jensenmann

Thanks for the info. Is there a dedicated site where I can get more infos about Spector serial numbers? This makes me curious. The only reason to part with it could be another Wal 5string or Midibass or an old Gibson T-bird :brow:

Huh, wow, thanks for your warm welcome. I didn´t expect that. It seems that everybody here speaks german, so why not convert this board into german language No, better not, it´s a good opportunity for me to practice english . Hey, Oliver, where are you located? Somewhere close to me (Karlsruhe)? I´d love to check some other Walbasses :-) ARGH, yes, I played an ESH some years ago. But it was a short checkout when a fellow bassplayer visited me at home. He came with his ESH fretless to check one of my DIYed preamps. The focus at that evening was less the bass but more distortion characteristics of tubes and beer. So I can´t say anything reliable about these instruments (except what is my taste about them - but that´s of no help for anybody else). Very longtime ago I met one of the founders of ESH and talked with him about construction of bassguitars - I used to work at a luthier´s place at that time. He had a very welleducated opinion about this stuff and a very good concept of how to translate his ideas into construction. ESH basses have very good detailsolutions to solve problems other bassguitars have because of design flaws. If one likes the result is a different, very personal thing. cheers Jens

[quote name='molan' post='269842' date='Aug 25 2008, 10:31 PM']Nothing wrong with the 'sound of the '70's' - especially if it's a Fender Jazz through an SVT [/quote] I know, bro´, you´re absolutely right :brow:

[quote name='molan' post='269070' date='Aug 24 2008, 07:04 PM']That's interesting about leaving the power amp tubes out - what does this do to the power output in terms of wattage? As you're obviously a bit of an expert on Ampegs I wondered what you thought about running the SVTII into an 8ohm cab. I've read that it really prefers to run into 4 or 2ohm loads but Ampeg say it's 'ok' to run into 8 as well?[/quote] There´s 3 pairs of 6550 or KT88 in the poweramp which work together. Each pair delivers roughly 100W. Leaving out one pair means you get 100W less. But you have to pull a pair that works together. You´d better not pull any two tubes (unless you want it to sound different-it might sound unpleasing). Having said that I remember a gig when I had three dead tubes inside. The band was wondering what´s going on but I enjoyed the biggest fuzzbox ever. There´s no problem to run the SVTII with 8Ohm. There´s never a problem - technically spoken - to use speakers with higher impedance than recommended for the amp. BUT: The sound changes. The output transformer of any guitaramp or bassamp is - well - underdimensioned. If you push full power into the iron it saturates and generates quite an amount of distortion. For HiFi they use much bigger transformer to avoid this, but musical instrument amplification is a different beast, it benefits from distortion because this colours and alters the sound. We want that :-) Now full power means that you have to use a cab that allows the amp to send maximum current with maximum voltage into the speakers. That´s what nominal impedance is meant for. If you use 8 Ohm instead of 4 Ohm (nom. imped.) cabs then you still have a lot of output voltage from the amp but the current is lower and current is what saturates the ironcore of the transformer. This means you get less distortion and less colouration. You don´t do no harm to neither amp nor cab but your ears will probably detect the difference (unless you use two turbo Rat pedals in series anyway) Hope this helps

sorry, slightly OT: I just realized how many Spector models are out there right now (yes, I´m a disinformed old fart). Could someone enlighten me where they all do differ? I have an older one from end 80s or early 90s, serial # is 1289. What are these called? NS4 or did they have a different name? Here´s a picture: [attachment=12637:000_0210.JPG]

I never realized that Spectors are popular. For years they have been a secret, at least here in Germany. Wherever I gigged with my NS2 people asked me what Warwick model this is. yuk

That´s good news. I already mailed Paul for some pots. What a timing: yesterday I signed to this board, today there´s a solution for one of my headaches found. What a day. (I also managed to repair a totally blown supply rail of my console PSU - YEEEEEHHAHAAAAA)

Hiya gentlemen and gentlewomen Just found this place when searching for Walbasses infos. This seems to be a very cool and peaceful place in the web, so why not registering??? My name is Jens, I´m located in Karlsruhe, Germany and into music since 34 years. Bassaddiction came up 22 years ago with my first bass being a GDR-made Musima fourstring-piece-of-sh*t. I soon decided to get something better which led me to the instruments which I´m actually playing: Wal 5string, Wal 6string fretless, 2x Fender Jazz, Spector NS2, selfmade Jazzbass, Squier JV Precision I totally lost control over which and how many effects I have. Some bandmates gave me the name "sound of the 70s". This must have come from not knowing which knob is doing what on all those pedals. My bassrigs are: Ampeg SVT+cab (silverface, first series), Ampeg B15, Trace Elliot AH600SMX+2x Boogie 2x10 Clone (DIYed), some more cabs with 2x12 EV and 1x15 Celestion, some guitarcabs, SWR Baby Blue, Echolette BN40, Hiwatt Custom 100, Acoustic 470 (this thing has barely ever worked no to speak never sounded good. Now that´s 70s) Could anybody please tell what one should need all that rubbish for??? I´m wondering everyday :-S I´ve been professional bassplayer for about 10 years. My mistake was that I learned to read music. So I got one call after another to read and hence played with probably every band and some more in my area with not enough rehearsing. Quite a frustrating expierience since all the other bands sounded good while wherever I jumped in it sounded not that exciting. Been there, done that made me regret having spent so much time with not playing original music. This (and the ever decreasing wages) made me quit professionalism and get a job as teacher for audioengineering three years ago. Today I enjoy not to read music and play originals, recording, practicing martial arts and DIYing studio gear. Besides that I´m running a nice little homerecording studio and enjoy being daddy since 9 weeks (which is probably the best thing that ever happened in my life). cheers Jens

Sorry, all the other gear is spread in a bunch of rehearsal rooms in my area. No chance to take pictures right now. But I will do so in a few weeks when vacations are over.

