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Need a new amp, any suggestions?


51m0n

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34 minutes ago, 51m0n said:

The Warwick is too daft, I don't need two independent channels.

Trickfish is interesting, as is Glockenklang, and the Darkglass m900 v1. GAK have an m900 so I'll have a crack at that. But it's not easily rack mounted, and I probably don't have a use for the overdrives.

I didn't say money was no object quite, I said quality costs 🙂, but there is a point where the premium unicorn poop is not quite worth double the money.

If I really didn't care how much it was I'd have a Glock Blue Rock, and it may be what I end up with, however if I can get close enough to it to not care for less then I'd be being a little daft wasting money I don't need to. 

Does anyone know if the Steamhammer is close to the Blue Rock in core tone? For a serious company Glockenklang's web presence is woeful!

I've had a few Glockenklang amps over the year and what I can tell is that the core tone is the same on every amp I've owned, being it class AB or class D power amp, which are, in order of appearance : Heart-Core head, Soul Combo, Heart-Rock head, Soul II Head and a Blue Soul head plus lots of cabinets.

In fact, I've even preferred the Blue Soul over all the others, as it was even faster in response than the others with class AB power amps. And the fan was very very very quiet.

I tried the Bass Art first generations and they were awesome, but way much too expensive for me at the time.

That said Thomann or Music Store offer the same 30 days return warranty in case you don't like your purchase. And it's working as I sent back, last week, the Hartke LH 1000 I bought as it was too fan(s) noisy for me even if the tone was quite good and pleasant.

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So having said you're after a Markbass tone from your amp, the DG M900v1 is now at the top of your list?! 

Lol! 

Not that it's a bad amp...it is my current gigging amp after all!  But I wouldn't equate it to a Markbass amp. 

It is however shiny. Maybe that's all you really need? 😀

 

Edited by Al Krow
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38 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

So having said you're after a Markbass tone from your amp, the DG M900v1 is now at the top of your list?! 

Lol! 

Not that it's a bad amp...it is my current gigging amp after all!  But I wouldn't equate it to a Markbass amp. 

It is however shiny. Maybe that's all you really need? 😀

 

Not quite, the m900 is the only thing I can find nearby to give me an idea about its core tone, IE there is one around the corner to listen to. I am prepared to go to Bass Direct to have a proper play if I have to!

I know I loved the sa450, nothing else I've heard of or read reviews of seems to suggest a similar core tone with that feature set, the semi parametric EQ and separate line out level control are really useful.

Given that appears to be the case I am willing to see if I can get anywhere with other offerings.

My son has a Quilter, in the time I've had with it, a couple of rehearsals, I concluded it was a great amp but too bright and a little harsher than I'd like, something the eq doesn't really dial out.

I'm interested in seeing if any of the current crop of lightweight heads can be made to sound like what I want to hear.

On top of which if I had one thing to moan about with the sa450 it would be a slight lack of headroom. The newer 700+ watt heads should mean I can truly gig with an amp on tick over, which means longer life and less issues.

Shiny is nice though 😍

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3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Well then instead of getting a new bass amp get some better monitors instead. The whole band will benefit.

Like I said before, we quite often don't get to chose our pa or sound people. In those cases a decent bass rig is still the best solution imo.

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If you like markbass, how about a markbass evo 1?

That is 2 channel - 500w - 3kg, has built in tuner, x2 di outs, compressor, chorus, envelope, drive, delay etc and models of:

LM3, TTE500, SVT, SVT blue line, Trace Elliot, Marshall superbass, Fender bassman, Gallien krueger, SWR redhead, and more...

I could be tempted to part with mine - as im having a big clearout - id be looking around £450.

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16 hours ago, la bam said:

If you like markbass, how about a markbass evo 1?

That is 2 channel - 500w - 3kg, has built in tuner, x2 di outs, compressor, chorus, envelope, drive, delay etc and models of:

LM3, TTE500, SVT, SVT blue line, Trace Elliot, Marshall superbass, Fender bassman, Gallien krueger, SWR redhead, and more...

I could be tempted to part with mine - as im having a big clearout - id be looking around £450.

Well, I would like a bit more headroom than 500w ideally, I don't need 2 channels, I don't really dig modelling amps particularly, and that is a lot of extra stuff in a box to go wrong, if you know what I mean!

But it was an interesting thought!

 

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So I went up to Bass Direct on Sunday.

Tried out the Glockenklang Steamhammer,  Mesa-Boogie d800 and the Trickfish .5k side by side through a Barefaced Big Baby II.

I had tried the Darkglass m900 in GAK on Friday.

