agedhorse

4 hours ago, Jack said:

Not strictly the best math I've seen today 😆

What exactly are you having difficulties with?

Why is it that folks who clearly do not understand something feel they are qualified to accuse others of something that they do not even understand?

There are SOME manufacturers who use optimistic power metrics when rating their amps, they are almost always manufacturers offering product at the lower levels of performance and budget, resulting in their need to use metrics that have larger numbers for marketing purposes (which works very well when the customer doesn't understand).

There are also many manufacturers that do not feel the need to do so, they clearly state the power based on Watts (RMS) and at whatever THD the power is measured at. These manufacturers are generally marketing towards players who understand more about gear, and are looking for performance first, with cost as a secondary concern. 

Why is there a particular need to be rude here? 

Have a wicked pissah day y'all.

On 22/06/2021 at 03:07, Chienmortbb said:

I saw Kris Kristofferson in the 70s, he was a good songwritter but could not sing a note live.

He was a great songwriter but in his later years both his playing and singing suffered. 

I worked with him several times as he was winding down his touring, people bought tickets more for the stories he told and his legend status than anything else. He is also a great guy to work with and his personality was an inviting aspect to his show.

On 22/06/2021 at 14:58, Jamie Snell said:

Thanks again and sorry I did know the wattage gets shared. And yes all amp manufacturers are guilty of promoting wattage levels which are ultimately bragging figures!

No, not all amp manufacturers are more guilty of this. 

Don’t accuse others of something you don’t yet understand.
 

On 22/06/2021 at 15:10, adamg67 said:

I've done similar things to this with stereo power amps in the past. If the power amp does bridge mode (mine did) then you could run the cabs in parallel off it like a big mono power amp...

 

No, the amp is rated for a 4 ohm minimum load in bridged mode. 

15 hours ago, Obrienp said:

In case anybody is interested, I ran this question by Ashdown technical support and got this answer:

”To work a slave amplifier, use a stereo to twin mono jack lead , plug the sterio jack into the di out and use either of the mono outputs into the slave amp. Note that one will be out of phase and one in phase, use the one that gives the best results. “

It is pretty much what some of you have said already but I guess we can call it the definitive answer, as far as the Little Stubby is concerned.

Thanks to everybody who has advised and commented on this.

Yes, this will work fine, the TS plug will ground reference the transformer driven output. Be sure the other plug can not come in contact with anything.

8 hours ago, nilebodgers said:

Have you tried the simple trick of quickly turning the pot throughout it's full range a few 10s of times? I've brought a crackly pot back to normal a few times doing that without any spraying.

After that I've used Deoxit F5 fader lube. It's expensive, but effective and doesn't leave the pot track un-lubricated.

DeOxit D-5 has just the right amount of lubricant for rotary pots. F5 has too much, but works better with linear pots. TINY amount only.

Use the tiniest amount possible, less is more. 
 

If the pot is sealed, it must be replaced. 

12 hours ago, Obrienp said:

OK. In the case of the Ashdown Little Stubby the balanced out requires a TRS jack (no XLR out), so would that require a cable with TRS one end wired unbalanced and TS 1/4” the other? 

Yes, that would work as long as the ring is tied to the sleeve at the TS end. The TS-TS cable does that for you automatically. This applies specifically to transformer driven (floating) balanced outputs into an unbalanced input. 

The Rane notes contain good information, but you really need to understand that a transformer output is fundamentally different from an active driven balanced output. The necessary conditions are different.

13 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

Just for clarity is the TS cable just a standard instrument cable?

Yes.

6 hours ago, Obrienp said:

Have you done it with a Little Stubby, or other Ashdown valve head? The manual says you “MUST” connect a TRS cable. 

If you are feeding a balanced input, you must use TRS on the amp’s end but if you are feeding a unbalanced input, you will need to use a TS cable which automatically grounds the ring (to the sleeve)

On balanced outputs that are transformer driven (possible with  this amp if the signal is taken from the secondary of the output transformer), a TRS will not work if the ring terminal on the input jack on the amp of the amp is not grounded. It depends on the type of input jack, and the way it is wired into the circuit. 

2 minutes ago, BassmanPaul said:

Thank you Andy for confirming my memory. LOL

Happy to do so ‘ol man!

The UK often uses a different type of branch circuit than we do in the states. 