Thanks, mate, that´s really good news!!!

[quote name='6stringbassist' post='269203' date='Aug 24 2008, 11:34 PM']If you ever decide to sell that, then please let me know. That's beautiful, and has the perfect amount of strings. [/quote] I would trade it with a Mach II fretless 5 string in good shape + something I´m too old and lazy for 6 strings

Indeed, these are JBL Control 1 monitors. This "rig" is for practicing at home only. You can´t get any lowend out of it. This helps not to have trouble with children, wife and neighbours. The amp is very nice and it´s one of the few transistoramps which is capable of driving my SVT 8x10 with a good sound.

have a closer look on top of the SWR

plus my Mach II fivestring: [attachment=12610:000_0207.JPG] [attachment=12611:000_0208.JPG] Check the hair of my kitten. She prefers to sleep on my sofa. It´s pretty useless to convince her that it´s my sofa btw, do you guys know where I can get replacement pots for my Wal?

Here´s a really sh*tty picture of my sixstring fretless: [attachment=12609:000_0206.JPG]

I don´t know what you guys need these huge bassrigs for. Here´s what makes my guitarplayer cry (for whatever reason) [attachment=12608:000_0200.JPG]

If you don´t want a stompbox check these compressors: [url="http://audiokits.de/content/view/18/58/lang,en/"]http://audiokits.de/content/view/18/58/lang,en/[/url] It´s studioquality. The sound will be close to those older JoeMeek compressors like VC1 or SC2

Having played Ampeg since ages I have to add one thing: the different becomes obvious with volume. The III has a MOSFET amp which will get to the point when it will not get any louder. Increasing volume with your fingers on the strings will not lead to increased volume in the amp. Same thing happens with the tube poweramp of the II BUT poweramp distortion rises and compression start to set in. These increased harmonics will give you the feeling that still it gets louder when you play louder (with your fingers not volumeknob), hence you have better control over the dynamic of your playing. The beauty of the SVT and SVTII and classic is to play with this poweramp compression and distortion this makes your sound come alive. (sorry, that´s LOUD) But you don´t want this for slapstyle. There it sounds annoying. An alternative is the V4B (only 100W) or using KT88 tubes in the SVT (they compress a little earlier than 6550s) or leaving a pair of poweramptubes out.

To expand what Steve said a little bit: If one person tests a Brand XYZ in a certain circuit it might sound superior to Brand ZYX. In another circuit it might be exactly the opposite. If you take one batch of these XYZ tubes and put them into the same circuit each tube will sound different. Even the best brand tubes will have a bunch of sh*tty tubes amongst them, even worse, some are crapping out very early. That´s how it has been since the beginning and it will never change. This has to do with the manufacturing process and quality control. There are one thing to consider when putting a tube in a circuit: checking if it´s microphonic (spell?). But that´s it. Turn your amp on and snip with a finger (not touching anything except the glass of the tube - otherwise you might regret it or your family might regret it) against the tube. If you hear a ringing sound it´s bad. You will always hear something but the better the tube the shorter the sound is. Do it with a few tubes and you will get an idea of what good and bad is. Since I´m building tubegear I did quite a lot of listening tests: brands, types, series, old/new, whatever. But what I do is proaudio studiogear where quality is highly required. For this application I found a way (my way) how to deal with it. In a bass- or guitaramp where distortion is wanted I personally give a flying f*** on the tubes. Put them in and turn it up. If it sounds right it is right. If you have to complain about the sound swap tubes or better use a different amp because the circuit itself adds way more to the sound than one particular tube. If you think this particular tube is essentially important to your basssound then you´d better not play in a band where other musicians disturb your perfect sound perception. But that´s just my humble opinion. YMMV

There´s a german company called KMT-sound. They actually make PAs and poweramps. I bought one of their poweramps for the bassrig at work and I have to admit that it has punch as hell. And they are reliable. check out here: [url="http://www.kmt-sound.de/"]http://www.kmt-sound.de/[/url] go to Endstufen. the one we use is a DC5. It weights 10kg which should be ok.

1962 Fender Jazzbass (damperbridge series) 1990 Fender Japan Jazzbass (sounds as good as the old one ) 1989 Wal Mach II 5 string with wenge facings 1997 Wal Mach III 6 string plain fretless with walnut facings 1982 Squier JV Precision end 80s Spector NS2 selfmade Jazzbass with additional MM Stingray PU