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Hellborg amps and cabs on sale. 01/2019


itu

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The age-old 5532? Reminds me of old mixer and Alembic designs. It is a dual opamp (NE5534 is the single version), that has low noise, consumes quite a lot of power (for an opamp) and has a low impedance output (this is the reason for relatively high power consumption). There are better and newer solutions, but NE553X has good performance even today.

After some search, I found a spec sheet of the NE5534 from July 1979!

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4 hours ago, Hellzero said:

@LukeFRC : If you have the complete schematic of the Hellborg preamp, please share it.

Here are the guts of if :

IMG_2252.thumb.JPG.c2e4a0dbd7d789b1d00070e2de2ca377.JPG

Right ... so I read it wrong. 

I think I tried to trace it and got it and couldn’t work it out - the schematic makes it clearer - this is the input section...

JH-PRE-INPUT-S.PDF

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The NE5532 (or 5534) is still used today in high end hi-fi because it's simply a reference and a really musical opamp... When I had my DAC construction syndrome, I found it was certainly one of the best opamp, if not the best. And it has a 600 Ohms output load, so perfect for studio gear like lots of Neve studio channel strips. And, by the way, a 12AX7 tube dates back to 1947 and is still a reference today.... 

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Just got home from the first proper all Hellborg amp/cab gig. I love this amp and the cabs. The sound was full, tight, clear and warm but if I wanted more note articulation I could just dig in a little and the notes popped out. Versus Class D amps I feel more comfortable with playing into the older technology of solid state amps. I feel like they can deliver a more solid sound and manage with a range of dynamic playing from soft to heavy fingerstyle playing and heavy slapping. It just seems to respond better and deliver, and I used to use a posh miura M2 compressor to but I find that unnecessary now.

I have been using iem for the last year and tonight I decide to give the Hellborg a go, minus the iem and I did not miss them at all. In fact it felt a lot more natural to me! 

Yeah it's heavy... But I loaded all my gear in to the house in under 5 minutes at 2:30am with little hassle. Definitely worth it... Also definitely enjoying not using pedals any longer as well. 

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Hi all,

 

can you elaborate on the Hellborg cabs? I am interested in the 1x15 and also 2x12 cabs. I imagine a very hifi-ish sound, not doing overly well with an overdrive pedal. But I could be wrong. 

 

the Hellborg amp section is definitely great and can handle any situation.

Best,

Ray

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Hey wimbish. 

I can only comment on the club cab and lo cab. The sound is incredibly clear and articulate with the club cab. It's full range I think and yes, many people describe it more like a studio monitor than a typical bass cab. However it is also still very warm and punchy and find that I shape my sound using the Hellborg pre much in the same way as if you were using a console in a studio. I tend to boost the bass, cut a fair bit of 800hz boost a bit of 3 or 5k and then slightly roll off the treble which takes the very high end off needed or I might leave it flat.  I wouldn't compare it to a traditional speaker and tweeter combination cab, the tone sounds together as one thing not two things working separately... If that makes sense?!

I haven't got an overdrive at the moment, but I think you'd need to shape the tone with the Hellborg EQ to make it sound pleasant or have some sort of EQ on the drive pedal to shape the drive before hitting the amp. 

 

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Hi everyone

I was lucky to buy the Pre+Stereo+Club+Lo at Thomann, and I'm currently evaluating the set.

The stereo amp is not behaving as I expected: the amp is making a lot of noise, sounds like a high pitched 50 Hz based ripple from the power supply. The slits in the front make it easy to hear it in the whole room.
Worse to this, the amp is replicating this noise to the speakers, even at zero volume. And that can be heard even outside the room......

Quickly ordered a 2nd one (I was a little scared they would be out-of-stock also😊 ), slightly less noise, but same problem.

This only occurs when the amp is in stereo mode!. The ripple is acceptable in bridged mode. Seems like in bridge mode, the ripple is on both channels and cancels out.
 

Does this sound familiar to you? I know another guy in Holland who is facing the same problems with the amp, it seems that it has nothing to do with the other hardware, grounding problems etc.
I find this very strange, I cannot imagine this is acceptable in a studio environment. (I didnt contact Thomann so far, I just thought my 1st amp was simply faulty).

Thanks!

 

 

 

Edited by TonyMontana
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6 hours ago, TonyMontana said:

Hi everyone

I was lucky to buy the Pre+Stereo+Club+Lo at Thomann, and I'm currently evaluating the set.

The stereo amp is not behaving as I expected: the amp is making a lot of noise, sounds like a high pitched 50 Hz based ripple from the power supply. The slits in the front make it easy to hear it in the whole room.
Worse to this, the amp is replicating this noise to the speakers, even at zero volume. And that can be heard even outside the room......

Quickly ordered a 2nd one (I was a little scared they would be out-of-stock also😊 ), slightly less noise, but same problem.

