funkydoug

Not wanting to offend the OP at all but I'd suggest deeply examining why you want this. There are many very good and very diverse products on the market. If you've got too much money and want a fun way to blow some of it, then this is a great idea. However, if you've convinced yourself you need a small batch, handmade boutique product for any functional reason honestly, and I say this from a place of BC comradeship, think again. Sounds a bit preachy but GAS is an addiction and what you're describing, and indeed the Noble, are expensive hits. I'll shut up now! Good luck with whatever you decide

I've got two of them now! They're very good in my opinion (and look great too!). There's a thread on here where I explain a simple modification I've made to mine that I reckon opened up the bottom end quite a bit. Just search for my content in amps n cabs forum and you'll see it, it's a doddle to do and costs 34p. Reasons I like them other than the tweed: Small and easy to carry (although not lightweight). The size makes it easy to get it in the car, through doors, up stairs etc. Comp, drive and EQ are very good. Old school power section beats like for like paperweight amps (IMHO ) and makes them repairable rather than disposable. Front facing controls make it stackable Exposed speaker lead and fx send and return make it very flexible indeed. I can run my two as a head with 2 x 12s at 4ohms, thus always having a spare head or could run them with bigger cabs, or as a stereo rig. The internal driver is really good, as I discovered on my other thread. For something so special they're remarkably cheap! Downsides: the cab is so small it's never going to sound enormous (despite the driver being good). But that's inevitable and if you want to get a massive sound use an extension cab (remember the speaker lead is exposed, so you can unplug the internal speaker and use 2 extensions if u really want to!). Its heavier than it looks. 23kg I think, but that used to be thought of as light!! There is some uncertainty about the rated power. Its called a MAG250, the back of the amp says 300w RMS but ashdown advised me on email it's 250. I don't truly know what the RMS rating is, but it's not a big deal at all. Hope this helps... as you can probably tell I'm happy to talk about these beauties! Doug.

The second port arrived and fit the hole effortlessly. I plugged in with both port tubes in place and it sounds great, certainly seems a lot less constrained in the bass range and not at all boomy, just a better, bigger sound. In looks tidy and as the baffle is made of thick MDF and is pretty small (as the cab itself is so small) I'm hoping it won't suffer in terms of stiffness / strength. It certainly seems solid. Very happy with it and as a result really don't feel the need to upgrade the speaker. Could be all in my head of course, but a placebo effect is still an effect! Pics for anyone interested :

Hi Stevie, patience was in short supply this morning To be honest, I enjoyed it and was thankful that the results were pretty positive, fortunately! I will A/B compare the ports for sure. There's no room for a 100mm port, I considered that. I don't think I'll be doing amymore sawing, so it'll either have one 75mm port, or I'll keep them both. How do you model a cab with 2 ports of different sizes? I've got WINISD but cant seem to do that. Finally, the 37 litres turned out to be an overestimation. More accurately measured it is 34.1 litres. Thanks again guys, and don't worry, if I end up making a huge mess out of it I will only thank you for your input and inspiration Anything that goes wrong is entirely down to my trigger happy approach!

Just sold Brian a pedal. Smooth transaction and friendly comms. Cheers

Right - quick update. Taking some good suggestions on board I decided to increase the size of the port, using the Tuffcab port Stevie linked to. Ordered it and got hold of a suitable hole saw for my drill. This is where it gets a bit less straightforward. It has been pointed out before that I'm not the greatest DIYer, but I'm not shy of having a go ... purists should look away! I tried to use the hole saw to increase the size of the existing port but soon realised that would end in a mess because of the lack of a pilot hole in the middle of the hole with which to anchor the drill. So, drill in hand a nice empty bit of baffle on the other side of the driver staring me in the face I couldn't help but drill a new 80mm hole (the new port is 75 internal but 80mm external) into the baffle. So I now have a 80mm hole in the baffle awaiting a tube to be delivered for it and the existing 55mm port with 50mm-long tube. The plan is to use the new port tube and fill in the other one, leaving me with just one larger port as Stevie had suggested. That will be easy (should be at least) but of course with a day or so on my hands until the delivery of the tube what did I do? Plugged in my bass of course! I don't know what the maths of it are, or how it 'ought' to sound like this but with the original port intact and a 80mm hole in the baffle it sounds great! I realise there is all kinds of subjectivity at play here but it does *seem* to sound bigger and be able to handle the big bass notes better. If that ends up being a problem (if it gets boomy) the ashdown has a decent eq for taming that. I'd be really interested to know whether the more educated folks like Stevie and Phil think I'm just easily pleased, hearing things or whether there is any reason why this ought to sound good. So - for now at least - it looks tidy with the nicely cut extra hole and the sound seems to be an improvement. At the cost of a 34p port that hasn't even arrived yet and a drill bit! Thanks guys Doug.