A ring type branch circuit is fed from both ends and even if fused at 10A at each end will result in 20A @240V under a fault condition. The fuse in the plug body is the additional protection for a fault occurring beyond the receptacle.

Switches are different than pots. The less you screw with pots, the longer they typically last. I don’t have much experience with Servisol, but it must contain a small amount of sliding contact lube.

On solid state amps built within the last 40 years, the life expectancy of caps is at least 40 years. 

My experience is if the amp is working properly and the fan is working as designed, you are probably better off leaving things alone. I see a fair number of amps “made broken” by well intentioned service attempts.
 

On 18/05/2021 at 10:07, abarson said:

Never connect both outputs of the amp to one cabinet. Doing so shorts the output of the amp

This is true under 2 conditions:

1. if one of the two cable is wired reverse polarity.

2. if each of the two speaker jacks is connected to a different power amp channel. This is common in some amps, using stereo or 2 channel power amps internally.

Interesting question.

I am both a real engineer (electrical engineering degree) designing products for the bass, guitar and pro audio markets) as well as a FOH mixer (40 years in the international touring act market). I never have to worry about misuse of the word engineer.

There are colloquial uses of words like engineer, but being an engineer (having graduated from an accredited engineering university program) carries with it certain assumptions if you operate as an engineer… that you know and follow the regulations in your industry, that you are licensed (for some work) that you carry certain insurance coverage (called professional liability coverage here in the states), you may be required to carry a bond, etc.

In different parts of the audio industry, a FOH mixer may be called the BE (band engineer), FOH engineer, FOH guy, A-1, board op, etc. There are other terms for the monitor mixer like ME, A-2, monitor guy, monitor engineer.

In other segments, you have playback techs, playback ops, dubber ops (from cinema days where mag film was unmarried from the picture in rush or daily screenings), sound op, etc. 

Of course different areas of the world have their own vernacular, and often it’s based on very loose translations.

In the end, it generally doesn’t much matter what they are called so long as they are not representing themselves as a “real engineer” and doing things like signing documents as an “engineer” might.
 

If you swap the tweeter, be sure you include a suitable crossover (HPF) too.

Here's an article I received that puts the shipping challenges in perspective:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/Port-in-a-storm-No-end-in-sight-to-global-shipping-chaos

On 27/05/2021 at 00:40, Bassybert said:

If your head is capable of outputting 900w into a 4 ohm load (Which the barefaced cab is) then yes you will be getting the 900w pumping into it - Don't think it's going to sound almost twice as loud though ☺️

Is the head rated at 900w peak into 4 ohm?

The amp is rated at 900 watts RMS into 4 ohms.

3 hours ago, Sonic_Groove said:

Yeah feel for You Dave. I'm just pished off with the whole situation.

The same is happening with Bikes & Cars too.

I have a friend in the automotive industry and they are in the middle of a massive struggle for everything. Finished parts of all kinds, sub-assemblies, wiring harnesses, and many things electronics (micro-processor, micro-controller, memory, certain types of capacitors, semiconductors, PCBs). Some of these semiconductors are also used in the audio market (including some amps, home audio, flat screen TV's, phones, cameras and throughout the auto infotainment worlds), and one plant that was responsible for a variety of ASIC parts suffered a devastating fire a few months back as well.

Really, this is SO much bigger than the guitar/bass amp industry... in fact most larger companies in the above industries consume more semiconductors in one week than our entire industry consumes in 1 year. 

https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a36211012/chip-shortage-continues/

https://www.mau.com/workforce-insights/the-2021-semiconductor-chip-shortage-what-why-and-whats-next

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/2020/10/29/akm-factory-fire-could-affect-supply-of-a-to-d-and-d-to-a-convertors-for-12-months

To follow up, shipping amps and cabinets by plane can be done but the cost (including handling and processing fees) can be outrageous. My experience shipping a TT by air these days (I just had shipped a box almost the same size, weight and distance) is around $400 USD and VAT would apply to that amount, making it $500. Also, there are some restrictions on shipping speakers due to the magnetic fields generated by the motor assembly. Shipping a Subway 115 would run about $500 plus VAT.

The same costs are affecting parts that sometimes must be shipped by air because the cost of delay is even higher than the cost of shipping (which was the case for the shipment I experienced). 