This only occurs when the amp is in stereo mode!. The ripple is acceptable in bridged mode. Seems like in bridge mode, the ripple is on both channels and cancels out.
 

Does this sound familiar to you? I know another guy in Holland who is facing the same problems with the amp, it seems that it has nothing to do with the other hardware, grounding problems etc.
I find this very strange, I cannot imagine this is acceptable in a studio environment. (I didnt contact Thomann so far, I just thought my 1st amp was simply faulty).

Thanks!

 

 

 

@Warwick_Official still post in here? They should know

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I’ve posted fairly extensively re: unexpected behaviour with the Hellborg power amps - my stereo power amp went straight back to Thomann (I’d previously owned a mono power with which I wasn’t entirely happy). The pre, on the other hand, is stunning IMO

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 27/02/2019 at 15:27, Hellzero said:

By the way, you can get a 4 years full warranty by Warwick by filling this, worth loosing some time and putting your invoice in jpeg format : https://shop.warwick.de/?modul=shop&site=productregister

Only applicable to German and Austrian residents.

Wonder if that is allowed according European consumer laws.

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On 28/02/2019 at 01:04, TonyMontana said:

Hi everyone

I was lucky to buy the Pre+Stereo+Club+Lo at Thomann, and I'm currently evaluating the set.

The stereo amp is not behaving as I expected: the amp is making a lot of noise, sounds like a high pitched 50 Hz based ripple from the power supply. The slits in the front make it easy to hear it in the whole room.
Worse to this, the amp is replicating this noise to the speakers, even at zero volume. And that can be heard even outside the room......

Quickly ordered a 2nd one (I was a little scared they would be out-of-stock also😊 ), slightly less noise, but same problem.

This only occurs when the amp is in stereo mode!. The ripple is acceptable in bridged mode. Seems like in bridge mode, the ripple is on both channels and cancels out.
 

Does this sound familiar to you? I know another guy in Holland who is facing the same problems with the amp, it seems that it has nothing to do with the other hardware, grounding problems etc.
I find this very strange, I cannot imagine this is acceptable in a studio environment. (I didnt contact Thomann so far, I just thought my 1st amp was simply faulty).

Thanks!

 

 

 

Message back from Thomann:

They compared the amp I sent back to another amp, and the amount of noise was the same.
Duh! Really, do those guys ever read beyond the first line of the problem report.

I'm waiting for the mono 500 to arrive. So far I'm not impressed with the set, but that could be because of all the bad karma with this set so far.
Fellow bassplayer reported the mono to be dead -silent, I hope this will be the start of huge amounts of enthousiasm.
Still have left a few weeks to decide.

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9 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Urm, I'm Belgian, living in Belgium and it worked for me.

I really hope so it is!
But the conditions are very clear, and the proof of it will probably be when you have a claim in the 3-4 year period.

Still worth a shot filling in the form, thanks for the screenshot!

Edited by TonyMontana
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On 28/02/2019 at 00:04, TonyMontana said:

Hi everyone

I was lucky to buy the Pre+Stereo+Club+Lo at Thomann, and I'm currently evaluating the set.

The stereo amp is not behaving as I expected: the amp is making a lot of noise, sounds like a high pitched 50 Hz based ripple from the power supply. The slits in the front make it easy to hear it in the whole room.
Worse to this, the amp is replicating this noise to the speakers, even at zero volume. And that can be heard even outside the room......

Quickly ordered a 2nd one (I was a little scared they would be out-of-stock also😊 ), slightly less noise, but same problem.

This only occurs when the amp is in stereo mode!. The ripple is acceptable in bridged mode. Seems like in bridge mode, the ripple is on both channels and cancels out.
 

Does this sound familiar to you? I know another guy in Holland who is facing the same problems with the amp, it seems that it has nothing to do with the other hardware, grounding problems etc.
I find this very strange, I cannot imagine this is acceptable in a studio environment. (I didnt contact Thomann so far, I just thought my 1st amp was simply faulty).

Thanks!

 

 

 

I think I had a similar problem with a heavy poweramp I had bought that got smashed by the courier. On my amp the symptom was the transformers not being tightened down properly

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The guarantee has worked for me too in the UK. On the noise issue, I’ve experienced this with both my Hellborg power amps - one sold, the other returned to Thomann. There’s definitely an element of harmonic colouration/distortion that you’ll either appreciate or not (I’m in the latter camp). With the first amp there was also intermittent internal noise

Edited by three
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On 21/02/2019 at 22:22, LukeFRC said:

+1 on that question 

 

RE the hellborg pre amp - while it is exceptional as far as I can tell it isn’t based on a Neve or API circuit but a high end pre stage based on a different preamp design based around the input stage IC . Also if I can read a schematic correctly the input stage transformer is bypassed when using a quarter inch jack lead in...,

No one answered so I just bought one to see.

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