SimonK

13 hours ago, Rosie C said:

I did a bit of internet searching late last night and found this 15" cabinet on ebay which looks to be the same model as mine and the badge looks the same as your 3D printed one:

 

 

Close up of the ebay cabinet badge:

 

 

But this is the badge on my 2x10 and it is different. In fact it looks very like the badges on the new Elf cabinets so maybe it is a late model?

 

 

The picture of the 1153T that you found online is probably a mark 5 or 6 cab, so at least ten years older than yours (or more). If they have carpeting they are from the late 1990s (my favourites), and as mentioned the riveted on logo started being a thing when manufacturing moved abroad. I haven't seen the carpeting AND the riveted logo before which makes me suspicious that this was one of the very last UK made cabs that was probably sold with the new logo between the beginning of the Gibson ('98) then Peavey ('05) eras.

10 hours ago, Rosie C said:

Well I did it! We went to view an AH300 tonight. I took my fretless jazz to try it and it sounded fantastic! Lovely condition, and it came with original manuals, sales receipt and the pedal board. Flippin' heavy though. Sadly my partner bought it for me for Christmas so no playing with it for a few weeks. ☹️

 

I have a couple of questions - did the 15" cabinets not have Trace Elliot badges? There's no sign it ever had one. 
 

Also the electro fluorescent front panel doesn't work, the seller said he thought it was deliberately disconnected, so that's something to look at. Any suggestions where to start with that?

Anyway thanks for all the advice and opinions, I'm very happy with it!  😊

Good job - life is always better with a bigger Trace Elliot stack!

Re the badge on the 15, lots of people who like this orientation took them off because they didn't like the badge on sideways (I do, and then hook them back on). I suspect if you look closely at the grill on what would be the top right in the picture above you may see some signs of it being removed. If the logo on the 2x10 is riveted on this will be a very late example of these cabs, possibly left over stock from when they went to Peavey.

Although I haven't got this specific head I'm pretty certain there wasn't a black light. Instead everything green will fluoresce under black light. I bought some very cheap black light strips from ebay when I did my cab project and they make the amps look awesome:

oops duplicated post...

3 minutes ago, ClusterOne said:

Hi folks,

 

TE AH300

 

On eBay, in York, currently for £49.99 , flight case included but that is auction with 1 bid as of now..

Rather ambiguous description as it says ,,working order when last used.,, 🤦‍♂️😁

So anyone looking for a cheap flight case with bass amp included?

 

11 hours 15 min to the end of auction..

That's irritating - I was in York this time last week - but as you say a £50 flight case with an amp to fix!

5 hours ago, Rosie C said:

This rig is for sale near to me...  https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/778666638472040/

 

Ticks a lot of boxes, but it is a larger fan-cooled amp. Definitely has 'presence' in the room though.

For context I bought an identical 2x10 cab for £40 last year, and the 1x15 for £50. Granted I haven't got that head, but given it probably will need some TLC I would offer £200 max for that - if you got it for £150 it would be a bargain.

Those are way overpriced - I wouldn't pay anymore than £50 to £100 for a TE cab and about £150 max for a head. The GP12SMX are generally the most expensive and although people try to sell them for £250 and up, I've seen them go (in the last few months) for £120.

2 hours ago, Rosie C said:

 

Having spent way too much time looking at amps and cabinets today. The "GP11 Mk V" (left) would seem a good option at £250 but it's in Scotland. The AH250 (right) has UV light goodness, and separate amp/cab seems a good idea, and it's closer to home. Maybe I'm being picky, but I don't like that the amp isn't the same size as the cabinet for stacking. Either way, today I'm tending towards a 4x10" rather than a 15". Tomorrow may change! 

I've got both of these albeit switched a GP7 head into the 4x10 combo and it is stupid heavy - as in I'm increasingly needing a second person to lift it into the car. The AH250 head plus 4x10 us a bit more manageable.

Also, I've happily run my electric drum kit into most of these and they sounds absolutely fine, are plenty loud, and nothing has ever blown. At the moment my son has the drumkit plugged into (another) GP7 head and the Peavy era 2x10/1x15 TE stack in a box and it sounds great.

