agedhorse

Guys, I think you are (at least in part) misunderstanding some differences between how commerce is done the UK and commerce is done in the US, including HOW pricing is presented. 1. In the UK, your prices INCLUDE 20% VAT, in the US, our prices do NOT INCLUDE state sales tax (our version of your VAT), which runs between 9-10% average. 2. Importing into the UK costs roughly an additional 10-12% on top of this VAT for things like transportation, licensing, bonding, insurance, registration, and safety/EMC inspections and certificates. 3. There are some additional costs for warehousing, distribution and servicing/support which are generally covered by the importer of record, but of course this is a real cost as well. So, as an example let's take an amp that is advertised for sells for and sells for $1000 in the US and calculate what the real differences are... To the US consumer, this amp will cost approx. 1000 x 1.1 (sales tax) = 1100 USD which is the out the door cost to a US consumer To the UK consumer, that same 1267 GBP amp which has the VAT included Now, to look at why the amp is more expensive, we need to have the import costs of ~10% subtracted out because that's an ADDED COST of bringing a product into the UK, so now that's about 1140 GBP which would otherwise be the out the door cost to the UK consumer after the added taxes and fees levied by your government of our product. We do not have a choice in paying these added costs, which get passed onto the consumer in the end just like for all taxes. That said, all of the taxes paid by importers and yourselves go to cover things that do greatly benefit you, things like your extensive public transportation system, health care and retirement programs. You might be shocked to learn that many of us Yanks pay on average ~$1500-$2000 USD/MONTH for the same healthcare that you receive as part of your government services. While comparing prices might seem like you are getting the short end of the stick, it's nowhere near that simple... the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence/pond. In fact, it's debatable that the stick is equally short on both ends Hope this helps.

Properly designed, any class of amp can be plenty reliable, but not well designed can affect the reliability of any class of amp. I have designed all types of amps, tube, solid state class AB and class D and haven't experienced any reliability issues (or unrepairable issues) on any of them. While many power sections of class D amps are not easily or economically repairable, often replacing the power module is less expensive than the labor and parts on a conventional tube or class AB solid state amp. Generally, the preamp and supporting assemblies are easily repaired BY A QUALIFIED service tech. Now the problem I am seeing lately is that many who call themselves techs do not have the knowledge, qualifications or aptitude to properly repair this gear. That's not a technology problem, it's a service tech problem. We are losing the really good ones as they retire out of the industry, not too many coming in to take their place.

Note that for musical instrument use, JBL recommends between 1/2x and 1x the thermal rating depending on how it's being used. See section 4 which covers the applications that would apply to bass guitar. https://www.jblpro.com/pub/technote/spkpwfaq.pdf

I believe that's the cost for the entire driver and horn, not the replacement diaphragm that I suggested (which is MUCH less expensive).

Your dealer or the service agent of record for your region can order a replacement diaphragm, there is no reason to replace the entire driver unless you prefer to spend additional, unnecessary money.

As Bill mentioned, low frequency extension is generally one tradeoff, another is power handling. As power handling increases, sensitivity generally decreases. The idea is that the SPL gain from increased power handling exceeds the SPL loss due to higher power handling (which it usually does up until a point). For instance, you may lose a dB in sensitivity to double the power handling. Regarding sensitivity specs, I typically use the average sensitivity from 50Hz to 5kHz for bass guitar because this seems to reasonably represent the bandwidth that most players perceive as "volume". Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of sensitivity that are simply impossible to achieve using such metrics. Also, it's important to distinguish sensitivity at 1W/1M from 2.83V/1M because 2.83V/1M with a 4 ohm cabinet will result in numbers 3dB higher due to it now being the equivalent of 2W/1M rather than 1W/1M.

Your dealer would need to contact the distributor for your country. I do not know what the policy is for this kind of accessory

Correct, I should have been clearer in my explanation. The footswitch operation on the M6 is different, individual contact closures for each voice (1, 2, 4, 5) with 3 being default. Sorry for the confusion. The original concept of the switching on the M6 came from the guitar amp side of things where MIDI switchers and contact closures were commonplace. When a program change is sent via MIDI, it triggers the appropriate contact closure to enable that voice. With the M9, this was simplified and it kind of works in reverse, you set the voice you want to switch to on the voice knob, then the footswitch toggles between no voice and the selected voice. This is the tip contact, the ring contact is for mute. Hope this helps.

Just be sure you get the latching type.

