D-Tar Solstice vs. Pendulum SPS-1

[open-road-matt]

sdelsolray,
Thanks for your post. With regard to your reason number 3 about the Pendulum overpowering the input on certain mixers. Do you mean that I could show up to a gig with the Pendulum and not be able to use it depending on the mixer? If so, that would be bad!

The thing I keep eying up on the Pendulum is the EQ capabilities. It seems like that is certainly one place that the SPS-1 is head and shoulders above the Solstice which only has the Lo/Mid/Hi for each channel. How badly do you think one would suffer by not being able to pinpoint certain frequencies on each source and make cuts (or boosts) accordingly?

Thanks again for your help!

Matt

[jalbert]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

How badly do you think one would suffer by not being able to pinpoint certain frequencies on each source and make cuts (or boosts) accordingly?

Thinking along the D-TAR route, you could purchase, in addition to the Solstice, one or two Equinoxes and still spend less than a Pendulum. Each channel of the Solstice can be bridged to an Equinox using just a stereo cable. Once you have the Equinox in your signal path, you have three bands of fully parametric EQ (Frequency/Bandwidth/Gain) plus two notch filters. I don't think you'd need two Equinoxes (one for each channel) because typically one source needs the parametric attention more than the other.

I use an Equinox as a stand-alone preamp and consider it just about indispensable for dialing in a good sound.

[open-road-matt]

Thanks jalbert!
That's a good suggestion. That would bring up the portability issue again though. It would give me some great tonal control though!

Matt

[Health Freak]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

Thanks jalbert!
That's a good suggestion. That would bring up the portability issue again though. It would give me some great tonal control though!

Matt

If you order DTAR stuff from Shoreline Music, you get a free DTAR carrying case with each preamp you buy. Even if you had three units total, you could put them in their padded carrying cases and then into a cary-on bag. No worries.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

sdelsolray,
Thanks for your post. With regard to your reason number 3 about the Pendulum overpowering the input on certain mixers. Do you mean that I could show up to a gig with the Pendulum and not be able to use it depending on the mixer? If so, that would be bad!


Matt

Yes, it is bad. For optimal use, the mixer needs to have a +4dBu topology and have line inputs to handle the +4dBu line level output along with the SPS-1's +23dBu of additional headroom. Those specs are well within ranges of most professional gear used in a studio.. But many sound reinforcement mixers out there are not capable of handling that strong of a signal, either because they nominally run at -10dBV, don't have line inputs (only mic inputs) and/or don't have the headroom.

There is a work around. By turning the SPS-1 down you decrease of signal strength and/or by using an in-line pad (say -20dB), you can solve the issue, more or less.

You could have the same problem with a D-TAR Solstice, although the maximum output voltage for that unit before clipping is 7.2v RMS (+19.36 dBu), compared to the SPS-1's maximum output of 17.34v RMS (+27 dBu).

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

...How badly do you think one would suffer by not being able to pinpoint certain frequencies on each source and make cuts (or boosts) accordingly?

Hi Matt...
Well, it just depends on how anal we are about our sound (and we are discussing our anal-ity here not the quality of our sound).

If we expect to try to replicate the tone of our guitar in real life so that those in the know say ''man that is just the best sound I've ever heard from an acoustic guitar through any system at any time in my entire life...''instead of being satisfied with ''wow that's really a great guitar sound you are getting!'' then we need the extra tweakability.

It may be time to resurrect the 30 second rule...it goes like this...

Thirty seconds after we begin to play, we either have the audience's attention or we don't. If we don't, the audience doesn't care what kind of pickup and preamp we are using. And if we do have their attention, they still don't care what kind of pickup and preamp we are using.

