speakers are a bass reflex design. Personal I've always prefered the air suspension design. They need a lot of power but the bass is very clean and more realistic.

Also at 92A @240 V, that's 22,000 Watts of power consumption per QSC box. Isn't that highly inefficient? Must produce a ton of heat too.

Do you use your gear from outdoor concerts and things or is this stuff just for the studio?

Mark Weiss

July 16, 2008 10:10 AM

The history of that username traces to a friend I met in 1989, via HAM radio and Japanese anime interests. The first time I played the system for him (at modest volume) he coined the term "Bass Pig" right there on the spot. At first I thought it rather crass, but alas, the name stuck and about ten years ago I started using it as a screen name.

Actually, that's 15,000 watts--you were off by a decimal place there. :-)
The reason is headroom, and pyro-technics. In past years, I would haul the speakers (conveniently equipped with casters) out onto the patio and play back recordings of the fireworks outdoors. (That was in the late 1970s and early 1980s--before the advent of real viable subwoofers like the Bassmaxx.)
I'm also a huge pipe organ buff. I collect recordings of these beasts, dating back to E. Powerbiggs' days, and enjoy the works of J.S. Bach, Marcel Dupré, Saint-saens and others, and for that, you need a robust bottem end. But I went way beyond that, and a trip to the largest cathedral in Connecticut, to audition an Austin organ with 32' stops, was a reality check--the real thing is quite feeble, compared to the way I'm used to listening to organ recordings.

The efficiency of each of the double Bassmaxx driver cabinets is around 108dB with band-limited pink noise from 10-50Hz with 2.83vac across the terminals. So the Neodymium magnets more than make up for the small cabinet volume and the attendant loss of efficiency. Also, they benefit from a 6dB increase in output due to mutual coupling, making them pretty extraordinary in the field of pro sound reinforcement.

Actually, those are Hemholtz Resonators, tuned infrasonically. Otherwise today known as Large and Low Tuned, or LLT. I agree that traditional bass reflex designs have serious problems with group delay and nonlinear response. However, when you move all these problems to the single-digit range, putting all the audible and some of the sub-audible range above the tuning frequency, you end up with an impulse response of a sealed box, but with increasing output as the tuning frequency is approached.

The cabinets that are currently hosting the Bassmaxx drivers were originally built for Altec 3184s and are too small to run the Bassmaxx optimally. They need at least 40 cu ft to produce decent efficiency, and I am working on a new design that will have a vent length so-designed that the vent area will equal the front piston area at a single-digit tuning frequency. It's all really academic, as the system already puts out too much acoustic energy as it is.

I should clarify that the 240vac line is a split phase, with one phase feeding one half of the amplifiers and the other phase feeding the other half. The QSCs are about 88% efficient, using all switch-mode, stepping power supplies (else there's no way to get 7,000W of continuous power out of a 3RU box weighing only 65lbs!) They produce less heat than my Hafler amps did when they were on bass duty, years ago, due to the PSU voltage stepping (which is implemented through delay line look-ahead circuitry to enable the switch to occur just milliseconds before a large transient. I've had to service one of these babies two years ago, and the industrial nature of the components is similar to those of huge broadcast transmitters I serviced for a living for many years. It's a beast! QSC quotes the 92A under full output with continuous tone. Due to crest factor in music program, the average draw is less than 30A per amplifier. Another limiting factor is that the racks have 20A breakers, so the system will never see full output due to mains limiting.

When the system is playing the 16Hz organ pedal tone that opens R. Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra", the carpeting becomes airborne. There's a video of this floating around YouTube. It's only because the house was built during the Cuban missile crisis and doubles as a bomb shelter, with walls up to 3' thick made of reinforced concrete, that the house can tolerate these SPLs at these frequencies. From 30' away, I measured 133dB SPL on the 16Hz fundamental, at the moment when the carpet became airborn. It's quite painful, as eardrums feel like someone's working a toilet plunger, 16 times a second on each ear, and breathing becomes difficult because of the rapid barometric pressure fluctuations.

