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Not all bands have the capacity to carry larger than what they already have. My old band was like that. Only way we could have used a sub was for someone to buy a larger car or van. It’s not always practical to use what’s really needed. I rarely see a band in a pub use a sub (i know they do. Just never see It myself). We all operate on different levels and those at the higher level sometimes have issues with seeing others do things a different way.

The CQ20 does have multitrack recording capability and 96KHz sampling. On top of that it is so quiet. Noise wise that is. It is also much smaller than it looks and seems really robust. I chose it over the CQ18 because I wanted all my main outputs on XLR rather than TRS. On the subject of the HPF frequency, if you have an adjustable one, move it slowly up and you will be surprised at how little of your tone and sound comes below 100Hz in most forms of music.

I think this is a good point. You can only do this if you start planning your bands sound from the ground up. Spending money on PA amplification rather than back line that can fill the room. Moving all your eq and tone shaping to preamps and/or to the mixer. You need different kit. Overall if you start from scratch there is a saving to be had both in financial terms and in terms of weight and portability, but the financial benefits won't apply to people who have already invested in massive backline amps or who have spent 40 years finding the perfect amp/speaker combination to do their basic tone shaping for them. Silent stages have only become possible because of better tech. 600W RMS amplifiers weighing just a couple of kilograms can be built into active speakers. You were never going to do this with valve amps and in any case in the 70's the average 12" speaker would only handle 25-50W. Now you can buy a really capable active PA speaker for less than an equally capable bass or guitar stack and an 18 channel digital mixer for less than it's analogue equivalent but which also has all the eq and fx that previously would have been in a separate rack. You can see why people don't want to make this change. Paying maybe £1200 for your bass amplification which you've put together over 20 years doesn't look too bad, chipping in to pay £600ea for a jointly owned PA looks problematic at a human level, especially when the life of the band might only be a few years. Not to mention the 20 years of experience you have of getting the absolute best out of your 'old' gear. In terms of the 'oomph' factor though I've now done gigs with our 10" tops but with a sub and it really isn't a difficult problem to solve

If they’re basses rather than guitars, I would take/send them to the Bass Gallery in Camden for them to sell on commission — the 15% cut they take is fair and the 85% you keep will be a lot more than any shop would give you in a straight sale.

UPDATE Ive amended my order to the SuperTwin I like the clarity and more “mids” kind of accurate sound 10’s are lovely and warm but darker I think

There has! Also, EBS Fafner and Mesa Walkabout. Or anything that works and doesn't go on fire.

I had 2x210s and moved them on. One of the reason for this is because I thought they lacked clarity - seemed a bit dark sounding, so they weren't for me. I thought they would really benefit having a tweeter. On the plus side, I thought the other claims were true. Extremely well made and plenty loud enough.

I use it as my pre-amp, tuner, compressor and DI - the DI alone is worth its weight in gold... I am, of course, open to selling it and getting a Radial or something of that level (I can't ever see myself looking at the "here, have my kidney too" range of DIs). The MB3 is a killer sounding unit... and one I'd be loathe - but not entirely opposed - to selling. i'm all ears @velvetkevorkian

Like others have mentioned, the last set of Fender flats I had had a lighter green silk on them, almost sea foam green. Just done a bit of digging and they could be...... https://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/collections/flat-wound-bass-strings/products/hofner-40-95-contemporary-series-flatwound-bass-guitar-strings Hofner might do a regular scale set too? The other option is Fender 9050s. Looks like someone asked a similar question over on TB a few years back. Yours still look darker than the 9050s though and more in line with the Hofners, but they might have darkened with age. https://www.talkbass.com/threads/what-kind-of-strings-are-these-are-they-fender-9050s.1309451/

I’d say drop Dave Green at Ashdown a call and ask for his advice.

Hi Bassybert, it's the original valve, a Russian SOVTEK 0506 Thanks.

I've always been under the impression the valve in ABM's doesn't do much. When I was valve rolling in my old ABM400 it sounded the same even when no valve at all was in the socket! Unlike my Ashdown Spyder where both 12AX7s had a huge affect on the tone and gain stage

I don't understand why bands aren't using a sub or full range tops regardless of their monitoring situation or whether they put bass through the PA. It's worth getting a sub purely to make the kick drum thump like a kick drum should. Doesn't matter how expensive the drum kit is or how good the drummer is, the acoustic kit still sounds like a wet fart compared to being properly eq'd and put through a half decent sub.

Thanks, that's good. Wasn't he young back then though! 😄

I used a JJ ECC83S in my Ashdown ABM600 EVO IV and it was perfect

Do you know what brand/model you currently have in there?

Boom! By Jove I think you’ve cracked it! I was indeed running the effects loop in parallel. Just tried it now with my Lindy Fralin equipped Lakland P (a reasonably high output passive bass). In parallel mode, input gain was around 8 o’clock and still an occasional flash of the input peak light. In serial mode, I could crank the input gain to almost 12 o’clock before the input peak light flashed. The loop has the TC Plethora X3 and a Sansamp v2 (so EBS > TC Plethora > Sansamp > EBS) and all effects were off. I’ve a new toy arriving (hopefully) very soon that will require a rewire of my board, so I will do more extensive testing to work out the best signal path.