To cut a long story short the Trickfish makes the rest of them just utterly redundant to my ear. Just a way better tonal starting point. I don't think this amp is flat with everything set to noon by any means. But whatever, it just sounds brilliant.

All the bells and whistles on those other amps don't mean a thing, because at the end of the day the core Trickfish tone is just better.

So it has a 700w ICE power section and I think that may be enough, but to be sure I am going back a week tomorrow to test a 1k they are getting in with my Big Twin. If the .5k is enough I will get that, if I think I need the extra power reserve to be able to leave the amp idling and achieve war volume, I'll go for the 1k.

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Good stuff!

The power rating on the TF amps has always been a bit of a bug bear and a number of users (on Talkbass in particular) have felt it is underpowered. The 1K is rated at 1,000 peak and therefore probably around 500W to 600W RMS, and I presume the .5k at half that. 

If the smaller one suffices for you, there's one going in the FS which I think has already been mentioned. 

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6 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Good stuff!

The power rating on the TF amps has always been a bit of a bug bear and a number of users (on Talkbass in particular) have felt it is underpowered. The 1K is rated at 1,000 peak and therefore probably around 500W to 600W RMS, and I presume the .5k at half that. 

If the smaller one suffices for you, there's one going in the FS which I think has already been mentioned. 

To be precise it's 1000w peak AT 8 OHMS. So maybe 500w RMS or thereabouts at 8 OHMS which could be 700w RMS at 4ohms.

 

Well the .5k uses the ICE power section apparently.

I did feel it was not as loud as the other amps, but here is an interesting point, to get them to sound even somewhere close required a lot of EQ work, removing an inherent nasal quality and pushing the low end a lot.

Now that requires more power and the volume difference becomes less obvious once you start getting those amps closer to the inherent tone of the Trickfish.

But I definitely want more headroom than my sa450 had and that's why I didn't walk away with a .5k there and then

Edited by 51m0n
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The Trickfish .5k uses an Ice Power module like most the powerful Class D amplifier, when the 1k uses a Pascal power module just like, for the moment, only one other amplifier which is the Warwick LWA1000. The GSS Sumo 1000 certainly uses the same Pascal power module, but it's a mono power amp only. 

As I already wrote, the Trickfishes use a Michael POPE Flex Core derived preamp, so to date the most transparent preamp available. That could be the explanation for that :

53 minutes ago, 51m0n said:

way better tonal starting point. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

The Trickfish .5k uses an Ice Power module like most the powerful Class D amplifier, when the 1k uses a Pascal power module just like, for the moment, only one other amplifier which is the Warwick LWA1000. The GSS Sumo 1000 certainly uses the same Pascal power module, but it's a mono power amp only. 

As I already wrote, the Trickfishes use a Michael POPE Flex Core derived preamp, so to date the most transparent preamp available. That could be the explanation for that :

 

It's not just a standard Pascal power amp, it has uprated caps to better cope with very large peaks apparently....

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And to do so with the capacitors, they would be bigger than the case itself. In fact PWM power supplies have lightning fast response to big current comsuption, so can cope easily with large peaks. No need for bigger capacitors here.

That said, the Ice Power and tve Pascal don't sound the same. The Ice Power being a bit darker.

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Just to chime in on the loudness of the Trickfish. It's plenty loud enough for wedding type/function gigs and also stays solid when pushed and competing with Marshall stacks... Even then it wasn't maxed out and was running just with the 8ohm cab.

One thing I should mention is that I tend to mostly play with professional musicians and usually find that we are sensible with stage and rehearsal volumes, so maybe I haven't had to compete with a guitarist with two 4x12 Randall stacks and no PA support 😉 

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13 minutes ago, 51m0n said:

Fascinating, there's a lot of mentions of the uprated capacitors out there. Surely it can't be smoke and mirrors 🤣

Indeed, by people who read what's on the website and never compared the two. That said, it's a minor detail. Buy the one you like, but be aware that, as I wrote, what is really making the sound of this amp is the most transparent preamp to date : the Michael POPE one.

And to be honest, I really don't like your aggresivity about my comments when I only try to help.

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1 hour ago, Hellzero said:

Indeed, by people who read what's on the website and never compared the two. That said, it's a minor detail. Buy the one you like, but be aware that, as I wrote, what is really making the sound of this amp is the most transparent preamp to date : the Michael POPE one.

And to be honest, I really don't like your aggresivity about my comments when I only try to help.

Mate, that's called sarcasm. It's quite different from aggression, and was actually aimed at the other reports not yours.

 

Chill out!

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