People want to listen to music not equipment. I own enough equipment that I believe I could put together a system that would allow me to use my best studio condenser mics live, and get a better sound than anyone else locally, and do it with sufficient volume to be heard in a moderately large auditorium. It would be expensive, time consuming to set up and dial in, and at the end of the day, no more impressive to listeners than my playing is now. All I'd have would be the personal satisfaction that I did it better than anyone else locally has...not enough incentive for me to drag in tube preamps, condenser mics, and digital EQ.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

...
It would be expensive, time consuming to set up and dial in, and at the end of the day, no more impressive to listeners than my playing is now.

...

We've been through this before. Your assumptions and opinion are noted, but you have no evidence that they are factual correct.

[hdhoo73]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

Thanks Eric,
I would love to try it. I've been calling around while down here in Florida and no one has a Solstice in stock. Everyone offers to special order one but I don't want to do that until I know if I like it.

And of course the SPS-1 is only available direct from Pendulum so there is no way to try that out either.

I'll be back in VA a week from Friday and I'll take you up on your offer if you are still willing!

Thanks,
Matt

Hey fellow Commonwealthers! I'm near Charlottesville...FYI an SPS -1 just went on Ebay for around $990 or so. If you watch they pop up from time to time.

Jim

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by sdelsolray

We've been through this before. Your assumptions and opinion are noted, but you have no evidence that they are factual correct.

Hi SDSR...
Who is we? I don't believe you and I ever discussed this.

And I have had much more elaborate, much more high end, and certainly more expensive rigs than I'm running now, but to my ear not any better sounding nor performing than my current rig.

So it seems to me that I do have evidence.

[jalbert]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

Thanks jalbert!
That's a good suggestion. That would bring up the portability issue again though. It would give me some great tonal control though!

You're welcome. You'd also need a power strip that can accommodate three transformers ("wall warts"), plus possibly an extension cable just in case the venue you're at requires one. With flexibility comes less portability...

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi SDSR...
Who is we? I don't believe you and I ever discussed this.

And I have had much more elaborate, much more high end, and certainly more expensive rigs than I'm running now, but to my ear not any better sounding nor performing than my current rig.

So it seems to me that I do have evidence.

Larry,

We did discuss it sometime in the past year, in some thread. You had made a similar statement - that the audience can't tell the difference between an average sound system and a high end one. I challenged that by simply asking the question how would one know that unless the audience was given an A/B comparison, which no one has ever done, as far as I know. I went on to say that audience members might not be able to articulate the difference, using terms normal used by musicians or audio folks, but that I suspected many audience members would hear a difference.

Now, I am assuming for purposes of the discussion that the two signal chains/presentations are noticeably different in the first place, say a mediocre PA system and a truly high end one. If your prior rigs, although more complicated and expensive, weren't any better than what you're using now, I don't know what to say, other than to say that's not what I was referring to.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by sdelsolray

...We did discuss it sometime in the past year, in some thread. You had made a similar statement - that the audience can't tell the difference between an average sound system and a high end one. I challenged that by simply asking the question how would one know that unless the audience was given an A/B comparison, which no one has ever done, as far as I know. I went on to say that audience members might not be able to articulate the difference, using terms normal used by musicians or audio folks, but that I suspected many audience members would hear a difference.

Hi SDSR...
Sorry, I thought you were referring to the ability to set up a condenser mic rig and make it sound good...

I don't believe I ever said the audience 'can't' tell the difference between a very high end system, and a very good system. If I said that, please let me clarify. Most audiences really don't care for the most part as long as the system is fairly decent, whether it is a good solid system, or a really superb one. I'm sure if both were setup in a room side-by-side and they were given the task of choosing the ''best'' they would be able to hear differences. (The same phenomenon is seemingly true of people's home surround sound systems based on what I see in most homes compared to ours.)

I merely mean that the audience is not in the sound-equipment evaluation business. They have an amazing ability to listen and adjust quickly/seamlessly to a variety of quality of guitar pickup systems without being critical. They don't stay away from hearing great artists play/sing because the PA systems or guitar pickup rigs are lousy.

