Heaviest objects in the universe...

GAD

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I played with a guy in high school that had one. I think it was 14 pounds. Felt like 45.
 

fronobulax

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I snicker, but 14 pounds is nothing to a bass player who has to hump their own 1x15 cabinet. Even in my prime I chose not to lift my 2x15 by myself.
 

GAD

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Yeah, but you don’t play for three hours with it strapped around your neck.

I hope. :)

I imagine there are some pretty heavy basses out there, though.
 

Nuuska

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I snicker, but 14 pounds is nothing to a bass player who has to hump their own 1x15 cabinet. Even in my prime I chose not to lift my 2x15 by myself.


As FOH-engineer and roadie I say - 2x15 is merely a question of right technique - one can break his/her back with even 2-pound load, when careless. But back to speaker cabinets. This picture is taken with iPhone - no photoshopping etc is used - it is the real thing. That teeny-weeny cabinet in front is Mesa Boogie 2x15 - the horrendous thing behind has 3x24 Fane Colossus woofers in a 2000 liters cabin constructed of 32mm thick birch plywood resulting in total weight of appr 200 kgs - roughly about 74 cubic feet and 450 pounds. I aquired two of those from an installation...


img_0463.jpg


The guy in second pic is my friend who is about 5-6 tall
img_0486.jpg
 
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Nuuska

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Oh, my god... That made me laugh.

Nuuska, you must be a rock to be able to handle equipment like that.


Hello

Like I wrote - they came FROM an installation - they were originally built into ceiling of Tampere-talo - https://tampere-talo.fi/en/ - which is a congress etc building in my hometown. They were useless from beginning, while the rest of the ceiling was not built to take the vibrations. They had two spare elements, which I spotted and traded to a spool of about 350 meters of 24-multicore - with a deal that they eventually give me the built-in speakers, too. So in July 2011 they finally came down. I had waited about four years for that, but the only way to get them down was to build a scaffold into the room between seats etc - and you do not make that any day - considering the ceiling is about 15 meters/45feet high. But then in summer 2011 they had other reasons to build the scaffold - and down these came. After having them for couple weeks I took the elements out and donated the boxes to someone, who needed heavy plywood.

Speaking of plywood - we have really high-grade plywoood available here in any lumberyard. 10-ply half-inch birch is common. My next speaker project will be made of 3mm 3-ply double glued curved stagemonitor. And I have a sample sheet of 1mm 3-ply - and they say they have even 0,4mm 3-ply available. Not exactly cheap - but to think of the vast possibilities of that material.

So - after getting rid of the cabinets I stored the elements - waiting for something to pop out. I called FANE - they are in England - and they provided me with Thiele-Small parameters so I can calculate possible cabinets. They also said there will be no spare parts or other support whatsoever, so I decided to not use them in my own pa-rig. Of originally total 8 elements two are gone - two are going to Belarus within next couple months. Four will wait... If you write Fane colossus 24 in Google you will find interesting things that some individuals have done.


chaztmo - I am in pretty good physical shape probably, because I have done roadie work for decades - but always minding my back - rather take two trips with lighter loads ( being wimpy ) than one trip with all of it "Hey - I´m a man - I can do this" ( being a bully ) - and like I wrote some time ago - always face the load directly. The heaviest cabinets I ever had in my rig were 6 JBL woofers at 75kg / 165lb each.
 
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GAD

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That cartoon is excellent! My late-90's Starfire-4 is probably somewhere close as well :biggrin-new:

My Starfires are heavy but they're not THAT heavy.

My '98 Starfire IV is 9 lbs 10 oz.
My '00 Starfire IV is 8 lbs 10 oz.

My '99 Starfire V weighs in at 9 lbs 7 oz and it's got a big ol' Bigsby on it!

They're heavy, but they're still in the upper-range of non-weight-relieved modern Historic Les Pauls. Imagine half again as much weight in a smaller package and that's where some of those Norlin-era Les Paul Customs were. If you were to strap on my '00 Starfire *and* my X79 it still wouldn't weigh as much as my buddy's LP Custom from the '70.

OK, that's an extreme. :subdued: Most of the "heavy" Les Pauls are probably closer to 10 pounds which makes your statement pretty darn accurate. Somehow the Starfire doesn't bother me as much because its bigger, though. Those heavy Les Pauls are dense which somehow makes it worse - like you're strapped on a solid lead guitar.
 

twocorgis

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My Starfires are heavy but they're not THAT heavy.

My '98 Starfire IV is 9 lbs 10 oz.
My '99 Starfire V weighs in at 9 lbs 7 oz and it's got a big ol' Bigsby on it!

Both of them are heavier than my '73 P-Bass!
 

walrus

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Nice, GAD! Laughed my a$$ off during that "Back to the Future" scene!

walrus
 
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