King Tut

Almost correct - printed on the chassis it says: 'Caution bridged speaker output. Speaker negative is live and must be isolated from chassis. Do not touch 1/4" jack plug while amplifier is operating'

Apparently, when the ELF was designed, they made a point of putting a realistic power rating on it. As I've said before, my ELF, with a Barefaced Big Baby 2 is easily loud enough to gig, on its own in a small venue and with PA support at a large venue. I don't think class D watts are necessarily quieter than normal watts, but I think a lot of the manufacturers of class D amps are being misleading about their power ratings. My GK MB500, for example, is class D and has as much volume as I could ever imagine wanting. When talking about the ELF 'only' giving 130 watts at 8 ohms, remember that watts are logarithmic. To double that volume you need to increase the watts by a factor of x10 so you'd need a 1300 Watt amp. I know that's possibly an oversimplification, but take it from me, the ELF isn't a mis sold toy, it's a serious bit of kit. So long as your expectations are realistic it'll serve you well!

I've got a 58 but use Beringer XM8500's instead for my vox and kick drum. Cheap, hardy, good FB resistance and suits my voice. They've really been through the mill and still going strong.

I bought mine as a spare. Love the tone so much I use it most of the time now. Only been for small venues so far, but with two cabs I'm pretty sure it'll do for larger stuff. Bass always goes through the PA anyway. Imagine one with a dinky 12 band graphic on and illuminated front panel - that would be mega!

I played a big hall with mine on sat using two cabs plus pa support. Sounded great. Volume aside, these are lovely sounding amps - quite warm and, dare I say, a little 'hefty' for class D!!

I use one of those paint markers. A cheap and easy option but you do have to redo the dots every now and then!

I put a Stageline HT30 in mine as did @lemmywinks. I had to use a dremel to slightly reshape the hole but it wasn't too difficult. Imho it made a massive difference for the better. I'd also run it for a while with the tweeter bypassed, but i like quite a bit of high mid in my sound and it wasn't cutting it without the tweeter. I found that with the stage line tweeter, the highs and high mids sound much smoother, less harsh - a very noticeable difference and I'm surprised, given the amount of people who have done the mod, Markbass don't up their game and install something better from scratch.

I've been using Legacy strings lately which are apparently rebadged, rotosounds at under £12 a set. No complaints at all there. Having seen Lozz's post though I've searched Warwick Red Label, which I've used in the past and seen that they're available at Gear For Music at under £8 a pack. Think I'll get some of them.

Yes probably depending on the band and room. I'm plenty happy with mine which I gig through a BF Big Baby 2.

Yes, I am using compression in the patches. I could obviously duplicate the patches but set a higher threshold on the compressor for use with the higher output basses, but was hoping to save myself the ballache of doing this if someone had a way to globally turn the input gain down. I'm going bass to B3n to amp, not using the fx loop . . . .

Just tried a passive Yamaha PJ vs one of my Sandbergs and the Sandberg definitely has a considerably higher output in both active and passive mode than the Yammy.

Interesting you say that @Al Krow cos I thought the output on my Sandbergs were similar to my passive basses, when I switch them to passive there's no drop in volume. I think I need to experiment!

I use a Zoom B3n most of the time for gigs. I'm lucky enough to have a few basses, and I chop n change from gig to gig. I've noticed that when I use some basses (and a couple of Sandbergs spring to mind), my sound seems much more heavily compressed than when using a passive Jazz Bass or similar. I'm guessing this is because the Sandbergs have a higher output level than the passive basses and consequently more of the signal is above the compressor threshold. Does this ring true or do the Sandbergs just have a naturally more compressed sound - thoughts? So - if I'm barking up the right tree here, rather than having to reprogram a new raft of patches for when I'm using my active basses, is there any way I can vary the master input on B3n to tame the signal a bit. I've obviously looked through the manual but can't see any obvious way to do this. Other options are to stick with basses with a similar output, or to turn the volume of the active basses down when I'm gigging them. Anyone got any other bright ideas?

I've had two mahogany basses. An old Ibanez Lawsuit PJ and a Yamaha BB400s which I still own. Both of these, on the P pickup, have had the creamiest deepest thickest lows I've ever experienced. Not sure if this is coincidence or whether mahogany has that quality as a tonewood. Thoughts?

It's about changing the way we feel. Like yearning for the pleasure our first love bought us, trying to recreate our first trip or searching for the perfect bet. My primary addiction is booze, which I'm in recovery from, but it also manifests itself in food, music gear and other areas. I have five Fender jazzes ffs which is about a quarter of the collection. I could get by with three basses easily. The shiny new toy will make us happy, make us play better, yadee yadee ya . . . Until we get it. Then we get bored and start again. I'm trying to fill the hole in my soul through 12 step stuff and things like yoga and meditation but I still managed to fit yet another pair of PA speakers into the house a couple of weeks ago. Work in progress lol.

Gigged it again last weekend. This time I set the gain so it was flicking orange as I hit the bass hard and controlled volume via master volume control. This was in a medium sized hotel reception room with about 100 people and PA support. No noticeable compression or limiting this time. Played through a Big Baby 2. I took a pic of the settings but had to turn it down from what's pictured. Bags of volume!

Great price. I've got a similar 76 that I payed £1100 for a few years ago and i reckon i got a bargain as it's so nice to play and sounds lush!!

Me!

STING

Well I guess only the design team could answer that. I'd like to think the peeps at Trace/Peavey have done their homework, particularly as they're trying to put the Trace name back in the 'Limelight' (see what I did there!) I guess only time will tell in terms of failure rate. Fingers crossed!