Need a new amp, any suggestions?

[51m0n]

Well you will all probably enjoy this, the Trickfish is going back tomorrow...
 

Its had an issue (really odd noise that at some gain settings on passive basses is intrusive enough to make me not be happy, a sort of chuffing/huffing intermittent rhythmic noise with a very pronounced tweeter only whine, reminiscent of a sort of DSP bleed), its been 'fixed' (power amp module replacement, I was not at all convinced it was the power amp module for various reasons), the 'fix' has turned up another issue (whilst at extreme settings showing the original issue to still be there), blah blah....

What can I say, Mark at Bass Direct has been brilliant in trying to keep me happy and resolve this. Very happy to be dealing with him.

Trickfish are a fine company, their preamp is just great but, the amp had a poor S/N ratio to my ears under certain circumstances very poor. Post fix it couldn't handle the dynamic range I need an amp to cope with, and its power amp protection system shut the amp down, in rehearsal, repeatedly, regardless of my input gain setting going lower and lower, if the output volume was set to keep up with my (quite loud) drummer (on his own though, just me and him).

I should say this was a single unit, it may well be a one off problem, I wouldn't suggest anyone hold the company to ransom over my experience, but for me I have rather lost faith in the brand, at least for now.

Silver lining is tomorrow I am going back to Mark at Bass Direct going to be looking at the new EA iAMP Classic and the Eich T1000...

 

 

[Al Krow]

Actually no schadenfreude on my part, matey - I'm very sorry to hear it didn't work out. 

But I think I'm due to get bought a couple of pints from you by default though, right?  

Whilst you're at BD please let us have your thoughts on the Mesa WD-800 - a number of us are really interested to hear whether this is living up to the hype and feature set.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Al Krow

[51m0n]

Well naturally I owe pints on this one. Bugger 😂

I compared the wd800 with the Glock and Trickfish and a few others last time around. I was entirely unconvinced by the flat tone of all of the compared to the Trickfish, and to date I've not heard a built in overdrive channel that I liked. Then again my idea of awesome overdrive is definitely in the SGFX Beta, a kind of deep whumphhhhfff of a drive. All that grumpy grindy drive stuff isn't for me in the main.

[51m0n]

Ok so I now have one of the new EA iAmp Classics.

Love the feature set, 4 band sweepable eq baby, hell yeah! 

Nice tone, full but with a lovely upper mid presence.

Best input level monitor I've seen on a bass amp, you all know I love an input monitor 😍

And 1200w. It's not remotely shy. Down to 2ohms too, I could run the BT2 and a pair of BB2 with this. Holy crap 😆

[51m0n]

Didn't get a chance to play with anything else but the Eich T1000, bad traffic meant I was pretty time limited.

It's a good amp, tons of great features, maybe too many, a work of Satan compressor, no frequency control on its EQ though. All round tighter sound, more controlled bottom end, but the EA has a switchable HPF at 20Hz which I will leave in, it's like a built in thumpinator.

 

The EA definitely seemed louder by a smidge to me. I preferred it's features and core tone. It is not a small amp, and on the upper end of the lightweight amp scale, but I don't mind that it's still very light and it will live in a rack anyway.

 

Looking forward to trying it in anger.

[51m0n]

Spent a couple of hours with the EA last night tinkering, as you do.

I haven't ever found a preset 'shape/contour' mechanism I liked the sound of, until now. The EA contour 1 profile is absolutely amazing, its literally what I would do if it were just up to me and I had a fully parametric EQ.

Caveat, this is definitely running at bedroom warrior levels, when this is running in full 'war mode' it may be a bit much in terms of low end, but there is a fully sweepable eq to use to tame it a tad if necessary.

Still completely digging the upper mid range thing going on there, its a really lovely presence that's happening that I haven't heard in other solid state super clean amps.

As for how loud is it, the blurb reckons it has a very linear volume pot, it certainly seems to be so although again I haven't been able to go flat out against a drummer yet to confirm, and I got asked to turn it down  a bit when it was running at about 0.5 out of 10 - oops

It gets warmer than the Trickfish did, not worryingly so, but there was definite warmth from it after the fiddling about. Just interesting, this amp has no fan at all, if I think its going to struggle to lose heat in a rack then I will get a couple of 120mm slow silent cooling fans and mount them in the back of the rack, that will do it.

[pete.young]

Good to hear that you're having fun with the amp and looking forward to some more reviews when it's proper loud. I didn't realise that they had re-issued the classic design. I have one of the old iAmp 350 heads and, while it doesn't have the fancy input monitor, it does have the same tone stack. Very versatile, and very clean with no colouration. If your bass sounds like shite (I know yours doesnt!) there's no hiding place!

[51m0n]

2 hours ago, pete.young said:

Good to hear that you're having fun with the amp and looking forward to some more reviews when it's proper loud. I didn't realise that they had re-issued the classic design. I have one of the old iAmp 350 heads and, while it doesn't have the fancy input monitor, it does have the same tone stack. Very versatile, and very clean with no colouration. If your bass sounds like shite (I know yours doesnt!) there's no hiding place!

You're not wrong about no place to hide, if you put poop in this you just get louder poop out 😂

[51m0n]

First full band rehearsal with it last night - the wait has been tortuous, had some very low volume writing sessions but nothing to give it a work out.

I am a very happy bunny, this thing is monstrous, so much grunt, really can cope putting out a full range bass tone at serious volume.

The aforementioned contour button didn't work in a full band context, ended up with hpf, eq, deep and bright in and then a boost around 1 to 2KHz to bring out the grindiness in my Roscoe tone and cut some flab at about 200Hz. This is with pretty dead strings, but even then the tone is just amazing in context, even the bridge pickup on its own feels fat, the neck pup alone (my standard go to tone in full band context) is just huge but tight at the same time. Handled filters and grindy nonsense with aplomb too.

The rest of the band seemed to like it too, guitarist looked rather askance when I fired it up - it is definitely not shy...

 

 

[chris_b]

On 02/06/2019 at 16:26, pete.young said:

If your bass sounds like shite (I know yours doesnt!) there's no hiding place!

This is the problem with the new breed of amps and cabs. With the level of clarity and definition on tap, never mind full blown mistakes, all the fluffs, hesitant notes and the slightest inaccuracies also stand out a mile!

[51m0n]

53 minutes ago, chris_b said:

This is the problem with the new breed of amps and cabs. With the level of clarity and definition on tap, never mind full blown mistakes, all the fluffs, hesitant notes and the slightest inaccuracies also stand out a mile!

Just suck all the mids and top out, instantly just like the old days, muddy blleeuuurgh all night