Borrowed amp last night.

[Painy]

So last weekend my much loved old Ampeg B500 combo amp died on me at a gig and, as I'm still in the process of arranging a replacement (deposit paid on an Ampeg B5 head in the BC Marketplace as it runs down to 2 ohms which will let me use my existing speaker set up), I borrowed our lead guitarist's younger brother's Trace Elliot AH400SMX head (which he actually bought from me years ago).
Now I always loved the sound of my old Ampeg rig but, for about the last year or so, I've been having to use more and more extreme EQ settings and been struggling to get the sound that I'd had out of it in the past.
Well last night the sound was absolutely immense! Not exactly the Ampeg tone I love but there was so much more clarity and bite in the upper mids and real heft in the lows than I had been getting recently. I'm guessing my old amp had actually been gradually deteriorating over a period of time before finally giving up the ghost last week. Anyway, I'm now really looking forward to getting this new amp - just hoping it will give me the clarity and depth I got last night from the borrowed Trace amp but with that Ampeg 'roundsound'.

[VTypeV4]

I always found the old 400w Trace to be the best S/S model they ever built..

Hope your Ampeg gets sorted..

[Deedee]

+1. For me, any Trace SMX amp will cut through like nothing else. You could always get one as a back up for the Ampeg 😉

[Painy]

After last night I was kinda thinking I should never have sold it to him in the first place. Would definitely make a great backup at the very least. I do still like that Ampeg sound though.