Alec

Nostalgia city, I had a Thunder IIa, same as the pale one in the opening post. Bought in 1987 as my second bass for £180, and only superseded by my much desired Status Empathy in 1993. Kept the Thunder IIa for a while, then sold it to someone at work, as I really only ever need one bass. Sorry to see it go, as it really did feel & sound fantastic. Outstanding value for money at the time!

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='903515' date='Jul 23 2010, 07:30 PM']It looks like Rob put in the TB42 preamp which is the standard one that all the SII models had before (and sometime after) the Empathy. Nothing wrong with that at all. It'll still sound amazing! If your bass had stacked controls, it must have had a non-standard preamp added by a previous owner.[/quote] No previous owner for this bass, I've had it from new, and hoiked over to Witham to pick the woods in the first place! It had the original stacked bass/treble and sweepable midrange pots that were the norm for early 90s Empathys. About 8 years later Rob swapped out the preamp for the TB42 - so spot on there! And thanks for the welcome - been lurking for too long! Must take some more decent pics, including my brace of TC RH450s & my little & large Genz Benz cabs which I've mentioned over on the Statii forum...

As a latecomer to Basschat, here's my Empathy that I had made back in 1992, and has been my sole bass ever since... Don't be fooled by the non-standard knobbery - I had the preamp changed a few years ago after a few problems. The original pre had stacked bass/treble and parametric EQs, which I had Rob replace with a simpler pre as that's all I ever wanted. So don't dis my bass! Figured walnut for front and rear facings. Interestingly, although I chose the wood, Rob ended up putting the front facing on the rear and vice versa. Once all finished and lacquered up, I realise that he made the right choice - he is indeed the master!

[quote name='alanbass1' post='896894' date='Jul 16 2010, 09:27 PM']A friend of mine has giged with his Trace Elliott 4x10 250 watt combo for 20 years and has no problems even at reasonably large bars/clubs.[/quote] That friend could have been me! I've done exactly that, and the combo is loud enough for any situation. That said, I've just moved on to an RH450 head. The main benefit of super high power, especially in the solid-state world, is having buckets of headroom - you don't *have* to run everything on 11...

Well, I happily use my TC RH450 head with my Genz Benz STL-10T cab for my home/practice rig. That's a 450W head into a 200W speaker. Obviously, the head won't be kicking out it's full load, as it's only driving 8 ohm. I have no problems with this, but obviously play with a listening ear to any problems and would drop down before they happen. Actually, I've never taken it up to its full load as I've never needed to. And, rather nicely with the RH450, you can throttle the amp back with the "preset volume", which I've done, so I can use more than the first 10% of the master volume control. My, how I love this amp!

[quote name='lojo' post='870091' date='Jun 17 2010, 06:23 PM']Find a lightweight speaker you like and nail a RH450 to the top of it [/quote] Yup! My home & easy-carry rig is now an RH450 with a Genz Benz STL-10T cab - light but wicked sounding. Very happy with this!

[quote name='Geek99' post='850927' date='May 29 2010, 09:32 AM']I have the sr16- it can hold several drumkits, but you can't associate them with songs or patterns so switching to the right kit is manual operation.[/quote] Er, yes you can! By default, each pattern has an associated, assigned drumkit. But you can tell it to ignore these assignments and retain the currently selected kit regardless of pattern changes. This is in SET MODE, which can be PATT (kits assigned to patterns) or MANUAL (the current kit applies to all patterns). I love my old SR16 and use it a lot. Live even, without a drummer, it's superb with 2 footswitches controlling start/stop, fills, A/B switching - outstandingly easy to use. I bought an SR18 shortly after they came out, expecting to drop the SR16 like a stone, but actually, although it's got a few new stonking features, there are quite a few things different from the SR16 that make it less good in my mind, which is a real shame. So my SR18 is sitting unloved on a shelf while the SR16 lives on.

I'd be interested too. Ware, Herts. So frustrating that it's so hard to get to try decent bass kit, as there's so much choice, but none of it nearby!