Downunderwonder

Don't kid yourself. The thing to do is run it on its side so the ports act as an efficient thermal chimney. Cold in at bottom and warm out at the top.

I am no tech, but that sounds like a dodgy pot, either input or master vol, that is shorting. You could audition the fx send somehow and if that is blowing out at the same time then the problem is in the preamp, otherwise it's in the output section. Save your tech 10 minutes of checking time.

All sorted for earplug transport downunder but thanks for the offer.

Those would easily take a key ring through the bottom 'corner' and Bob's your hairy arsed Auntie you always have your ear plugs with you.

Thinking about this again, doesn't a 1.5dB increase in volume mean a 50% increase, No. That doesn't even make any sense to me. A 3dB increase in speaker sensitivity would mean you need half the power to get the same loudness, or you get 3dB louder for the same power. +3dB is the minimum amount of volume bump that can be reliably noticed by an unsophisticated listener in a B follows A test. +10dB is defined as twice as loud. A good way to get lots louder is to add a 2nd identical 8 ohm cab to your 1st one. Often the amp these days is quite capable of maxing out the one 8 ohm cab and also fine driving two as loud as they will go. In that case you are going from zero headroom to 6dB of headroom if you keep playing as loud as you were before and only use the extra for the exciting bits. 3dB from cab and 3dB from the extra power delivered. Say you kept 6dB back using the one cab. Now you got 12dB up your sleeve for the jollies.

It's next to impossible to gain a statistically valid picture of an amp's reliability from asking a forum. I don't know that many were even sold in the UK. But my memory is pretty good and I can't recall ever reading about a broken Aguilar on Talkbass either. If you get along with the EQ you could probably do a lot worse. Always use genuine speakons and don't drop it.

Best suggestion yet. My 2c is in line with previous posters that it's a vintage instrument and deserves conservation as a player, the duct tape needs to go and the truss rod needs to work. I guess there are no worthy bassers in the descendants? Tick the fix up boxes and it will realise a more handy sum.

Auto bias circuits have been replaced by adjusting or fixed bias ever since they were invented, problem children that they were. I think you should seek out an oldschool tech.

If you go down that road make sure to get the correct screws. Too long is worse than wrong pitch because you can make contact with amp guts and go poof.

Your brother is very generous. A, Possibly far more generous than he knows? Or B, Generous and so wealthy that he doesn't mind giving away multi thousand pound basses? Or perhaps C, generous and didn't consider the possibility of you selling it even though he has no further use for it himself. You should probably get clear on all that before flogging it off.

There are real deal SMX Compressor pedals complete with balance control. You could try the Wanted section.

^ never play poker with this guy. You'll wind up penniless with no shoes.

I looked again and see it's a pair so I'm guessing it's a homage in the style of Trace, rather than salvage.

Definitely BFM Omni. They could well have been professionally built. Check out the crossover. They are mid heavy in the native response. The badge appears to have come off something Trace Elliot.

Higher power handling gives up sensitivity. Advances in materials have only gone so far and the tougher you make the moving parts the less easily they respond. Since ratings are unreliable and the only commonality is diameter it's only an assumption, but 350/4 is a fair bit less than 250/2.

More than a few backup Elf amps have wound up as the mainstay while ol' faithful stays in the boot.

It depends on the efficiency of the cabs. In theory it would even be possible for the 410 to hold back the 210, just stupidly unlikely. If the cabs were brothers from the same mother and father and the 210 was half of the 410 with 16 ohm drivers instead of 8 ohm it would be easier to predict. Then there is the complication of how much the amp can give. If the amp were capable of fully driving either and/or both cabs at the same time it works out that the 210 holds back the 410 to half its power and the combined stack results in 1.5dB more output than the 410 can do by itself. Given the 210 is supposedly 250w and the 410 only 350w one could assume the 210 is relatively less efficient than the 410, so a bigger handbrake on the stack, further reducing the expected increase from stacking. Putting speakers up close to your ears though will make it appear much much louder when standing close.

In that case it's fine for you to do the chicken roaster/ washing drying machine/ fridge type of backline. They did one on NZ Idol that was cardboard boxes painted black and lit from inside or might have just been cards with 8x10 etc holes and backlit screens. Go wild. It will be more interesting than a bunch of real cabs. You could make quite a wall of doom in cardboard that stores flat and slots together.

Get the bar to sponsor a free bar tab for random singers. You'll get the odd one that can't sing their way out of a paper bag but 'you get what you pay for'. Working singers don't mind lending their pipes if they can get a couple of nice beverages out of it

Tends to sound boxy in isolation, even moreso at low volume.

Not really. I don't know of any rack mount preamp that isn't proper line level. One poster above complained of a lack of oomph from his RBI. That guy didn't read his manual!

The one time I plugged and played I was sorely let down by the monitors. Never again.

Ignoring the cross section shape makes for a much simpler "back of envelope" guestimation. It's then all about the angle of the strings to the neck / body and the available displacement of the cable from vertical. X being the difference in 'altitudes' of the strings between nut and bridge ie fixed. Y is the displacement available to the cable, also fixed. T is the length of the string. T' is the vector quantity of the tension in the string. C' is the compression generated in the neck. S' is the sideways force on the neck.The unbalanced parallel forces of the sideways component at the nut and its resistance at the neck heel together require a balancing moment from the neck at the heel. We replace this with the an opposite unbalanced tension of the cable. Shifting vector S' across to the top of the cable we can imagine dropping a vertical to intersect the cable and the distance back to the cable top scales us the cable tension = T' x X/Y Note that compression in the neck is not generating moment, only the sideways component of tension must be resisted by the neck and cable. Calculation assumes zero contribution from the neck itself..This is all a bit different to the "girder hanging out of the building" analysis but I feel it's closer because the string is acting in pure tension in the first place, lending itself to vector analysis. Note also that no forces are required of the body at the end so nothing in the analysis changes with the no body stick bass.