Ralf Gauck and the Rheingold Music BA10 cabinet
For many years I have been a big fan of Rheingold Music products. There are several aspects that inspire me again and again.First of all the reliability.Since 2012 I use the Rheingold cables and never had a cable break. Still the first cables are in use since the purchase and my daily work. Only a plug has been exchanged, as this had a break and this plug came from another manufacturer. This exchange is processed by Rheingold Music as a guarantee. This gives the buyer a lifetime warranty on the cables. But that also shows what your assessment of your own products is. You do not give a lifetime warranty unless you are convinced that the product is reliable.Then the quality and the sound quality is an important point to decide for or against a product. Especially as a solo bassist, the products that colleagues use are not always applicable or usable for me. If an effect device has a very good quality and also its legitimate use of a band bass player, these criteria are not always applicable to me. Over the decades, I have tested many excellent tube preamps or other aids in my signal chain. But straight tube devices can sometimes have a quiet noise that go down in concert with drums and other instruments as covert noise and are negligible. The solo bass playing however, there you hear all the quiet noises and especially when they are amplified by compressors in the studio. Therefore my demands on my equipment are extremely high and you can believe me, that I am often desperate for my own claims.In addition to the cables, the step to a pickup from Rheingold Music was a very small step. The cables are for me the best I've ever used in my entire career. And wire used in a cable, is also a wire that can be used in the coil of a pickup. Rheingold Music have adapted to my idea of sound and have produced pickups that correspond exactly to my ideas of sound. My two basses by Franz Bassguitars have one thing in common, they should produce the most natural, almost acoustic sound possible. Especially for my signature fretless bass a very essential approach for me.Both basses are passive instruments, as I am convinced that there is no preamp in the market that meets both my live and studio demands. Until the day the Rheingold Music BP2 preamp was launched. My basses have been brought to a new life. This preamp truly plays for me in the highest league. After a while it then followed a power supply, the "Kraft 3" and finally a DI box. Both have become invaluable and reliable tools in the life of a live musician. Tools that combine quality and sound quality perfectly and that I can highly recommend to any musician - no matter if he plays the bass or not - and this from the bottom of my heart. Over all the years in which I use the products from Rheingold Music, there was one question that was asked again and again: "If you are so enthusiastic about these products of this company and the public again and again, why do you not play the cabinets made by Rheingold? After all, people say they sound great ".My answer to that was always the same: "Due to an innate visual defect, I do not have a driver's license and the Rheingold speakers sound really great and match my ideas of sound. However, they have a criterion why I can not apply them, as much as I love their sound - they are too heavy and too bulky for me, I can not put them next to my instruments, CDs, pedalboard and other luggage of a live musician on the train or other public transport. These boxes are unfortunately not applicable for me! "Often family Weidner of Rheingold Music had to listen to this answer publicly and I could often perceive their sad look. I do not know exactly what the final imput was, but at some point Jürgen Weidner came up to me and sat down with me and listened to my wishes for a bass cabinet and wrote them down. He had requested some time to thinking about how to implement a cabinet that weighs 8kg, has a gross volume of no more than 50l and yet goes down to 47Hz. Of course, there are such cabinets on the market, but noone of these really handle all criteria.On August 24, 2019, the time jas come. I was on my way to Duisburg / Rheinhausen to test the first prototypes of the cabinet. And I can tell you, a new chapter has been opened. Never before have I seen a small, lightweight basscabinet and above all, listened to the Rheingold BA10 cabinet. All my wishes where put into action and my bass sounded in a way that I only know from the sound in the best studios. On the 24th of August, when I was on the train back to Worms on one side, I was very pleased to finally have found a cabinet that meets all my requirements and even goes beyond that. On the other hand, I was also very sad, because this train journey meant for me to have to wait another 4 weeks, until I would have the BA10 cabinet in my house and the sound that I heard in Duisburg, for another 4 weeks only in my memory.Another personal note. I am often accused that I would only write such lines, because as an endorser of the companies I would get money for it. This is not true! The truth is that I buy these products like everyone else. I do this, because I want it this way! You only buy products, that you really want to have and every product of Rheingold Music that I have, I wanted them, because I am convinced of them. I do not write or say anything about products that do not convince me. If someone says something different about me, that's not true!The truth itself, that you can read in the lines above ...