Hiya, I'm not really trying to make the case for the gt1b, each to their own etc. Just thought folk might like to know about the assignable pedals. That said, I'll try to answer these questions as I've had the gt1b myself. 1) at a gig or rehearsal I don't think you'd want to be messing around with assigning switches. I think you'd want to set that up at home. That doesn't prevent you tweaking effects units 'on the fly' though. 2) sound and tone etc are subjective but to these ears the effects sound very good. The amp models and overdrives were really good in particular I would be very happy to gig or record with them. But, as ever, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 3) Is there an OC-2 in there? Almost. The octave is an OC2 clone and, again, I thought it sounded pretty good. I was using the -1 sound and liked it as an OC2 sound-alike. I didn't use the -2 sound so can't comment on that, or on the other synth sounds which I didn't use. In general, I think you'd set up your 'board' at home and then tweak it easily at the gig / jam. That is very doable. I still think the best multi for on stage tweakability is the Boss ME80b, which is an oldie but a goodie! In the end I couldn't quite get a driven OC2 sound that I liked from it, (despite liking the octave and overdrives individually!) . I also prefer the simplicity of analogue units with a single knob or maybe two. ... the gt1b sounds great though.

Just to add that the Boss GT1b can be used as a stomp box style unit. By default 2 of the 3 buttons are used for patch scrolling but they are very easily reassigned to switch on / off any of the effects, several at a time if you want to. If you do want each switch to do more than one fx on/off that involves using the 'assigns'. That bit is not rocket science but is poorly explained in the manual. Add to that scope for extra external switching. For example you can have the expression pedal act as a mid boost pedal, or have one switch turn on an Octaver and a fuzz. Pretty cool. I think the flexibility of the GT1b is vastly underestimated.

Phil can add mind reading to his list of talents as I had definitely considered a cab build! As much as I fancy having a go at that there are some very solid suggestions here and that 1x12 for sale on BC just now is getting ever more tempting! Phil I'll l add here what I said to Stevie above. Thanks for your input here and the inspiring build diaries! Great stuff and a very valuable contribution to BC.

Great suggestion Stevie, although real estate on the baffle might be too tight. I'll have to measure up. Would a second 5.5cm one be a good, idea? @chris_b I hear you, and I may do that, but gonna explore some options before parting with it. Think I've enjoyed the build diaries too much

Probably a daft question really but... If the port is the main problem, what would sealing the port do?

Really appreciate your input Stevie. I'm feeling a bit bamboozled by the number of options, including everything from selling it to buying a second one!! I am starting to agree that a second cab seems the best bet and if I can find one used it'd probably be as cheap as buying a new driver. Can I also thank you for your input into the other cab threads. I have really got a lot out of them. You guys should write a book! Cheers, Doug

Bit of an update on this. The amp is great in many ways but does feel a bit constrained by the speaker... or at least I can't help thinking that. Can anyone tell me anything about the internal speaker? It has the ashdown blueline sticker and this one too. Can anyone decode it? Cheers, Doug

Thanks for that Bill. Your answer is, as usual, very compelling.

Bit of a zombie resurrection to this thread but... I understand that the sealed cab has less bass response but does a sealed cab actually protect the drivers from over excursion? Seems that a port offers more bass response in the audible range at the cost of the risk of unloading it and exposing to over excursion at very low frequencies. If so, a sealed cab looks to be a simpler, safer design that also removes the need for a hpf at the cost of the roll off of bass that starts *around* 100hz. Have I got that right? Just hoping to check my understanding. Thanks, Doug

A few times, years ago. 1. An ancient amp died a long slow death due to old age and lack of any TLC from me. I was about 22yr old and had much better things to do than amp maintenence! 2. Early ashdown mag amps were notoriously unreliable, unfortunately I had one. It failed quite a few times before they replaced it. Newer ones are great. Each time the bass went via DI into the pa, it was fine. Now I take more care of my stuff, and always have a decent DI available as my backup plan. I think bass players are much more risk averse than guitarists (to the extent one can generalise). Its a personality trait that makes us obsess about HPFs and frequency analysis... FWIW, My day job leads me to work with power system engineers, where keeping the lights on is pretty important and where risk aversion is a necessity. They use a phrase that I've found myself using, 'n minus one' when thinking about gigs. What they mean is you should be prepared to be able to cope if any single one of your bits of gear goes down (that's the minus one bit, n being the number of 'bits of kit' you use). So, the idea is to plan to be able to survive a gig if any one item you have fails. If you have multiple failures on one gig, it's either not your fault or it is so vanishingly unlikely no one reasonably expects you to have prepared for that.

One cylindrical port, at the front, measurements above. Thanks mate 👍