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To give Aguilar their due, they use genuine ICEPower modules in their amps, so claimed wattages are accurate. 300W, done right, is plenty for small to medium venues unless you are playing detuned doom or similar. Until class D came along, we were quite happily using 100W (maybe 200W at a push) amps and nobody worried whether they'd be loud enough.

And a complete balls up today. In my anxiety to not make the speaker hole too big, I've used a router and circle thingie and managed to make the hole too small. As this means I no longer have a centre to work around, it looks like I'm going have to resort to what I'd been avoiding, using a jigsaw instead. Bollocks.

The wobbly rig was my small one which used light-weight cabs and was under 1.5m high. I never tried it with my big rig, because I was afraid it would have squashed the foam flat!

If you have the money to spare and can afford to indulge your GAS, there's really only one answer... It will certainly be a massive improvement on your old Rumble. In my experience, you can't get a bad sound out of MB gear, especially if you lean towards more old school tones. The 802 N 300 has an effects send, so you could, if you need more volume, run an add-on amp and cab with it if it proves not to be loud enough.

And here it is again

Do you mind if I ask what you didn't like about it? As it happens I did a grade exam around the same time, also with a merit, and didn't much fancy another one. There was no time to warm up and at one point I was surprised by a request to sing from dots, which is never going to happen.

A friend of mine is a poet and has used Suno to put music to his words, he loves it and gets a massive buzz out of it. Its just a tool, if it brings the user enjoyment who I’m I to question.

I’ve been using one of those for a good couple of years now and they’re really quite useful in a variety of gigging situations. Mostly I use it with my upright bass or SLB300 for jazz gigs (clubs, bars, theatres). With or without drums it produces a good well-rounded sound and is more than enough for me on stage. I would normally be going through a PA too though via the DI so it doesn’t get pushed too hard. I actually prefer the sound of the 802 N 300 to my previous CMD121P for electric bass as I think it produces a better representation of the actual sound of the bass going through it. To my ears the 121P had a tendency to sound a bit woofly on its own with electric bass which is why I usually paired it with an extra NY121 cab for electric gigs. I think the 802 N 300 would be a great option in the studio if you wanted to mic up an amp for example… I’d say that like a lot of smaller amps it will lose the tone if pushed too hard on a gig. At a good mid-volume it’ll sound fantastic.

I had the old Minimark 802, but ended up moving it on as I found it to be a bit of a 'solution looking for a problem'. I still have a Micromark 801 as that's a great home rehearsal or small gig amp, and I still have a Mini CMD 121p (LM3 version) as that's a solid pub gig amp. Whilst I loved how it looked (99% of the reason I bought it tbh) there was just nothing about the 802 that I specifically needed, and mine was noticeably heavier, more awkward to carry and less capable at volume than the 121p. I've not tried the new 802 with the Nano 2 bolted into it, but I have gigged with a Nano 2 for some time now and it's a great little amp for travelling light when you know there's a house/hired cab at the venue. Would I go out of my way to pair it with a 2x8 cabinet for gigging..? Probably not. If you've got as far as considering an NY121 cab and separate amp head, I'd give serious thought to a Mini CMD 121p; it really is a great all-rounder. If the pair of TE Elf 110 cabs really appeals and you want some for cheap-er, RichTone currently have a couple for £169 each in the second hand. Nowt to do with me and haven't see 'em, but they look to be in decent condition from the photos and have covers.

Nope but thats interesting. Wonder how good and reliable?

At probably many times the price!

There are also power supply issues. There's already speculation that the US power grid can't support all the AI data centres that are planned even if many of them build their own generation facilities ,which, depending on the type of generation being planned is it's own russian doll of environmental and logistical issues. There's additional concerns about the water supply for cooling. Again datacentres can build their own boreholes, or tap rivers, etc but there's only so much of that you can do before it starts to affect the local water supply for agriculture and residential use. Neither issue is insurmountable but it's doubtful if it can be done in the same timeframe as the new data centres will be needed to support the expected massive uptake in AI services.

They would like to see you too darling.

Found a nice 3D stand in etsy for the Anagram. Not affiliated but thought of sharing here if you have no access to 3D printer. https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4407825070/?ref=share_ios_native_control

As an alternative and what I do is buy a TC Electronic 208 cab and run a Warwick Gnome 300w head. I've used this many a time and it has been plenty loud enough. The TC in particular sounds fantastic and the Warwick Gnome is a superb clean amp head. There is also a well known mod where you upgrade the speakers in the TC cab to Fane Sovereign speakers which will give you a 4ohmn 450w cab. They are a direct fit so just a case of unscrewing the speakers and fitting the new ones. You'll then be able to get the full 300w out of the Warwick Gnome amp. TC Electronic 208 - £170 Warwick Gnome 300 - £215 Fane Speakers - £100 Total: £485 MarkBass Minimark - £625 So quite a saving, a lot louder and a smaller footprint.

I've ordered the sunburst NEXT HNB5 (wife helped choose the colour) from Andertons in their January sale, should be with me tomorrow. Fingers crossed it'll tick the boxes my EHB doesn't. The sale offer includes a set of Positive Grid Neo Core headphones. Might prove useful, or might end up on eBay if they're not as good as my Katana Go / ATH-M50x combo.

In the wise words of Dr. Ian Malcolm:

The crowd are very generous with the bucket. Which is why the management's short-sightedness is going to lose them a great earner. I like the Welly boot idea. Nice one. We also have a card reader, which gets used a lot.

Quite. It's only free while we do their Beta testing for them.

Had you guys seen this https://www.verellendevices.com 'Octal is a modern alternative to the traditional power vacuum tube — built to give your amp more headroom, a stronger & cleaner tone, and long-term reliability and availability you can count on'

One other thing to be aware of is that there’s no guarantee that the current generation of free or cheap to use generative AI tools will stay available forever, let alone get better and better for the same free or cheap price. All the companies providing them are running on vast amounts of venture capital based on hypothetical vast future profits, which nobody can explain how free or cheap AI models will actually deliver. A lot of people are predicting that this business model has to fall apart sooner or later.