funkydoug

I’ll take some pics at the weekend. Work is a bit crazy this week, sorry to keep u waiting! I’ll add an honourable mention for BlueAran. They’ve been great. They’ve accepted returns, answered questions and made a custom crossover for the 110. It’s great to have that kind of support from a retailer.

Sharing this with the lovely BC crew as no-one else will care For ages I've been messing around with the idea of using two combos as my modular rig. Over lockdowns etc I got a bit obsessed with it and hugely over thought it. However, I've now screwed the last screw and I'm feeling very smug I ended up with 2 ashdown NEO ABM combos - the NEO C110 and NEO C115 from about 2014. Both are UK custom shop made and after being turned inside out as you'll see below I have to say they are very well put together. I have however made some modifications and I'm pleasantly surprised that as a result of the knowledge and advice of a few great BC dudes I managed to avoid ruining the whole thing! Thanks particularly to @stevie, @agedhorse, @Bill Fitzmaurice, @Phil Starr. I used WiniISD to model stuff, and the cost was pretty low. Just took me ages to get around to doing everything. The C110: I added a nice wide port on the back of the combo, an APT80 tweeter, a 2 way crossover that crosses at 3.5khz, an LPAd to control the tweeter level and finally swapped the 8ohm 10inch OEM driver for a 16ohm Sica Neo, the same one that comes in the 210 version of these amps / cabs. The result there is a small portable combo that is actually pretty loud and maintains the lows (thanks to the port) and highs (thanks to the tweeter) as you turn it up. The 16ohm driver means that it can be paired with a 2nd cab (or in my case another self-powered combo) without being overpowered or getting into over-excursion trouble, and without overpowering the port. It can handle the full 100w of amp power that it could ever draw from the amp without trouble, whereas I thought that asking the box to handle 200w was asking too much. The APT 80 and LPad allow it to be as bright as I want, and also to provide the top end to cover the second cab / combo - so that I don't need a tweeter on the second box - which could be a source of interference. I did less to the C115, just added a matching crossover for the APT80 and also a switch for it. That way if I'm using both combos I can switch off the tweeter on the bottom cab and turn up the top tweeter. Oh, I lined it too. The other aspect of the dual combo rig is that both boxes have amps that can be removed / replaced / repaired and with exposed send / returns and even exposed amp-cab connections so that if one amp fails there is always a backup there. To top it all off, they both look great are easy to move around and most importantly, each one sounds great on its own but together they do sound fantastic. It gives me a two channel blended sound with independent eq, drive etc. and flexibility about how much of each tone I want. If I want to use the FS4 pedal for the ABM features I'll probably use the combos as master and slave, and thus be matching tone-wise but independently powered. Would recommend the approach to anyone (If I were starting from scratch now I'd probably get 2 matching RM combos). Anyway - thanks for reading this (if anyone makes it this far!). It's been fun

The OP wants a very reliable and extremely loud amp for about £600 (and already has a preamp? I know it’s not all valve but you could consider a new ABM600, it will last more or less forever and will come with a 5yr guarantee with UK tech support. It is also lighter than most valve gear. Is also notoriously powerful.

Brilliant, thanks for your answer Bill. Feeling pleased with myself here… I chose a 16ohm driver for the combo for the reason you point out. Also because the port in such a small box couldn’t handle more than about 100watts. My 210 will be another two 16ohm 10s, so all should be good on that front.

Bit of an update on this little combo… I’m happy to report that it still sounds very good to my ears. I’m now thinking about the extension cab and have realised that finding matching drivers for the 210 to live underneath it is near impossible, they’re discontinued. This leads to 2 questions: 1) what are the advantages / risks of having the exact same driver vs a matching pair of different but good 10s? My decision is, do I buy the best 210 I can find for the job or do I also need to replace my existing 10 to make a set of 3 matching drivers. 2) does a no-tweeter extension need to be low passed to make way for the tweeter in the combo? Concern here is whether the highs coming from the bottom woofers would interfere with the tweeter. Lastly, remembering that this is a learning project more than anything else… if you had a driver with lots of highs like a whizzer type design, would interference with the tweeter be an issue?? Thanks again, learned scholars of BC.

To the OP: Have a look at Tecamp Bonafide and other true two channel bass amps. Eden and SWR did them, plus others no doubt. There’s a Bonafide for sale at bassdirect I think. Also, the orange bass butler preamp is designed around a similar idea.

IQ is surely a function of scale length anyway…😅

I totally agree, was just joking seems like a no brainer to me to offer a few 8 ohm options

What do you mean… 2 x 410 not modular enough?? 😂 Seriously though, I think you’re right and can’t work out why they’ve done it that way… especially when they’ve made lots of 8ohm and 16ohm cabs previously.

No but I wish they did a 210 or 112 cab! Very tempted but I'd prefer a modular cab situation

Could you try removing the TC box and using b3n to turn volume down? It has a good noise gate and compressors galore… but I appreciate you might have reason to want the TC to handle dynamics. Either that or then the TC down using the level knob.

At risk of sounding patronising, both the B3n and the TC Nova dynamics have volume/ level controls. You can make them silent. Is there a reason you can’t just turn them down?? Also, that’s a big mixer for a 3 piece, I’d be arguing for a channel on the board that has a fader!! Good luck.

Great post, thanks. In such a case as this, where the dust cap is used intentionally to increase frequency response and dispersion does it still make sense to use a single vertical stack? Or can two columns of speakers (as in a trad 410 or 810) be used? I would think the dust caps perform better if they are vertically aligned but cabs like the PJB ones don’t use the single column approach, and I seem to recall that they do make the point that those aluminium dustcaps are intended to work as you’ve described. I’m not questioning Phil Jones’ design at all, I just don’t understand it … yet!!

While vertically stacked drivers is great advice the other solution is a three way cab with each driver crossed over before it starts to beam (as mentioned above also). It is a good one cab solution. The Fearless cabs and the markbass 123 cab are examples of this approach. Each driver should produce very widely dispersed sound in each frequency band. There’s a Dr Bass 1260 like this on eBay right now (not mine btw).

Are you working from firmware 2 or 2.1 ? I found it didn’t work (in a similar way to your experience) when I had 2.1. It needs 2.0, in my experience.

Just bought a combo from Jamie. Great communication throughout and it was really well packaged for safe journey with a courier. Thanks