King Tut

I'd been following the thread on the PMT sale and had almost pulled the trigger on the Ashdown 300W valve head. Ive been gassing for an all valve giggable head for a while. I play in a Classic Rock band touring medium sized venues and had been using either a Trace 300W head or my Bugera Veyron 1001T - both of which have served me well, but neither of which thoroughly scratched that itch.

I'd been put off using an all valve amp due to weight and cost. Well weight isn't too much of an issue as we have roadies, and when I saw a Peavey VB-2 in the sale - B-Stock - for £389, the cost argument went out of the window also.

So I pulled the trigger last Thursday but didn't honestly expect to get the amp given the amount of people who'd posted about not having their order fulfilled. I phoned up on Friday and they confirmed that the order was indeed mine and that it'd arrive on Monday. To my surprise, I got a message from DPD yesterday saying it would arrive in the afternoon.

It arrived safe n sound in a Yamaha box with no instructions but well wrapped. No tinkling thank goodness and absolutely immaculate - not a mark on it. I immediately set it up on top of a Big Baby 2 and started to have a play.

My first mistake was to plug into the low gain input. Underwhelmed by the volume I realised I need to put it into the high input and all was good. Ive had a further play today and so far so good. It's incredibly versatile but takes a while to get to terms with the EQ. It's got low, mid and high controls with a four way selectable mid set at 2, 4, 6,and 800Hz. However what isn't in the manual is that altering the mid frequency also alters the frequencies the low and high controls work at. The EQ on this reminds me of the EQ on the Hartke LH500 where if you turn all the controls to zero the volume pretty much disappears. There's also a bright switch along with Presence and Resonance controls. According to the manual, these act like high and low controls on the power amp side.

Talking of the power amp, this utilises a 12AT7 driver tube/phase splitter, 6 JJ EL34's and an oversized power supply pushing out 225W. It's certainly not short of volume. i've no doubt this will provide enough volume for any of the gigs I'll do. Usefully it will also drive cabs down to 2 ohms using the three way resistance sector.

Pre amp is served by two 12AX7 tubes.

It's a two channel amp with an overdrive channel that has it's own gain control. This is switchable from the front panel or a (not supplied) footswitch. I didn't spend too much time on this. I wasn't too impressed - sounded a bit fizzy to my ears and not overly versatile without it's own master control and eq.

Plugging my Precision in and the gain set to full on the clean channel, I could get that lovely, just slightly breaking up tone. Less so with my Ric, which isn't as hot as my Precision, but I've no doubt that once I've got my pedals in front of it I could dial in drive to taste.

I had a play with the all the settings and tried the suggested settings in the manual. I t didn't take long to find the tone I was after, which for me centred around boosting the mids on the 200Hz setting. I think the thing with this amp is to not be afraid of using extreme settings on the tone controls - they work well giving a wide range of tones.

On the back there's two speaker outs on jacks, an XLR Di with pre and post switch and level, sockets for a footswitch and tuner out and a selector for 2, 4 or 8 ohms along with a power input and mains switch.

While I had it set up, I thought I'd see how it compared with a real old school valve amp and my Bugera Veyron BV1001T. I have an old Laney Supergroup 100 from the late 60's in the arsenal. It sounds lovely but I've always struggled to get volume out of it without it breaking up at gigs. Having had a play with it today I've realised that using the bass input rather than the treble input, gives me less top end but lets me get it louder before breaking up. It's obviously nowhere near as versatile as the Peavey, but the tone is to die for - really mellow and rich, very hard to describe though.

As for the Bugera - this is pretty versatile too. Again not as versatile as the Peavey, particularly in terms of mids and tops, but the tone is definitely nice and valvey. What it lacks though is the dynamic range of either of the valve amps. Even with the compression off, it kind of sounds dynamically smooth - and not really in a good way (in comparison) whereas both the valve amps - hard to describe - you can kind of feel the notes coming and going . . . . dare I say . . . . .exhibiting heft!

It has to be said that all this waffle has been done on the basis of playing this stuff in my spare room at relatively low volume levels. Nonetheless, i think it's fair to say I'm pretty happy with my purchase and can't wait for all this covid malarkey to be over so I can get this bad boy out into the environment it was built for!