1 hour ago, Rosie C said:

 

I've been thinking about this example today - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/227002618439  I don't know much about Trace Elliot amps other than I have had a long-held ambition for a big Marshall cabinet in my practice space and this has morphed to a big TE cabinet in my practice space. i.e. I buy it, get some friends to help manoeuvre it into place then it stays there until we move house.

 

My partner's a drummer and has recently got into electronic drum pads, so the plan would be to use it for that as well. 

 

It's not really in need of restoration - the fabric's a bit scuffed on the top, but otherwise it looks quite tidy.

 

 

Would it make me sound like a cork sniffer if I said that this was from after they sold out to Peavey... thus said I do have a couple cabs from this era, but very much prefer the older amps. 

I'd go head & cab over a combo every time. Speakers now are seldom too heavy, leaving spare hands/bags for selecting different heads depending on needs - the class D heads are so light you could even fit a couple in a backpack and then choose on the night!

If money isn't a problem pairing a Barefaced cab with a Aguillar Tone Hammer head would cover everything and be very portable and light.

36 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Sensitivity of speakers can trump wattage applied when It's only 3dB worth of power difference.

 

One time we were playing about with my Trace 1518 and a BF BigBaby. As a 4 ohm load plugged into the one amp the BF was inaudible, like it wasn't plugged in and had to check. It needs a heap of power to get loud.

Experience is everything with amps. I'm sometimes awed and persuaded by the technical comments on here, however music is ultimately a practical art and amps often just need to be plugged in and turned up to see if it works. In a way wattage ratings etc. are neither here nor there if the amp does (or doesn't) do the job. At the moment I'm rocking a mini-stack with a 1x15 (TE1153), and the classic TE2103x (which has 2x10s and 2x5 in the same enclosure), driven by my old GP7SMX with the gain set at 3/4 and the volume between 1/4 and 1/2 most of the time. There's loads of wisdom on here that talks about comb filtering, power rating etc., but regardless it just works for me!

4 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Guitarist magazine did a shootout. I struggled to find the original but found a summary of the results:

 

Marshall 100 watt 1959 SLP full stack (reissue, 60's spec)
Vox AC30 (current, it looked like the fawn colored handwired version)
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with factory standard appointments

 

The readings were from low to high for the three contenders, 119.5 db, 124.1 db and 124.6 db. 

But these are guitar amps that people want to distort/overdrive as that is where the goodness sits. As a bass player I generally want a lot more headroom with my bass amp, especially because if I do use some drive I want  need some clean in there as well to keep the low end - so I would say it is all very different with bass amps.

1 hour ago, Downunderwonder said:

Don't even turn it on if those connections are still where they are in that photo. Putting an output up an output is bad news.

Yes it does seem to be a rooky error, although hopefully won't fry the preamp if there is no signal (or power spike when it turns on!). I've found another picture of the back panel and they definitely do seem to be speaker out jacks. Question is of course whether anyone in the music shop (or before) may have done something stupid...

7 hours ago, Hypo199 said:

I bagged it....had to take a punt on this as I've coveted TE gear since I was a kid in a band who longed after the decent stuff, but had to make do and mend with whatever we could find in house clearance sales. 

Well done - I considered for about 30 seconds driving up to Sheffield but it would have been an eight hour round trip for me. Let us know if it works!

12 hours ago, Pea Turgh said:

Nearly finished rehousing this old combo head.  Someone on Basschat offered it for free (!) in the recycling section here a while ago.  I can’t find the messages to name drop them and thank them again.

 

12mm ply, original knobs were missing so put on this hideous set.  Just got to find screws to hold it in to the case now.

 

It was supposed to have some sort of fault, but after a quick poke around and reseating the power amp to preamp cable,  it works beautifully!

 

 

I have to say those knobs are special... can't you find some old chewing gum or maybe a scrap of paper to improve the look 🙂 !

12 minutes ago, Sparky Mark said:

I think it's just a pre amp, hence why it's paired with the RA300.

It is - but what a combination!!

3 hours ago, Pow_22 said:

https://richtonemusic.co.uk/trace-elliot-gp12smx-bass-amp-ra300-power-amp-collection-only-2nd-hand/

 

Anyone seen this backbreaker over at Richtone?