On 26/05/2021 at 02:46, Steve Browning said:

To be fair, this is more pandemic related with factories not producing and (just as important) lots of shipping containers in completely the wrong place. The supply of components outside the EU is unaffected by Brexit itself.

The lack of shipping containers has multiplied the cost of them at least seven-fold.

Yes, this is absolutely part of it.

I did explain this to Dave over on TalkBass but I think it might be good to include the same information here.

1. It has nothing to do with Gibson period. The decision was made everybody involved because we are having great difficulty getting parts in sufficient quantities to fill the large number of orders we already have. Not just orders outside North America but also within North America. It makes no sense to try to ship a couple of amps at a time overseas, that's how products get lost and damaged. Especially tube amps.

2. Why are we having challenges with parts? It's not just us, it's the entire manufacturing world that is experiencing these shortages. Raw materials are delayed getting to our suppliers, our suppliers are delayed in their own manufacturing and some of our component manufacturers are experiencing delays from their suppliers. It's not our fault, it's not our supplier's fault, it's a global problem and no matter how much we wish it wasn't so, throwing money at it makes no difference when the parts simply do not exist.

3. In our case, we don't use a lot of generic parts. Many of our parts (like transformers, PCBs, pots, switches, sheet metal, speaker components, enclosures) are custom parts and have longer lead times than generic parts. These have been delayed by our suppliers, and not just suppliers from any one region but suppliers from France, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, Germany, China, the US and Canada (I'm sure I'm missing some, but you get the point). This is mostly related to COVID, but because there are many steps in the manufacturing process, each step's delay adds to the total delay.

4. Then there's shipping delays... never have I seen the delays throughout the shipping world. Of course there's the shortage of containers, this was expected, BUT what was not expected was the ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal. It's not the week or two of direct delays, but the resulting suspension of operations at the ports because the ships they were waiting to unload and reload were all sitting out at sea waiting for passage. All those ships loaded with hundreds of thousands of containers that should have been unloaded and ready for their new loads. Combine this with the number of cancelled sailings (where a ship scheduled to depart is cancelled and waits for the next scheduled cycle. If you had containers scheduled for that ship, you were struggling to find alternative passage but often the logistics and global paperwork make it impractical. Containers with perishable goods, as well as livestock have priority, that's how the maritime laws are (and it makes sense). Then, the port delays, the inland shipping, the transfer companies, the rail companies, EVERYBODY is delayed. Oh, and the costs are out of sight too. This has not improved in the last 3 months, and may actually be worse.

5. We had our own factory delays, almost all of last year we had to operate in specialized "safe work cells" with all the necessary isolation and PPE gear. Because of the county we are located in, there were many weeks where we couldn't run ANY production due to stay at home orders. This applied to many of our suppliers too, and not just here, but much of Italy has been locked down pretty hard. Italy and the US are where many of our speakers come from, and THEIR suppliers were also locked down. Some of our suppliers simply didn't survive, we had to use back-up vendors and test sample parts in order to re-qualify the parts (especially where they are part of a safety agency approved assembly)... oh, and the safety certification agencies were also impacted, so there were delays in certifying the new parts so that the entire assembly could be re-certified. This impacts the EU specifically because of the change in EU market standards for legacy products (that do not apply to North America). 

It's a lot more complicated than "we just didn't want to ship outside of the US".  The decision was more of what is practical, and promising something that we have almost no control over doesn't help the situation either. Nobody is happy about this, everybody shares your frustration and disappointment (including me) and we are all very, very sorry. When I know more, I will communicate it with you.

Fortunately, there are a lot of good choices in bass gear these days, and if a manufacturer more local to you has stock, it may make better sense to move on for now and maybe revisit this at a later time. 

Hope this helps.

6 hours ago, fretmeister said:

That's quite depressing.

Inconvenient and messy as well.

I see players complaining that few if any manufacturers are building their old, lead sled products anymore. Why would they when you can buy them used all day long for pennies on the dollar (or for scrap price). This was a very eye opening exercise that resulted in hauling off a truck load of amps as scrap because it wasn't worth the cost of packaging and shipping. Watching entire amps run through the scrap shredder (similar to what's used to shred cars and industrial scrap) is sad, but at least the resources are being recycled.

Of course there are still collectible models, and amps that are still quite desirable, but the used market has adequate inventory to support the demand for years.

5 hours ago, Bassybert said:

Could you not have donated them to local musicians/rehearsal rooms?

They already had more than they could use.