And she's arrived two days earlier than promised. No manual and in the wrong box but completely unblemished - not a mark. Had a quick blast and oh my - roll on the return of live gigs. Still can't quite believe I've scored an all tube giggable amp new for less than 400 notes!

9 hours ago, Quilly said:

I expect a full report !

To follow!

On 30/09/2020 at 10:06, Quilly said:

Can somebody PLEASE buy this amp and make it unavailable to me

https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/b-stock-peavey-tour-vb-2-bass-amp

 

Obliged. Arriving Monday 😎😎

Just phoned PMT - the Peavey has my name on it - coming Monday!

Just bought the B-Stock Peavey VB-2 . . . . . . well hopefully!

4 hours ago, loudspeaker said:

I bought the Ashdown CTM 300, on Friday evening, I got the confirmation email immediately and a shipping email on Monday morning, the amp was delivered on Tuesday morning. It's a superb amp and will join it's kid brother my Ashdown Little Bastard 30

Complete bargain mate - well done!

Played my first gig with one of these - GLWTS!

1 minute ago, samthebassman said:

I'm so glad you said that. I thought that it was the case, but after some internet research I got all caught up in series vs parallel and how it affects the impedance blah blah. Then I looked at some cabs that had two sockets on the back, but they both said 'input', but I couldn't figure out for the life of me why a cab would need two inputs. Then I couldn't figure out whether one has to be used as an input and another as an output etc...

Basically I ended up really confused. 

So two 8 ohm cabs that have two sockets on the back and a total capacity of over 500 watts will do the trick, correct?

That's right buddy

Most (not all) cabs have two speaker sockets. So you go from the amp into cab 1, then use the second socket on cab 1 to push a lead to cab 2. Voila!

3 hours ago, Andermtc said:

I probably shouldn't point out that Ashdown have put 2 up for sale in their B-Stock for £999 then.

https://ashdownmusic.com/collections/b-stock?page=1

No please don't point that out!!

13 hours ago, bartelby said:

Bah! Order cancelled...

Sorry to hear that bud. At least it stops me agonizing over it!

That Ashdown 300W valve jobbie is tempting. I reckon that's a misprint!

9 hours ago, mybass said:

Just out of interest....are those dots on the fingerboard placed ‘on’ the notes or in between, as on a fretted bass’s dots?

I had one of these and the dots are on the 'fret' rather than the note. Nice basses. GLWTS

Wouldn’t it be nice if these came undrilled for the scratch plate!

I’ve got a white nitro finished Japanese Geddy body in the for sale section still!

3 minutes ago, Drax said:

My brother lives there too and says the same. Town also has Rusty Goffe, the Willy Wonka dwarf. Yet to see the two together but would make quite the pair.

Along with Frank Bruno! The drummer of The Barron Knights lives close and so did Bob Monkhouse before he departed!

10 hours ago, stewblack said:

This would be such a simple, 1 amp solution to my Bi-amp set up. 

Currently running two dedicated bass amps and a crossover unit. With this and a pre amp pedal I could have a quicker in and out set up. 

Am I correct in assuming it is a heavy object to post? 

No mate it’s not heavy at all. Willing to post!

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Price Drop £300 if collected For sale is my beautiful V7 Five String. I only bought this in case I ever needed a fiver for an awkward keyed song. I absolutely love the bass but can't get on with the neck width at the nut, I have tiny hands. It's never been gigged - in fact, it hasn't left the house, so it's immaculate, blemish free, in fact I'd go so far as to say it's almost virginal in its innocence. OK I'll stop waffling sorry.

She's Ash bodied - looks like two piece with a maple board and pearloid block inlays. She weighs in at a reassuring 10.2lb

I'm not really looking for trades but may be interested in something short scale, particularly if it were japaneezy and Mustang shaped.

I'm based in sunny Milton Keynes and you're welcome to come over for a socially distanced tryout, or I can post at your expense and risk. Price Drop £300 if collected

Ashdown MAG 600 EVOiii head for sale. Bought from here a year or so ago, used at home and gigged once. Decent condition for age with a couple of grazes in the tolex. All features work as they should. Free collection from Milton Keynes or postage at buyer's cost and risk.

Details can be found here: https://ashdownmusic.com/products/mag-600h-evo-iii

Price drop to £125

Now Sold

Not many five string shorties about is there? Iban

ezhave filled a gap with these and if it's as good as the four string version should sell well, assuming the low B sounds ok.