Ashdown Engineering

Hi Torby, That's not good. Can you let us know a few more details and we will have a look at what we can do to get you sorted. Amp Model - Serial Number - Date Purchased - Retailer purchased from -

Nice - sounding good!

As everything said was fact we look forward to it. Hope the gig goes well.

'Money probably.' - Nope, I think it's fairly safe to say money isn't a huge concern for Nate or any member of the Foo Fighters these days... Unlike many brands today we don't give any free gear to any Artists and Nate pays for his Ashdown gear the same as any other artist. Pic of their payment for Nates last rig attached for you. As you'll see that's money coming in not out... 'In the studio the bass will be DI'd and tracked via some esoteric vintage valve pre-amp' Nope again. Usually it's a mix of Mic and DI from his ABM 900 Head, an old B-15 combo thrown in once in awhile and his BTA 400 as well. It's been this way for the past 15 years. 'The choice of amp and cabs makes zero contribution to the sound either recorded or live' - Really?!? Wow that's quite a statement, if that's the case then I'm not sure what we're all doing here to be honest.... As for testing gear vs ours... The Foo's do this every touring cycle, as you can imagine being in one of the biggest bands in the world Nate is constantly getting gear offered to him, they usually get all the gear together from a multitude of brands for a week of testing during their pre production, after this Nate will pick what he wants to use for that tour. Always a nervous few days from our point of view to be honest but touch wood we have always come out on top. Not for reasons of money or support or promotional purposes but because that's what Nate chooses...

Yes we will have the CTM 30 - Little Stubby with us at the weekend

That's because you weren't ;-)

In all fairness I think the 'massively unprofessional' approach would be to ignore the concerns, not address the misinformation and then not apologise... Which is the antithesis of what we did here... As you say its all a matter of opinion of course and you can't please everyone all the time that's for sure but hey we try...

Morning Bigwan, I have the CTM 15 Schematic for you, if you PM me your email address I will fire it over for you. Cheers.

Hi Huge Hands - not sure how we have treated anyone like 'an idiot' here?

No worries, will see if we have the schematic to hand in the morning

Oof, rough day? The CTM 15 was never intentially marketed as an ‘all valve’ amp if we are abiding by the strictest definition, it is however a valve amp with valves in the pre amp and of course the lovely EL 84 power section which is where the majority of the tonal goodness comes from anyway. If some where stated it as ‘All Valve’ or if even we(Mark talks... a lot...) said it was then we apologise as that was never the intention. It is however a great amp with valves in that sounds like a great amp with valves in.... Please feel free to call in if you are ever Essex way as it would seem we owe you a hug and we also have top notch coffee. ps the new Stubby CTM 30 is ‘ALL VALVE’ ;-)

Cheers Al. Totally hear what you are saying, however this is a signature amp built for Geezer Butler.... Built precisely to what Geezer and his tech required with some input from us of course and the Slave Outputs were/are important to what they want. Nothing about the amp was specified down to 'felt like a good idea at the time' I promise. This was never a project to just stick an artists name on a load of existing amps and just take peoples money like one of our competitors in particular may have just done.... with that I guess they have to make the money back they are paying him somehow... ;-) Main point is that anyone buying a Head Of Doom is getting exactly the same amp as Geezer is using built by one of the same two people who built Geezers not a watered down version with his name on.

Absolutely, the core of the amp is obviously ABM, there’s a reason that the ABM range has been in production continuously for 21 years since day one. Saying that the differences are more than just skin deep. Actually the first point is that each Head Of Doom is built here in England by one of two people. One being the guy who actually designed the amp Dave Green and the other his wife Joanne who between them have around 60 years of amplifier design/building experience. This is the same for all our valve heads as well. The standard ABM 600 is made in our China factory so for starters it was always going to be more money than an ABM 600. Externally the steel housing and front panel costs a lot more than the wood ABM chassis and wood sleeve amazingly. Then internal differences are increased voltage running the valve pre amp(the Doom...) increased output transformer and the part which adds a good chunk of the added cost is the three isolated slave outputs, these each have their own small transformer for true isolation. So add to the cost an extra three transformers, all of which are handwired by one guy 10 miles down the road, this also includes the output transformer as well.... Then don’t forget the extra VU meter! ;-) Hope that helps.

Let’s make this happen.

Thanks for filling in the history it’s appreciated. Sound Control went into administration in April 2008, remember it well as we lost an incredible amount of money because of it. But also good guys like you weren’t given the proper back up you deserve and in many cases much worse. We heard many tales of customers who had paid for expensive special order items who simply lost their money and all hope of what they ordered the moment the shutters went down. Sad all round. Apologies for how it all played out, it must have played on your mind greatly to be this passionate a decade on. If you still had the Superfly I would be offering to take a look at it but hey that ship has sailed as you say. I think now we hug(briefly and with manly back slap of course)and move on?