Most people never make it to "signal present" on the QSC amps (about where the SPL in the room exceeds 122dB). At 137dB, where I'm comfortable with earplugs, the sensation is like being body-slammed with each beat of percussion. On June 30th, 2006, I was playing a Korean pop tune that has bass notes that go down to 24Hz. While that was playing, I took my Cel 241-1 sound level meter and went for a walk down the road. At about 1/4 mile distance, the 24Hz bass note was registering 97dB on the meter, and was audibly comparable to a Huey helicopter passing low overhead, in terms of the low frequency content. It was a real eye opener. And yes, the ground vibrates outside the house. The vibrations go through the concrete and rock ledge and radiate out for some distance.

Nowadays, the system's grown too big to easily transport, and it's way too powerful for any public use without drawing noise complaints. Pro sound reinforcement typically in use has a lower cutoff of 40Hz and most of the bass energy is above 80Hz, which doesn't carry as far. So it remains housed here it its bunker, like the nuke warhead that never sees the light of day. :-)

Oh, I almost forgot to answer your question about the MIDI.. I do some minor composition work, but I am much better at arranging other people's compositions than writing my own, though I've done both. Google my "Bass Pig's Rendition of Dance Macabre for Organ" sometime. MIDI tools give me the capability to provide music for my video productions. I have some musician friends who I can bring on board for larger projects requiring epic soundtrack composition, so the Kurzweils give me many options to provide additional services.

David Hodge

July 18, 2008 01:34 AM

That's some clock radio, Mark. Looks like major bucks here. How did you get your wife to approve the purchases?

Nice set up. When are you bringing it over? What? When where freezes over?

Enjoy all that stuff. Wow.

D-

Mark Weiss

July 18, 2008 03:37 AM

I didn't!! This system pre-dates my marriage.. in a way, you could say it was my first wife. :-)

That said, she is very supportive of my business purchases (it was she who took one look at our last DVD and saw the gross differences between V1U and EX1 and encouraged me to buy a second EX1.)

I power the "Pig" up about once ever two weeks nowadays. I must be getting old, because frankly the number of days that I'm not in the mood to be body-slammed is increasing over the number of days that I want the treatment. It's like having four Rolls-Royce 524G/H jet engines running at full thrust within the space of a large livingroom, when I get into one of those crazy moods where I start hitting the 140dB range. Thankfully, it is short-lived. That kind of SPL takes a lot of adrenaline to withstand and I literally feel exhausted after just a few minutes of that kind of listening.
Oh well. Some people drink to excess. Some people speed in their Ferraris, I just like certain kinds of music very, very loud.

I just bought some XLR connectors and plan to build more cables to enable me to hook up the surround channels to the new DXC2496 processor. I'm in that difficult phase of crossing over from 2-channel control to surround sound control. I'll probably get a mixing desk for controlling surround sound eventually. Not that I want it (Carver's Sonic Hologram Generator does a great job of approximating 36 channels of sound and wraps 360º around the listener) but I DO have to have a way of testing my DVDs that I author, so surround has become a business requirement.

David Hodge

July 18, 2008 04:38 AM

A Full Sound for You

You know, Mark, there is a wonderful company named McIntosh. It's out of New York. They have absolutely incredible stuff. Amps and loudspeakers. There is a place named "Bjourn's" here in San Antonio. They are famous, as is it's owner from whom it gets it's namesake, for high-end equipment for select customers whom care to spend there. I went there once to admire and druel all over the place and they showed me and my ex-wife to be a set of speakers to die for. A pair of them went home the day before we went in to look around with country music legend George Straight. He owns a home here in an exclusive subdivision. Anyway, the speakers run about $25,000 USD EACH! YES, EACH! Plus, you need about ten thousand watts per channel to drive the things so they will run properly. I am talking about sound that makes your head spin. It's so crisp and the envelope is so perfecct that any other speakers just won't sound the same. The speakers stand about six or seven feet tall.
So, ever heard of McIntosh before?
I am the same about a full sound with adequete volume. I think it is important to have a full sound of the utmost quality. Sometimes I just want a soft ambient sound like a music bed. Other times I want Metallica or Ozzy or Barbara Striesand's Somewhere or Celine Dion's song from Titanic loud enough to shake the legs of a cockroach. All depends. You sound kind of the same way.
Kudos to you on having a supportive wife. You are very lucky. They don't grow on trees ya' know. I assume she benefits from your success monetarily. So, she is kind as well as shrewd if my reasoning and deductions are correct. Lucky man, Mark.
Anyway, nice work. Hope to see more of it here soon. Something new. Take care.