Correct, applies to the M-6 only. [edited for accuracy]

This switching scheme was designed to be used with a variety of switcher boxes that are more common in the guitar side of the industry. There were a bunch of semi-custom products, but some stock ones too. https://mesahollywood.com/products/voodoo-lab-control-switcher Here's another, uses 2 x TRS that have to be broken out at the amp's end into 2 x TS: Here's another, I believe this breaks out to 4 x TS: Here's an example of the kind of product that would be used at the amp end, and a programmable MIDI footswitch would go on the floor with a single MIDI cable between the two. The box would provide the contact closures upon command by the MIDI signal. The guitar world is full of such devices, we had some too, but things have changed considerably over the years and they are in fact fading away: https://six4pix.net/product/midiswitcher/ We also made a 4 footswitch pedal with 4 outputs that could be connected through a single 4 pair snake terminated in 1/4"-TS plugs, I don't know much about the accessories, but customer service would know. Hope this helps

Because the gain structure is very similar between the two, and with the channel volume on the Shuttle 6.0 control set to ~1:00, the gain structure is the same. The results are virtually identical in the pre position and overall within a few dB in the post position. The DI circuitry is in fact identical. In case you don't realize it, I designed both of these amps. What the OP is experiencing is consistent with either the DI output level switch being set differently or the sound guy being unaware of the gain structure of his console's input channel strips.

The different preamps make no difference to the OP's situation.

With all 4 MOSFETs, it was capable of greater power into both 8 ohm and 4 ohm loads. There were many versions of these amps that used a similar output section, but it depends on the power transformer (thus the rail voltage) also. If the rail voltage gets too high (to achieve greater power into 8 ohms), then 4 output transistors may not be enough for the resulting higher power into 4 ohms. There were also different MOSFETS used throughout the production history, including special "double-die" parts. Over the years, there were some output stage applications that weren't all that reliable, and sometimes incorrect transformers were fitted in order to ship amps. Many of these unrelaiblities could be traced back to the liberal build philosophy rather than the circuits themselves.

The AH-100 links are for manufacturing to use this PCB assy. with a different model. This amp, from the photo, uses a single pair of output MOSFETS. Depending on the power supply (rail) voltages, it may very well be rated for 8 ohms minimum load only. Especially because it has a single speaker jack in what was a combo, and because Celestion confirmed that it was an 8 ohm driver.

You are going to need to do more testing and troubleshooting. There may be a small difference in DI level between the two different amp models, but not a huge difference.

The later BLX-80's were rated for 4 ohm use and had a larger heatsink. There is no output transformer in the amp, so that part can't be part of any discussion. There were earlier versions of this amp, and there was indeed a version that was 8 ohms only, I believe it can be identified by having only 2 output transistors rather than 4, but my documentation is not entirely clear on this. It was not uncommon for Trace to have several versions of any model, making is more of a challenge to support. This appears to be part of the company culture, as I have had 2 supposedly identical models side by side on the bench and they were entirely different internally.

The ground lift switch can't change the level. By any chance could the mic/line switch be set to the line position on the louder amp?

Note that virtually all of the Chinese IcePower 125ASX2 modules being sold on eBay are counterfeits. The original manufacturer of your amp should be able to supply the part, though many will only supply them to authorized service facilities.

There are indeed more variations than there are what you have suggested. As a generalization, most effects loops (also called insert loops) are serial and operate at line level. Most are post eq, but there are some that are pre-eq also. The normal routing switching is almost always done within the effects return jack. There are line in jacks that are usually called 'AUX IN", they provide a line level input sums with the main signal path. Line outputs are usually the same as the effects send as described above. Most XLR outputs start out as pre eq, balanced, mic level and add switched options such as mic-line level, pre-post eq routing and pin 1 ground lift. Of course there are exceptions, but the above is by far and away the norm.

The circuitry that's used within the deep voicing, the entire voicing circuitry and compression are done very differently between the M3 and the M6/M9 (and there are differences between the M6 and M9 too)

I've tried already on "the other" forum. The voicing is done differently on the M3, it's different from the M6 & M9.

Agreed, when using any soft case with any amplifier, you do need to be careful when you and especially when others are handling your gear. This problem is not unique to the Subway amps, we see it on all brands and models but on the heavier models the damage tends to be more obvious (and more costly to repair). Glad you got it resolved, Westside has a very comprehensive and capable service department.

You can use a 1/4" (6.35mm) female barrel connector and a short 1/4" (6.35mm) cable to extend the existing cable on the WA cabinet. It would be good practice to include an insulating tube over all conductive parts of the shell to prevent noise from ground loops. This advice is specific to the Walkabout which has a ground referenced speaker output. Some conventional amps and many class D amps use a bridged output topology, so because the shell is energized, the shell MUST be insulated from anything and everything that it might come into contact with.

Bill - the Walkabout platform was designed before that point in time (~1999), and simply remained a legacy product many years longer than anticipated. There are 3 separate and distinct issues regarding the adoption of SpeakOn jacks within the international market. The first one was the possibility of a banana connection being too close to some AC power connector dimensions, the second is that with many bridged amps the open circuit voltage on the shell of a 1/4" connector would fall out of the range of the various low voltage directives and the third being that with high powered amps even the single ended voltage on the tip of the plug would fall out of this range. Some of this was later addressed with the the changes incorporated in IEC60065 section 9.1.1.1 which allows higher voltages for audio speaker level signals BUT some jurisdictions will not allow this hence the almost universal migration to SpeakOn as the easier (and better) method of compliance globally.