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My new workhorse - Ashdown 550 Touring


Lee-7
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A couple of weeks or so ago I decided to sell on my Ashdown Mag 300 C115 cab and ext deep 1x15 speaker as I wanted a rig with a bit more Oomph and a tighter punchier sound as my 2x15's had plenty of low end wallop but not much definition.

Not being a bass player by trade I made a school boy error and bought a slightly under powered 1x15 combo that would only give out 307w at 4 ohms, so it ment having to buy an ext cab, which I did but had to be another 1x15 as opposed to a 2x10 as the configurement was the wrong way round for a 2x10.

I was looking on buying an Ashdown ABM 500 Evo 3 2x10 combo until I came across this bad boy on the Ashdown website.









Instantly liked the look of it as it blended well with the other two lad's Vox AC30's, it turned out to be a hybrid consisting of the Small Block 427 dual valve pre amp and the ABM 500 power stage giving 550w at 4 ohm, as I run it only at 8 ohm it still churns out 350w which is more than my last rig could do.

Considering it is a 2x10 configuration it has plenty of bottom end and some serious treble if that is what you want, for me I like a nice gutsy bottom end with a bit treble just to add definition, as I am still finding out about this amp I am sure there are way more sounds I can get out of it. It comes with a passive eq instead of the usual active one, so ajustments are not as great but not as clouded either, you need arms like Geoff Capes too as it is a heavy bastard. I can carry it on my own but don't relish the idea though.

The RRP for this amp on the net is £789.00 which I couldn't really afford, so did a bit of searchin and came across an online retailer called "gear4music" based in York, they had the amp advertised for £665.99, I went to my local Ashdown retailer, Rimmers Music in Leyland to see if they could price match it, they did and had the amp delivered two days later, Result!

So this bad boy should keep me going for many yrs to come or as long as I try to play bass...................:)

Lee

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Apparently it has only been in production for just over a month or so and is proving to be a very successful amplifier so far, if you like a nice punchy sound this is the amp. Has bass, Mid and treble shifts so you can alter different frequencies up the eq ladder, plus it has a handy mute switch.

This model is different to most other Ashdowns where you set the input gain via the VU metre before setting your output volume, on this amp the VU metre only comes in to operation on the master gain, so you can turn your master gain down and your input gain up to overdrive the valves etc, or the other way round for a nice clean tone.

Lee :)

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