I base that on hearing some very lousy guitar pickup systems played through some very high end systems alongside some very nice pickup systems in the same show. The audience is not more or less responsive based on the sound quality of the guitars. They respond to the musical abilities and communication with the audience. I've also heard some players with great pickup systems play through crappy systems, and the audiences still love the players and give them standing-Os.

By the way, there are many venues I've attended where more than one PA system is used side-by-side when multiple bands are playing (because an artist thinks their system is better than the house system). The differences are readily apparent to me, but my wife could care less as long as she can hear the words and the sound levels don't hurt her ears.

Now back on topic...there is no system that I've ever seen/heard that accurately reproduced the sound of a great guitar beyond what we would call ''authentically'' no matter how good the system (and I've seen/heard some great systems).

And though there are levels of quality ranging from poor to stellar, at some point a player just has to call it quits on improvements - or we will end up trying to improve on David Wilcox's 5-way live rig (he indeed combines 3 pickups and two mics & some great preamps).

I don't think his guitar sounded any better live than Pete Huttlinger's Collings that we heard using a simple dual source run through an AER stage amp and fed to the board...and in both cases, we weren't concerned about the pickups, or the PA but were totally wowed by their playing.

[open-road-matt]

Hey Folks!
I really appreciate all the help. This has been a ton of great information. As I said before, I feel like I've opened up a whole new door in amplifying my guitars with the dual source.

I have a lot to learn. Usually when I get excited about something, I get impulsive and run out and by some new piece of gear. I was tempted to do this with the Solstice. (The price of the SPS-1 makes it harder to be impulsive!)

I didn't want to get the Solstice right away only to decide a month, or two months or even a year later that I should have gotten the Pendulum and be stuck trying to sell or trade another piece of gear.

In addition to trying to learn about the dual source world, I am trying to pay more attention to what makes my guitar tone "bad" when it's bad and good when it's good. I want to learn the frequencies that I enjoy and those I don't. In the mono pick up world, I would get very frustrated with the simple Lo/Mid/Hi EQ. I would hear something that bothers me, try to make a cut and loose a ton of tone.

For that reason, I think I would love the tone shaping capabilities of the SPS-1. While I appreciate the ideas and the suggestions, I couldn't see using a Solstice and one or two Equinoxes. For me, that would be too many connections and too much to haul.

One thing I had not considered when thinking about a blending unit was my Bose T1. That is the mixer that goes with my Bose system that Bose calls a ToneMatch Engine. I tried running direct into that at my show last night, running my Element pick up into channel 2 and the iBeam into channel three. Bose has worked with LR Baggs to design preset EQ settings for all their pick ups. The T1 allows me to use the Element setting with the Element, the iBeam setting with the iBeam and have three band EQ and parametric EQ on each channel.

This sounded great last night through my Bose L1. I'm waiting to hear from the folks at Bose to see if they think this will work on non-Bose sound systems as the T1 was designed to work specifically with the L1.

If it will work, that might be the answer. It's very small and portable and could fit the bill for now. The best part is, I already own it!

Thanks again for all the help!

[open-road-matt]

One more quick thing about all this tone stuff. I do this for me. I have been very blessed and consider myself very luck to own the guitars I own. It drives me nuts to have guitars of that quality and not be happy with the way they sound.

Last night was my first show going the dual source route. I LOVED IT! I had so much fun hearing my guitar. I played three hours without a break and could have kept right on going! Those three hours just flew by and I was as happy playing as I have ever been.

There were some friends there who saw me in that same venue two weeks ago as I was struggling with the Aura. They said they thought everything sounded great both nights. Some people will notice, some won't but I always will!

Matt

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

...Last night was my first show going the dual source route. I LOVED IT! I had so much fun hearing my guitar. I played three hours without a break and could have kept right on going! Those three hours just flew by and I was as happy playing as I have ever been.

Hi Matt...
So what is your dual-source rig precisely (lost track of it in all the discussion)? I'd like to know what's in the guitar, and signal chain all the way to the board.

Glad you enjoyed it so much.