Sir Spence

Pleasure to do business with Jon - he bought by Berg cab and it couldn’t have been smoother

All of my knowledge (such that it is) in this area comes from the guitar world, where Alnicos are still King for open backed cabs and (generalising a bit) Ceramics work best in closed back situations The first generation Neo magnet speakers were harsh / brittle - the Celestion Century Vintage had the same cone / driver as the V30 but sounded nothing like it That said, Celestion in particular is getting pretty darn close with the latest generation Neo Creambacks, which sound somewhere in between the G12H & M magnet ceramic equivalents There's still some way to go to replicate the Alnicos - I guess it's further away in terms of 'magnetic density' (..flux?) The magnet is probably less important in bass driver application, as the higher driver excursion demands are meaning that the cone / driver capabilities become more dominant?

Nope - ceramic - weighs about 25kgs

Just wanted to report my findings The Ashdown cab has definitely got a lot more bottom end and lower mids than the SL112 I actually think they both sound great and if I was a gigging player and weight was a constraint, I'd per perfectly happy with the SL112 For my specific needs, I think the Ashdown wins by a nose

Thanks @Lozz196 - I ‘think’ I’m after strong midrange, so it should be on the money

I’m trying to decide if to swap out my Aguilar SL112 for an Ashdown 115 ..eh? I’m still feeling my way into bass gear - I started out with a TH300 and the SL112 and always found it a bit bright biased and as a long in the tooth guitarist, I missed the lack of valve dynamics Ive just got an Ashdown CTM100, which I’m really liking and I’ve found that I much prefer the tone of the SL112 with the tweeter totally off I’m sadly not able to gig nowadays (bad back) so lightweight isn’t an issue to me - once the rig is setup, it’s staying put and I’m playing at around 100dB (loud home volumes) So all that considered, I’m thinking a nice 115 with a bigger swept volume and no / disabled tweeter might make sense and I’ll move on the TH300 SL112 set to someone who’s gigging regularly? ..but what do know ..whaddya think?

Indeed - I’m thinking of the CTM! ..unlikely to be a preamp valve blowing the fuse

@RnRDave - do you have a spare set of power valves? ..one of those puppies going south is a likely cause for that fuse going and if that’s the case, you may blow fuse no 2 when you power it back up @Ashdown Engineering will be much better places than I to recommend which one and whether you can run the amp without valves (and add them back in until you find the culprit or not?) I’m collecting my new CTM 100 tomorrow as it goes - better follow my own advice and get some more JJ KT88s in !!

It might be worth a few simple checks before you pack off the Ashdown? Are you sure it’s not as simple a fix as the HT fuse? ..that blowing would instantly cut the power, whereas a semiconductor would more likely give a gradual or intermittent issue and a transformer would just be spectacular (smoke, burning etc) The fuse could get taken out by a power valve going bad, so maybe replace any blown fuse and if it goes immediately again, then start a process of elimination on the valves Best I let Ashdown guide you through it - they are the experts on their amp after all, but worth doing some simple checks first PS - Martin Garton in Bury is great, but not sure if PCBs are his thing?

6BQ5 is just the American name for the EL84 - same thang! 6P14P if you speak Russian 🙂

Yup - if you swap out the coupling caps for 0.1mfd rated ones, I believe you get the full frequency spectrum A lot of Fenders have that value anyway, but once the gain started to go up, the coupling cap values come down to reduce oscillation and focus the power on easier to juice frequencies, to get loud and nasty

Toroidal transformers in the Little Stubby, I guess for it to be that low profile? Not a bad thing by any means (I know amp builders who swear by them) but less traditional ..there’s no replacement for displacement after all Good shout on guitar amps too - I have ne or three around I could give a try

I’m a long time guitarist (and virgin bassist) I thought the bass one was stand out the best and the guitar one was put together by muppets Example - they introduced the concept of fuzz pedals by over-dubbing the Kinks ‘All Day & All of the Night’ - a guitar tone famously created by taking a razor to a speaker in homage to fuzz tone Ok, they then went into Keef (which is always fair enough -they should put some Keef interviews on the next long distance space probe, so the aliens are prepared to meet him in a couple of thousand years) but they missed so much! Stuart Copeland doesn’t need to be serious (and good luck to him!) but he always comes across as a bit lightweight to me At least he had interesting interviewees, as did Tina

Anyone able to offer a comparison between this and an Ampeg PF-20 - I'm a home player so not really looking for volume, but I'm feeling I need a bit of a rounder tone than I'm getting from the Ampeg (this is into an Aguliar 112 cab) I'm not saying it's a bad amp at all, but it needs more midrange to tingle my tastebuds !

I've gotten to the bottom of this now, so posting for future reference I have the vol pot wired for 'independent' volume' - or at least it would be on a Jazz bass with dedicated vol pots per pickup to enable you to turn one off fully without cutting the sound for both I have the 'hot' from the preamp going to the wiper - that's the issue! 🙂

Thanks - I'm going to swap out the pot I suspect it's the wrong value of pot, but plan to put in a 250k and assuming my soldering skills are up to snuff, that should take care of any bad joints at the same time If you're suggesting working out the taper via the above method, something that works well on passive setups (can't speak for a circuit with a preamp) without the need to desolder, is to measure DCR at the jack on a single pickup as you turn it down the vol pot. If you see max resistance at '5' on the pot then it's linear, somewhere near '7' indicates a log pot. ..in this case is a log Alpha pot (B)

Personally, I'd link the Lehle straight to the guitar amp and see what happens - if you still get the pop then you know it's coming from one of those two and if you don't get it, start adding stuff back in

I’m no expert, but It does sound like DC When I've built pedals in the past, you run the signal through a resistor to stop this kind of pop - suspect a failing component (resistor or cap) in the chain? I could come from the Lehle or the amp, so suggest you test and see if you can reproduce with one of them and not the other to narrow it down?

I've just dug a 20 year old bass out of storage, to which I'd fitted a 3 band active preamp, blend switch and volume at the time Everything seems to work fine (amazed!) except the volume pot Symptom: No change for 90% of the sweep and then it rolls off very quickly - but it does roll off I've re-soldered the earth but still have the same issue - I'm guessing the pot value (and if so, what do I need ..250k or something different with the active pre?) ..or am I missing something bleeding obvious (again!)