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Aguilar Tonehammer 500


Lozz196
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Well I`ve now had this little lightweight amp for about 2 months so thought I would do a quick review.

Lightweight in actual weight only, the sound you can get out of this amp is something else. Now my tonal goal is that driven, gnarly sound that you hear from a Precision through an Ampeg SVT. But my back prevents me from doing this. Up until a couple of months ago I`d been using Markbass amps, with a Tech21 VT DI to get the sound needed. Fancied a change, and having tried a TH500 at the London Bass Guitar Show, started researching and all looked good. The research ended at the South East Bass Bash where the exact rig I wanted was available for me to try - TH500 into a Barefaced Super 12T.

So having tried it, went about getting it. Resourced through Basschat, I now have those items. My first impressions of the Th500 at band practice were "ouch". I`d set the eq to my usual settings - with volume being on approx 10 o`clock. Big mistake - way too loud. From there I`ve had a good few different sounds from it, all good but none exactly right. But it all fell into place when I replaced the TI Flats on my Precision with my usual worn-in Roto Steel Rounds. Tonal heaven, the TH500 doing the exact sound I want. It replicates that driven Ampeg tone so well, but with its own flavour - I`d say the Aguilar sound is like a more modern sounding Ampeg.

The main things on this amp for me are the adjustable, sweepable mids, so you can choose the frequency you want to cut or boost, plus the interaction with the Gain and Drive controls. If I had to make any criticism at all it would be not having markers on the eq controls - so much easier to write these down - but if an amp sounds as good as this, well I`ll take it without markers, that`s only cosmetics.

Now of course the Precision/Rotos/Barefaced all have something to do with the sound but this is the first amp I`ve had where for the driven/gnarly sound I want I`ve not needed pedals. Aditionally, although I like the driven part of it, there`s no sacrifice on bottom-end - nice and solid, plenty of heft. I used an actual SVT a couple of weeks back and whilst of course it did have more heft to it (and was through an Ampeg 810) I was actually amazed that the difference in that rig wasn`t significantly more to my TH500/BF S12T. Made me very happy indeed.

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Hi Ted, as requested, the settings I use are:

Gain - Midday, Bass - 1 o`clock, Mid Level - 10 o`clock, Mid Freq - 10 o`clock, Treble - 3 o`clock, Drive - Full

So yes, drive on full, and doing this really adds mids in - despite the cut in mids that I use. If you back off the drive but up the gain the sound is much warmer, as well as being less driven, so the interaction between the two needs some playing about with to get the exact tone wanted. But once you get there, well let the ears rejoice.

I chose drive on full mainly as I also use the Tonehammer Pedal as a DI/for use with provided rigs, and the Drive on that is either on or off, so thought best to match each up as well as I could, so that meant Drive on the amp on full. From there I just had to tweak the rest, and like this it really does the SVT sound nicely.

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Thanks for the review, can you provide any more comparison between the Mark Bass and Aguilar sound?

I'm a P-Bass with TI-flats guy and currently use a LM3 - it sounds good, but can't help wondering if the TH500 would be more well suited to what I play, which is mostly old-school blues, rock and rock-n-roll.

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I had an LM3 before my TH500, and also play a P with TI-Flats (actually trying out LaBella low tension flats at the moment).
I used to fiddle around with the LM3's VLE and VPF knobs quite a lot to get the sound I wanted (and I did like the sound). I picked up a second hand Tonehammer pedal here and really liked it in combination with the LM3, but decided that it would be simpler to sell both and get a TH500. The TH500 is a bit less cluttered as it doesn't have so many tone knobs, so if keeping it simple floats your boat (I prefer simple) then there's one reason. The other is that it has the 'drive' control which, as Lozz mentioned, can be useful if you want to get some overdrive (from subtle to quite fierce). Also has a mute button. Both have a DI output but I don't think the TH500 has a level control on the DI out.
Tone-wise I could probably get more 'sub' from the LM3 using the VLE knob, but other than that I wouldn't say I noticed a whole lot of difference, and I never had them side by side. They both seemed to do a good job. I was more attracted to the 'keeping it simple' idea and also I was using an Aguilar cab so it appealed to me to have them both by the same company :)
I hardly do any gigs so I'm not best placed to comment on the live sound.

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Pretty spot-on there Ted, exactly how I`d describe the difference between the two. The LM3 is a nice warm sounding amp in the mix, but very clean on its own. With a P-Bass I think it excells. But if you want any kind of drive at all, you do need a pedal with it. The TH500 however, well I`ve found that messing around with the Gain and Drive together you can get both driven and clean so ultimately more versatile.

