Subthumper

The bass amp holy grail, an amp that is small, light, goes very loud and goes low and doesn't sound like wet fart like a lot of others do.

The other thing to consider is that more speakers are damaged being removed or replaced from the cab than in normal day to day use and wear and tear. Even the best of us have stuck a screwdriver through a speaker cone. If you do this I recommend lots of swearing followed by a call to the recone man.

The other thing to consider is that more speakers are damaged being removed or replaced from the cab than in normal day to day use and wear and tear.

Ok will do. I've got a few other projects on the go so will be a little while until I do it but keep an eye out. I'm thinking model T preamp split channel with a bassman preamp. Not so much drive and clean but two distinctly different sounds. All mated up to a 4x kt88 power amp. What ya think folks?

I've replaced quite a few of these. It's a very easy job to do, literally just one bolt and about seven wires to connect. I think a replacement was about sixty quid and about half an hour's labour tops.

Unless you want something specific I'd go with second hand gear as long as its been looked after. There's some fantastic bargains out there at the moment, in fact I've never seen such a lot of kit that no one wants, bass gear, guitar amps, PA and recording gear.
It's a beast but I just got offered a trace 810 for £200!!! I'm not getting it cos the missus saw the pics and said WTAF???

Strong work there!! Respect!!

Very nice work, looks great. Getting the front panel done properly is worth every penny. Yeah I too find that I'm planning the next project before ive finished the first one. I'm thinking of some kind of Model T come bassman on steroids, got a nice set of partridge 200watt transformers to use.

The new Yamaha active cabs are pretty good and offer a seven year warranty. Sound good too. Worth considering.
Some interesting comments here regarding sound engineers. I get to talk to a lot of regular players in the guitar shop I work in and it always amazes me how much pa gear a lot of bands use. Even when using old school big backline a lot of guys are micing cabs and drums in a tiny venue with a pa using tops and bass bins. Surely it's over complicating the setup and far more than a small venue needs. You only need an engineer if you have a complicated setup.

Have you inspected it to make sure it's not a build-up of dust and dirt? I usually find a good clean and a blast of wd40 in the bearings does the trick.

Some of those amps especially the Quadra and the Hexa will now be reaching that certain age where it starts to become important to see some kind of service history and be looking for obvious signs that it's been properly looked after. Other than valves needing replacement you could also be looking at replacement smoothing capacitors along with all the other service issues associated with older amps. I'm not trying to put you off, they're great amps but if you get one expect to have to spend some money, think of it like a classic car or motorcycle.

Are you still looking ?

Hi feel free to PM me. I'm an amp tech in Bristol. I'll do my best to answer your amp problems.

I've had a set of Sovtek kt88s in my diy head and had no problems with them. I actually got them because they were the cheapest and I was a bit skint when I got to the end of the project. (Expensive business amp building).
If it's completely fried it's valves it's possible it was caused by lack of bias. The other thing I've seen in matamps is components getting very hot and desoldering themselves. It's a simple fix, I've got a customer who has the gt100 and gt200 and both of his amps have done it at some point.
It's worth getting this checked as putting new valves in could simply end up with more cooked valves.
Where in Wales are you? I'm in Bristol.

You might get away with no corrosion on the magnet centre pole. All the other types of eminence driver I've seen have completely powder coated magnet assemblies and are almost rust proof. I'd be interested to know how this goes.

Appears they only deal with warranties. But they did give me the number of Surrey Amps. Anyone had any experience of these guys?

Thank you.

Hi folks, can anyone tell me who officially deals with Ampeg these days? Got brought a BL300115 combo to repair but the power supply is smps and all the construction is surface mount and lead free solder. So pretty much unfixable.
Cheers Just

Thank you, always nice to hear others opinions. I built it as a bit of an experiment using the transformers and chassis from a peavey deuce guitar amp and the supplied kit parts from Torres of the thunder bass. It's pretty much a bassman with the addition of the mid shift control. In fact the pre amp is exactly the same as the mesa bass 400. I ended up doing another amp, a copy of a Hiwatt DR201, which blew away everything I've ever owned amp wise so the 120 had to go.
Glad you've enjoyed it.
Cheers Just

Hey I made that. Nice to see its still going. First amp I built. Happy to answer any questions about it.

Hi, I did a replacement driver on a markbass 4x10 a while ago. When the replacement driver arrived it was different from the original but was still yellow. The original looked like a piece of engineering but the replacement was a much cheaper item. As mentioned it's based on a B&C and if your prepared it can be 're coned by Wembley loudspeakers but only in black.£65 Labour to remove a grill and four bolts is a pisstake. Was it real electronics?

They look like 70s Wharfdale hi fi speakers. That finish wouldn't last five mins of gigging, those corners would soon be knocked off. Probably ok if you never took them anywhere.

In the shop I work in we binned off everything except Neutric and Amphenol. The cheap stuff is really not worth the hassle. It's a job you want to do right and once as it eliminates so many problems and lets you get on with playing. Beware of cheap imitations or ones that are "like" a neutric, a lot of them are very poorly toleranced and are often too large in diameter and cause damage to the Jack socket in your guitar/amp/fx/speaker.

Yes it's being unplugged between uses.

Not tried a bass version but built my own amp based on a Dr 201. I use it with a barefaced compact 15 and it's wicked. Although another compact would be cool.