Mark Weiss

July 19, 2008 04:10 AM

McIntosh has been around for about half a century. They made some pretty nice tube stuff. They're considered the upper end of the midrange hi-fi by the strictest audiophiles. But their gear has an appealing aesthetic to the design.
I've seen a lot of expensive speakers in the late 70s and 80s, when I actually visited some showrooms and listened to the gear. Infinity Reference Standards, at $65,000/pair. Now there is Wilson Benesch Bischops at a price that makes the Infinity's look like a bargain. No doubt the makers realize a handsome profit.
Any speaker that needs 10kW just to make decent sound is terribly inefficient. Back in the 50s, when I knew Rudy Bozak (he had a speaker manufacturing plant here in Stamford, CT), low efficiency meant high quality because back then, the only high efficiency speaker system was horn-loaded and the response curve looked like a roller-coaster. Today, with the advent of high tech materials, tighter tolerances, more powerful magnet materials and so on, very high efficiency can be realized, such that it's realistic for a direct radiator to achieve the same efficiency as horn loaded systems used to enjoy. Today it's possible to achieve rock concert levels with just a watt or two in a large room.
There are times when I think that I should have gotten into custom system design for the ultra-rich. But it is difficult to get a reputation.
One thing's for sure: when the music is great, you may want it really loud. Sometimes TOO loud.
I know I'm fortunate to have a wife who supports my unusual activities. Both of us are sort of weird!
I'll hope to put up some better videos eventually. This one was shot at 3am.

Travis Guerra

April 18, 2009 11:02 PM

I have no idea what most of that does..but I would really like to watch a blockbuster on your surround sound! Wow.

theo rossi

October 19, 2009 01:56 AM

What? ..... Can't hear ya!

Dude, that's awsome.

I bet there are no termites in 2 Sq mile of your place... or cats, dogs and other living creatures :)
Man, that's just soooo insane.
I want one one of those toys, but my wife will kill me even if I just bring up the subject of sub-anything!

sigh... I just have to live with my Logitech one.

Mark Weiss

October 19, 2009 10:55 PM

This video is quite out of date now. A new one is coming out shortly.
The Bass Pig's Lair has been converted to a full 1080P projection theater. The speakers have been rearranged, realizing 6dB more SPL by eliminating comb filtering and radiating as one unified source. This rearrangement was necessary to accomodate the new 154" 5h'x12w' active viewing area, acoustic transparent movie screen. A wall was built, acoustic treatments added (bass traps and light traps that double as sound absorbers) and velvet drapes were added all around the screen to conceal the rest of the mechanicals.
SPL testing was interesting.. just lighting the 'signal present' LEDs on the QSC power amps, the SPL in the listening area was 129dB. The system easily pegs the CEL 201/1 meter on the 140dB scale, so we don't know what it is actually capable of, but it's well beyond the measuring instruments' capabilities.
Sound quality and imaging have improved, thanks to the elimination of comb filtering from reflections off walls. It literally sounds like we replaced all the speakers with Wilson-Benesch Bishops now. Uncanny smooth response, greatly improved clarity and stunning imaging.
Shortly to come is a new video tour... there have been changes elsewhere in the studio too. Exciting stuff.

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All Production Elements: Mark Weiss Rating: 0.00

Tags: 15000 watts amplifiers bass Bassmaxx ZR18 Basspig Behringer Carver DCX2496 DEQ2496 digital audio drawing tablet Electro-Voice Gigabyte Hafler hi-fidelity HP LP3065 infrasound JBL keyboard Kurzweil Kurzweil K2600RS loud low frequency Mark of the Unicorn MIDI midrange mixer monitor music Phase-Linear PMW-EX1 QSC Powerlight Roland sampler Speakers stylus subwoofer synthesizer tweeter Wacom woofer workstation XDCam EX Yamaha

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Updated: 46 months ago

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New Milford, Connecticut,

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About Mark A. Weiss Mark is a veteran of the electronics industry, having held positions in the electro-optical, data communications and applications engineering fields. His experience ranges from working with various types of lasers, to e

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