TRBboy

Just to close the loop here, I received the amp back on 25th July (a week after I kicked up a fuss with Markbass and they finally shipped the parts to Real Electronics), and it works great! Glad to have it back, it's a really great amp. 😊👌

Right, bit of an update! 🤞 I decided to dismantle and check everything thorough one last time this morning, before admitting defeat and buying a new speaker. Wiring, solder joints etc all good, checked all around the speaker again for any signs of splits, delamination where bonded, etc, and I can still find nothing wrong.... Now, some people had suggested rotating the speaker, so last time I had it out I turned it 45° to where I had it before. It made no difference, maybe even worse. When I reassembled everything today, I turned the speaker a further 45°, which although it's sideways to the floor, is back to the original orientation from when it was a combo .... And bugger me it sounds fine! Not a hint of distorting or weirdness! Whether it is due to orientation, or is just a complete fluke I don't know, but it's working for the time being.

So after my correspondence with Markbass last week they did finally ship the parts at the end of the week, Real Electronics received them Monday and got the repair done within 24hrs! Should be with me today hopefully 🤞

I've seen Sandbergs with white ones, but never cream.... May be worth asking them? If you know someone who's good at 3D printing they may be able to scan yours and print some cream ones?

You're quite right of course. If you read the thread further, I took measurements and we calculated it to be just under 60L, tuned to around 60hz 😊

I plugged the cab in again last night, and the noise was pretty bad, almost like I had a fuzz pedal on at a low level... The weird thing is, when I gently touch my finger on the edge of the cone, the noise goes away and it sounds great! Could it be micro tears in the cone or the suspension? I can't visibly see anything. Just wondering if there's any way way to test this? I'm convinced the speaker isn't shot, but there's something up with it.....

Sorry for the delayed response, thanks for this, it's really helpful!

Markbass have just sent a brief reply to my email, and it sounds like the hold up may well have been at their end. They say they have the parts ready to ship, and they'll be with the repairer within the next few days. 🤷

That's part of the reason the Stu Amp appealed to me (aside from 1000w), the tube and solid state signal paths with independent controls. It seems to work a lot better than the little mark tube I had. In fact it's probably the tubiest single tube preamp I've used, and it's easy to get just the right blend to your taste between the two levels. I've not tried the GR Amps, but they apparently are super transparent and sound great. Contrary to popular belief, the Markbass amps are some if the warmest sounding Class D amps out there. After many amps, I came back to Markbass because they just seem to work for me, I can always get a great sound out of them 🤷

I think it could well be the UK repairer, they were a bit slow with Comms and diagnosis initially, and said that they're really short staffed.... I do wonder now if they didn't get around to ordering the parts for weeks....

Get a GR Bass One 800 instead and don't look back! 🤣

I'm getting a bit frustrated now.... As some of you will know, my Markbass Stu Amp developed a fault in early May, so I sent it off to the UK authorised repairer under warranty. They've been pretty good, diagnosed the fault and have ordered parts from Markbass. After 6 weeks or so, they still haven't received the parts, and are struggling to even get any response from Markbass! I'm fortunate to have a spare amp that's getting me through gigs at the moment, but it's a pretty poor effort on Markbass' part. 😖 Although I'm having this issue, I do honestly think that Markbass reliability issues get over-egged, I've had various amps from them since 2006, and never a problem till now. N.B. I posted this on the Markbass group on FB over the weekend, and blow me down Stu Hamm actually reached out and offered to help! (He hasn't replied to my PM however 😅). Marco DeVigilis then also commented and asked me to email Markbass with all the details, I'm starting to get the impression from various comments that it might actually be the UK Authorised Repairer that are giving me the runaround... Oh, and Ed Friedland commented too! 😅

Thanks for that, is it a basswood body like the Pirhana too? A guy on FB said his J5 in the same series is mega light 😅 I guess that's part of the gamble with super cheapo instruments 🤷

Hey folks! I'm looking at this Sunset Series Pirhana P5 to use as a modding platform. They seem very similar to some of the Harley Benton instruments.... I just wondered in general if anyone here has any experience of these Fazley basses? From what I can glean online, the very basic models are not great, but these 'higher end' models (if you can call them that), seem to get more favourable reviews. The main thing for me is the neck I guess, the rest of it is fairly inconsequential (aside from overall weight). Anyway, if you have any feedback on them, let me know! 😊👌 Thanks, Oli

Hey guys, does anyone here have one of the Sunset Series Pirhana 5's, and could tell me what the string spacing measurement is please? I've emailed BAX, but they don't know 😅 I'm sorely tempted to buy one of these to mod, especially if the necks are we good as people say, but I need to know the string spacing to see if I can get a MM pickup that will work. I want to mount it with the neck coil where the bridge side coil on the P would be. Thanks

Ah damn, that's a shame! Thanks though Bill🙏 I love the Jensen/Sica drivers in my GR Bass cab, so was very hopeful

Hi guys, sorry to resurrect this one again. Alas, life got in the way before, and I missed out on the speakers I was looking at.... 🤦 I have now seen the following for sale for a good price, would any of you kind people with the tech know-how be able to tell me if it'd be suitable for my cab? https://www.jensentone.com/bass-speakers/punch-bp-15250

Funny you say that, I had actually thought about changing the speaker on the Ashdown cab at some point too, it's not the original one in there, and whilst it sounds okay I did get to wondering.... 😅

Ah okay, makes sense! Where are you?

It's a good suggestion, but for that money I think I'd rather buy a new speaker for piece of mind, rather than another used one of unknown quality. Plus, the one I bought was £20, I wouldn't entertain buying one for £150.

I'm sure Peach guitars had good reason. There's very little markup on musical instruments compared to other retail products (typically 35% from trade price to full RRP inc. VAT). Having worked in MI Retail for years, the top two reasons that spring to my mind are: 1) They were offered a discounted price from the Distributor, possibly for buying a certain quantity, and have then passed that on to the customer to have the lowest price around and win sales above their competitors. 2) They've sold for the cheapest price around BECAUSE of the popularity. Knowing that it's a hot item and having the lowest price increases traffic to their website, and even if prospective customers don't buy it, they're 'in the door' as it were and may buy something else. It's a very common tactic in retail generally, supermarkets do it a lot. It's known as a 'loss-leader': you take a hit on a popular product to get customers there and buying other stuff too, which you WILL make profit on.

Thanks, yeah I did that. The grille was a bit deformed when I got it, and although I straightened it out it was still bowing in too much for my liking. I added a rubber spacer between the grille and the baffle to combat this.

Yes tried different amp, basses, cables etc.

Obviously I recently had this cab completely stripped down to refurbish, so should be all good, but I've checked everything's tight anyway. Always try to check the easy things first 😅

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this, that's super useful! 🙏 To my uneducated eye, they do look VERY similar! So much so that the £50 cheaper LaVoce is probably more appealing, although the Faital is Neo so would be a weight saving.... Not that it's an especially heavy cab anyway. Would still love to find the source of this noise first, just to make sure it is the speaker and not something weird with the enclosure 😅