The speaker extends cleanly and audibly down to 40 Hz — just below the open E of a four-string bass guitar.
THE TWO-WAY 15-inch woofer-plus-horn enclosure is the working person's sound reinforcement mainstay. When properly designed, it combines the virtues of reasonable portability, adequate loudness, and nearly full-range frequency response. The TA5000-C Time-Align is Bag End's update to the venerable TA15.
Time-Align is a trademark of E.M. Long Associates, which pioneered the concept and techniques of ensuring that the frequency components reproduced by a multiway speaker system reach the listener's ear simultaneously, yielding clarity and definition. Although other manufacturers have their own approaches to building time- and phase-coherent loudspeaker systems, only Long's licensees may use the term Time-Align. Bag End also manufactures the ELF subwoofer system, designed by Long and Ron Wickersham, which is one of the few products to be embraced simultaneously by the sound reinforcement, studio recording, and high-end audio communities.
OUT OF THE BOX
My first thought upon receiving the review pair was that, judging by the rather insubstantial shipping cartons, Bag End must have a lot of faith in its cabinetry. Indeed, despite the cartons being significantly scarred and almost open, the TA5000-Cs passed their ordeal by commercial carrier unscathed. Removing the packaging revealed a squat and stubby trapezoidal enclosure (22.5 by 28 by 18.5 inches, with an 8-degree taper per side).
The large footprint required creative solutions when I loaded the TA5000-Cs into a minivan, but it should provide stability if your cargo vehicle has enough head clearance to allow stacking. Moving the 70-pound box is easy enough for a large person such as myself, but get help when placing the speaker — with its integrated stand socket — on a tripod. Bag End thoughtfully provided for the past (one double banana jack and two ¼-inch phone plugs) and for the future (two Neutrik Speakon connectors) on the rear-mounted connector panel.
INSIDE THE BOX
The 15-inch woofer in its vented enclosure and 1-inch exit compression driver coupled to a 90-by-40-degree horn combine to move substantial air despite modest-to-average power-handling capability (200W continuous sine wave, 800W peak). The system's sensitivity (a measure of its power-handling efficiency) is about as good as it gets for this type of enclosure — 101 dB SPL (1W at 1 meter) — allowing users to get the most out of a power amp.
While Bag End specifies the frequency response as 50 Hz to 19 kHz (±3 dB), the speaker extends cleanly and audibly down to 40 Hz — just below the open E of a four-string bass guitar — and beyond, producing satisfying bass when subwoofers are unavailable. (Low notes eat watts, however, and boosting the bass can use up your headroom in a hurry.)
Along with efficiency and extended frequency response, the TA5000-C was designed with audiophile virtues in mind. The carpet-covered cabinet is impressively inert for a relatively lightweight box; rapping on the sides produced more of a dull thud than a resonant bonk. Inert enclosures are less likely to produce response peaks from vibrating cabinet walls. The somewhat recessed horn is bracketed by acoustic foam, which smooths the response above the 1.7 kHz crossover point by reducing diffraction effects caused by the interaction of the high-frequency driver and the cabinet edges.
ON THE STAND
Before taking the TA5000-Cs out on a gig, I tested them in my studio. The TA5000-C sounded a mite lean in the midbass and bright and highly detailed on top. On prerecorded material, a Fender bass guitar sounded more like a Rickenbacker, hi-hat articulations popped out of the mix, and acoustic guitars seemed to have brand-new strings. Male and female vocals were crisp and present but without crossing the line into harshness. (“We made the TA5000 a bit on the bright side because it's better to cut an EQ than to boost,” says Jim Wischmeyer, president of Bag End. “In a larger room, especially with subwoofers, you may require a bit more high end to keep up.”)
Next, I put the speakers to work at a wedding in an 11,000-square-foot hotel ballroom. A trio of sarod, tablas, and tamboura were set up on one side of the riser on which the ceremony took place, with the TA5000-Cs on tripods slightly in front of and on each side of the musicians. Careful positioning of the enclosures' wide-dispersion horns provided even coverage for the guests. The speakers' tonality suited Indian music: a little bass boost for the baya (the lower-pitched drum) and a slight peak emphasizing the tabla's pitches (the higher-pitched drum) were all that was required of the console's input EQ. The instruments were all miked with hypercardioid condensers, and no overall system EQ was required to avoid feedback.
The sound system was then reconfigured, with the addition of two Klipsch KP 320s (which also boasted 101 dB sensitivity) positioned midway on one of the long walls, around a six-piece Indian fusion band. As there would be no opportunity for a proper sound check, I took the precaution of ringing out the speakers. I had no difficulty mixing the miked percussion and soprano sax with the DI bass, keyboards, and cello. The tonal differences between my Klipsches and the TA5000-Cs were neither obtrusive nor disturbing.
Then came the DJ. The dance music's sound pressure level was definitely not sensible, but the combination of four loudspeakers and the Crown Power-Tech 3 amplifier (750W per channel at 4•) did the job with 10 dB of headroom to spare and no sense of strain. At the higher level, however, the tonal differences between speakers were more pronounced. With the Klipsches focused on the dance floor, the music projected from the TA5000-Cs to the room's corners was clean and clear but somewhat bright and sibilant. That was the only point at which I regretted not bringing a dedicated equalizer for the TA5000-Cs, but because all the action was on the dance floor, I was the only one who seemed to care.
IN THE BAG
The Bag End TA5000-C Time-Align is a worthy successor to the TA15. Versatile, thoughtfully designed, and clean and powerful, the TA5000-C has enough low end to function without a subwoofer. The crispy high end may not be to everyone's taste, but with a little judicious EQ, you can make it sing as sweetly as you please. If you are in the market for a speaker of this type, check out the TA5000-C.