JJ loves his amps, he has ABM as well but the JJ heads never go wrong even after around 15 years of heavy touring and he has 3 or 4 which we see for a service every once in awhile but that’s about it really so no real need to build any more... We would of course never say never though... ;-)

If you ever need any help with the V4 just give us a shout

Hi Maude et al, Very sorry to read this. Here is the honest and unabridged story of the B Social from start to finish, you may want a hot beverage and a biscuit before you start, you definitely will by the end... So after an evening with our Japanese importer in early 2013 it became apparent that due to the increasing number of players living in small apartments (Japan especially) traditional bass amps for the home were simply too bulky and often too loud for their desired application. However despite players attempting to get around this by using very small bass combos or going down the iPad into headphones route there was still a desire for a premium amp for the home that would not look out of place whilst providing high quality performance. So with these thoughts in mind we set out to design what would become the B Social. We knew from the start it should be more than just a bass amp and that it should also be a premium stereo Bluetooth streaming music player so that it can also take up that role for people where space is limited. Also from the beginning we felt it was important to have two inputs for song writing sessions/jams and perhaps most importantly so the B Social could used by music teachers, both can plug in etc, play music/backing track via Bluetooth etc, encouraging players to write and record easily together(Hence Be Social) We then expanded on this by having the built in audio interface for direct recording, again we thought it would be great for jammers and teachers/students as the interface will split the audio from the separate inputs so resulting in two separate recorded tracks. Then we had the thought to make the set up as ‘clean’ as possible it would be great if the unit had an integral wireless system to remove the need an instrument cable. I don’t think this had been done on any guitar/bass amp before? Boss have just done it 3 years later on their new Katana Air... Lastly the addition of our AppTek input meant certain Amp Sims and FX could be used expanding the overall possibilities. So now we knew what we wanted and then there was just the challenge to get all that into a small stylish box with perfect performance and no noises interference etc. Music streaming needed to be of high quality whilst retaining the instrument reproduction/performance we would expect etc etc. Whilst it may not seem it from the outside this was a huge and ambitious project for a company our size bearing in mind we have one full time engineer and another part time(Roland/Boss alas we are not) but we wanted to make the best product that we could and move things forward for today’s generation of ‘Pro’ home players. We also added two 4ohm speaker outs so the B Social can be linked to and drive two 4 ohm cabs if really big bass/volume was ever required. A B Social driving 2 x 810s is much fun indeed. It was by no means an easy challenge but move forward to mid 2014 and after months of coffee fuelled late nights, weird noises and copious swearing we had a final prototype that did everything we wanted beautifully(in fact it still does as it’s on my desk playing music as I write this). So far so good... Of course once you have a prototype you have to cost it and then mass produce it consistently to the standards we have set for ourselves over the past 21 years. The cost we knew would be higher than was ideal purely to the amount of tech in it and the fact the only speakers that we were happy with were the Italian made SICA Dual Concentrics of which are alas not cheap. Because of the tech/home consumer aspects of the B Social we felt it would be best to not build it in our factory but a factory more used to manufacturing this type of product. (I will come back to this) The final costs however did come in quite higher than what we had originally aimed for and if using our normal margin/mark up would mean the B Social would have to retail at roughly £800... Way too high it goes without saying. We weren’t however prepared to cheapen the product after all the work so instead decided that we would cut our own margin on the product by around half of what we would expect to make on a regular product which meant with distributor and store margins factored in we could get the price down to what we felt was a more realistic and achievable £599. So fast forward to January 2015 NAMM show, we launch the B Social and the reaction is fantastic, everyone trying it loved it and we were happy, price was never scoffed at by anyone who tried it. However despite not a single person in the UK having seen let alone tried one at this point this happened: Now we will always take these kind of threads with a pinch of salt but also naturally we do listen to the feedback taking on board what we can etc. So this did hit a nerve more than perhaps it does normally with people suggesting we should be selling the unit for less than what it costs us to make...The costs meant we were not making a great deal per unit and yet despite this we were being chastised for how much the unit was. A PJB Double Four is around £400 with no Bluetooth, no wireless transmitter/receiver, no recording interface, no secondary input, no IOS app connectivity etc, no independent EQ for the music being streamed etc etc. So it truly amazed us the toxic reaction to the price point. Regardless we move forward and thankfully sales and feedback were very good. For many of our artists it’s the perfect on the road companion and a large number of our artists have bought and use the B Social nightly in the dressing room on the road. some have even had flight cases made for their B Socials which is always nice to see. Fast forward a couple of years and lots of B Socials have been sold and all is well. We did however start to notice that whilst the vast majority of units were built as spec and all good we were finding the odd one where there were issues, mainly small things but a number of units were actually not shipped out because of this. Easy to do with our stock in the UK as we spot check every shipment but more tricky on direct shipments from the factory to distributors overseas as it is up to them to do the same as us and spot check shipments. Whilst I am sure the majority do this there are also some I would think do not... Because of these issues and after much arguing with the factory we began to lose faith that every unit was being built properly and to spec. (Remember this is/was not our normal factory) Because of this we have sadly now been halted production and it is highly unlikely we will use that particular factory ever again. The majority of units out there should be and will be great (hence the guys saying theirs are fine) but majority is not good enough. The two units from here that were sold on Ebay before Christmas were both B stock sold at a highly reduced rate as they had been loaned to a school previously but all was assumed to be ok with them, of course as laid out clearly here they weren’t and those items have been refunded and will now not be resold at any price. Hope this helps to clarify the situation somewhat. Time for a beer.