Oh my... that's a beauty and a good price... is it Sheffield where they are based?

17 hours ago, Homatron said:

A clean-looking Trace AH300-7 has come up locally but I have no clue if it is a good buy (currently asking £150). What are the Trace gurus' thoughts on this model?

Some of the finds in this thread make me think I should hold out for a real bargain!

They are good heads - I've got one - BUT how clean they look on the outside says nothing about how well they work. I'm still struggling with getting rid of the hum on the GP12 head above I grabbed a few weeks back, and increasingly as these get older the more likely that they will have faults. The question I now ask myself is whether the amp is cheap enough for me not to be too concerned if it doesn't work and I (or my far more capable buddy) can't fix it.

These are increasingly a gamble, and I think the price needs to reflect the fact you may potentially end up with a very pretty, but not too useful amp.

Having a gig in the diary and knowing what date you are working towards has always been the most important thing for the bands I have been in. You get crazy efficient when there is hardly any time left!

22 minutes ago, razor5cl said:

 

Forget to run your strap through your lead and you might die, or suffer an even worse fate.....your bass will cut out mid song!

 

Learned this one myself after treading on my own lead and pulling it out at one too many rehearsals. On stage it could even be a clumsy guitar player!

Ha - did that this evening, although better than breaking my whirlwind cables that are getting so expensive you can almost buy a bass for the same price!

I suspect if being an "artist" is a spectrum, there is just something about bass players that make us a little more down to earth than other artists. Certainly whenever I've been in festivals/gigs etc., being someone who goes on stage and plays something does put you with a different group to other people doing stuff at the gig. While I might not consider myself an "artist" in the same way as the mentally unstable singer/song writer who doesn't get sarcasm, I do find myself in the same general group...

8 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

I probably didn't explain very well. I use a shelving response rather than the more usual bass tone control which rolls off the bass increasingly as the frequency drops. A shelving response acts like a volume control for bass cutting it all by a set amount. Like this but I only cut by a couple of db not 6db as in this example. I chose the 160 point as that was what was on my mixer at the end of the last gig. I ws surprised it was so high myself but it sounded good on the night. It wouldn't suit every bass or every bassist and Al makes a good point about weight. 

 

I suppose what I wanted to say ws don't be scared of equalising around a higher frequency and if you have a shelving response available on your mixer then explore using it. I find it quite a pleasing way of removing some of the boom whilst keeping a little deep bass and way better than using the conventional bass control on my active bass or the bass amp. You have to use your ears and of course we are all aiming for different sounds. Perhaps the other advice would be to make small changes and go back to a flat response from time to time whilst adjusting so you can be sure the changes are genuinley improvements.

 

more here

 

 

I think there is a distinction between the bass player being able to hear themselves, and the bass sitting well in the mix. When I play I like to hear a lot of bass so that I can hear what I am playing, and thus am often disappointed when I wander out to FOH to hear that the overall mix doesn't have as much of me in it as I like to hear. But that just reflects that the FOH mix is trying to achieve a different thing compared to my monitor/where I'm standing mix.

Looking at some of the above there seems to be some people answering "how to get the bass sitting well in the overall mix" question and others the "how do I cut through enough to hear myself" question.

I tend to forget that my Bass itself has pretty good EQ options that can be adjusted on the fly. If not cutting through I would just fiddle with the onboard EQ while playing with the band to find something that works. Once you know what that is just dial it back should you ever be playing bass on your own!

1 hour ago, Sean said:

What do you need setting up? What needs doing exactly? 

I was going to do set ups at the SW Bash but there was very little interest. 

 

I've got a Warwick which needs the intonation adjusting but am scared of German reverse screw threads if you fancy having a look?

1 hour ago, NickA said:

decent amps have them built in; certainly don't need one with my PJB kit.

Do they? I've never seen it mentioned explictly although maybe I don't use decent amps?

1 hour ago, Terry M. said:

Are you tempted to try a wider spaced model? 

While I seldom need an excuse for a new bass, I think this one might just be a case of practicing some more to get better technique!