Additionally, for me, the frequency settings on the TH500 enable more versatility as well as those on the LM3 are very wide apart, with low & high-mids fairly near to each other (400hz & 800hz I think) and the treble being very high (10khz) - so not really having too much effect unless you have both a tweeter and very new roundwound strings. Whereas the TH500 mids are sweepable, from 180hz - 1khz, and the treble is at 4khz so a lot more to play with if using either flats or a cab without a tweeter.

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thanks for the review, the TH500 is on my shopping list, i tried one at the last North East Bass Bash with my Barefaced Midgets and it was fantastic, a quick question though, do you have the tweeter on or off most of the time? only asking as i've not got tweeters on the midgets and as a precision with flats player i've never really missed the tweeters.

If [email="M@23"]M@23[/email] is in the north east then i'd reccomend trying the bass base in pelaw for the amp as they have them in stock and the prices are pretty good, that's certainly where i will be buying mine!

Matt

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[quote name='Matt P' timestamp='1421412848' post='2660880']
If [email="M@23"]M@23[/email] is in the north east then i'd reccomend trying the bass base in pelaw for the amp as they have them in stock and the prices are pretty good, that's certainly where i will be buying mine!

Matt
[/quote]

Argh, i'm right down South unfortunately. Cheers though.

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[quote name='Matt P' timestamp='1421412848' post='2660880']
thanks for the review, the TH500 is on my shopping list, i tried one at the last North East Bass Bash with my Barefaced Midgets and it was fantastic, a quick question though, do you have the tweeter on or off most of the time? only asking as i've not got tweeters on the midgets and as a precision with flats player i've never really missed the tweeters.
Matt
[/quote]

As I play gnarly, gainy, twangy punk in a 3 piece I have the tweeters on though much of this is due to my preference of old, dead roundwounds to liven them up a bit. I find they just add a little definition to the sound. But I have tried without and there really isn`t that much in it. Certainly if I used fresh strings I`d have the tweeters off. For a Precision with flats the TH500/Midget combination would be just great, I reckon.

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[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1421421612' post='2661030']
As I play gnarly, gainy, twangy punk in a 3 piece I have the tweeters on though much of this is due to my preference of old, dead roundwounds to liven them up a bit. I find they just add a little definition to the sound. But I have tried without and there really isn`t that much in it. Certainly if I used fresh strings I`d have the tweeters off. For a Precision with flats the TH500/Midget combination would be just great, I reckon.
[/quote]

Thanks, from the short test i had at the bash the Tonehammer certainly seemed to fit the bill, i hardly touched the controls, i just plugged in and it just sounded exactly right straight away, i guess it might sound a little different in a band setting but i'm confident that it will be very easy to tweak it to fit perfectly, we're a pub covers band with a fairly wide range of styles but we veer towards punk a lot of the time (when we don't accidentally drop into pseudo-reggae!)

Matt

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  • 1 month later...

I've just got one, and I'm pleased with it -but I'm a little baffled by the interaction of the gain and the tone controls. Wouldn't you think that when the gain is set at zero, there would be no sound at all? I played most of last night's rehearsal with the gain on zero!! (And I was pretty loud...). :blink:

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[quote name='GILLY' timestamp='1426011718' post='2713434']
Well I never! Just fired mine up and it is exactly the same as yours.
[/quote]

Odd, isn't it? :blink: It kind of implies that the tone circuitry comes before the gain control in the signal chain... Can that be right? :huh:

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  • 1 month later...

One thing to note about these amps is that the drive control does more than add drive, it rolls off the highs and deep lows, kind of like a vintage speaker emulator. I hear that it's like a variable version of the AGS stomp switch on the Tonehammer pedal.

I really liked mine, but returned it as the fan was too loud and kicked in at full blast after 10 minutes of being switched on. Not a problem on a gig, but for quiet home practice it was a deal breaker. Already had the 'well you should buy a practice amp for practice' responses from a few people on Talkbass who were rather upset about the fact I wanted a quieter fan. Shame really as I loved the sound, just wished it had a more intelligent fan control that only kicked in when needed and adjusted the fan speed as necessary.

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  • 7 years later...

TH500 is great for me. The preamp controls is perfect for me. The only thing i don't like is that the drive option is very much connected to the gain position. The problem is that if i want to play with drive i must add gain also to get the sound i want with drive and the whole sound gets very much over that standart without drive. I don't feel comfortable to use the drive option in gigs. But after all the TH500 is the greatest D amp i ever tested and owned. 

Edited by nilorius
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I`d forgotten that I did this review. I must admit I did like my Tonehammers, and given how loud they are I never experience any "running out of steam" issues with them. Great little amps.

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