Absolutely - I'm in the middle of writing a fairly long reply to Maude now on the other thread but of course other things I have to deal with keep happening around me so please bear with, should be finished shortly.

Yes totally agree. When you made us aware of the issues which I believe was the 22nd of December it was too late for us to do a next day collection as we closed on the 23rd and our last courier day was the 22nd. So as you rightly say we booked the couriers to collect from you on the 3rd of Jan which was the earliest day after Christmas we could do, so all good... Then of course unbeknown to us the 3rd arrived and collection didn't happen for whatever reason(we are still waiting on an explanation from TNT) and we were unaware until you contacted us. We would have happily rearranged for a day to suit you so that your elderly parents didn't have to take it to the post office but alas by this point you were(understandibly) already enraged and took it in to your own hands to ship it back. I'm not attempting to shift the blame here just stating the facts of what happened regards the return of the amp. Apologies again and I hope this helps to clarify the situation. Again maybe in hindsight if you had given us a call once the courier hadn't shown up we could have immediately put a plan B in place for collection...

Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to recall in another thread we were being a bit bashed by you and when I apologised and asked for details it all went quiet? Again if we dropped the ball with you apologies but I need at least some info on what happened as we are never evasive or indifferent. If this was done via email and you still have copies would you be so kind to resend to [email protected] so that I can fully investigate what happened and come back to you with some proper answers. Also in these days there are so many ways to contact companies(some would say too many) please remember that we are always at the end of the phone, happy to talk and that is often the best way for a time dependent response...

No problem, a lot of others such as ABM 1200, Head Of Doom plus Funk Face and OriginAL DI are 100% uk built as well. All built by 2 people as sadly they are the only two we trust these days

All our valve amps 100w and upwards are 100% built by us on site at HQ in Essex, Always have been and all being well Always will be. Happy for anyone to come and visit and watch one being built(BUILT not ASSEMBLED) from start to finish

Sorry to disappoint Big Red but sadly the last week or few has been a bit hectic, we have 2 members of staff at the CES show this week and last moment preparations for that meant despite long days last week we fell behind on some bits and then you are forever playing catch up. We are also finishing off the final aspects of the new 2018 products which launch in 2 weeks at the NAMM show. Also today we launched our new website which for the first time we have done totally in house so this has also been a huge drain on us. Then new Ashdown 2018 brochure to complete and get to the printers before Friday or it won’t make the show. Take in that this is on top of the regular day to day running of the company of which we deal with 68 countries, January is always a more hectic month that most mainly down to the NAMM/CES shows and the deadlines that launching products there imposes. Lastly whatever your view/impresssion of us we are but we are a small family company consisting of 10 people from top to bottom. We generally always try to keep on top of answering everything that comes our way but when these days that consists of Emails, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Basschat and more most of which are dealt with by only 1 or two people it can sometimes mean our replies/interventions take a few more days than normal at certain times of year. Hope that helps to explain the delay, we never knowingly ignore an issue as should be seconded by many of the members here. I’ll hopefully get chance to respond to the more specific b social issues tomorrow.

Pre amps and rack fx which would generally speaking be modulation/delays etc would want to bypass the pre amp in the vast majority of cases hence why there is an FX loop in and out on the back of the head, these are all as you say items that you would leave wired in which they can be and many people do. There is also a line in which is direct to the power amp on the back of the amp... As for the main input for your instrument or wireless the main reason it is on the front and in the position it is is that it is the furthest place in the amp away from the big toroid output transformer which if was near to your input would introduce lots of hum and other unwanted noise to the proceedings. Hope that helps.