A lost art. Trace elliot

[la bam]

1 hour ago, Minininjarob said:

Although I’m a relative newbie to bass just a few months after starting I had a thread on here where I asked about old heads into new cabs. 
If the old heads sound so good why not pair them with a modern lightweight cab? Yes a valve head will be heavy still but there’s loads of solid state heads that sound amazing, sell for peanuts and have power and heft for days. And even if a solid state head is a bit heavy they are relatively small compared to a big old combo so still quite easy to move around. 
I now have a GK 400rb head in a rack mount case (can carry in one hand) going into a modern GK 210 cab. It sounds flipping amazing, the wattage of 230w into my cab absolutely decimates 500w (and more) class D heads and even better I can take it apart and fix it myself if needed. Not that it will be likely as it’s 25/30 years old and works like new. 
Everyone who hears my setup says it sounds amazing. 
I genuinely can’t see why you’d want a new school head - unless you don’t have a car or have physical impairments that severely limit your lifting ability - when it can be this good with older stuff. 

 

Its a fair point, everytime, and I mean everytime I try a big old solid state a/b type amp it is night and day difference to a small class d head. Cabs too. They just push air in that old satisfying way, that I've never really got with a lightweight cab - although I can see why people don't want to lug those about. 

[Lozz196]

Yup, I’m in that camp too. I’ve been more than satisfied with all the lightweight amps & cabs I’ve had but whenever I’ve used a bit of old heavy gear there’s just been something “more” to the sound and the feel of the sound on stage. Especially if it’s a big stage. 

[ClusterOne]

Hello,

 

Funny enough, looks like i am not the only one somehow feeling that the old gear is ,,the thing,,..

 

I have accumulated few bass heads lately since i moved away from,,headphone,, silent practice (Zoom B1 Four) to fully fledged bass heads & cabs..

In the order i got these:

Warwick Gnome iPro v2 

Trace Elliot GP7SM 150W 

Ashdown RM 500 EVO

and latest acquisition GK 400RB III 15” combo.

 

I can for sure say that Trace Elliot is great sounding (to me) and what surprises me (bear in mind i am forever newbie and not really experienced in amps as such) it can push low end very nice and clean without being pushed hard on overall volume.
Simply said at low volume it can by loud in terms of low end without breaking sweat or I don’t know how to explain it..

Found out by using ,,shape,, button and generally mucking about with graphic eq etc.

Sounds fab for measly £55 i paid for it though had to drive for 2 hours each way..

 

Ashdown sounds good too.

 

The GK 400RB III - for that brief time i played with it yesterday evening i can say this combo (15” speaker) is just from another planet…

Everything that i said about Trace Elliot applies here, the sound is obviously different so i am not going to say it’s better the Trace as this is highly personal opinion to everyone.

The cherry on the top is the cooling fan - it doesn’t spin if there is no need for it..

So dead quiet, actually I need to find out how to push the amp to see if it kicks in at all..

Heavy as hell though 😁

 

Warwick amazing at it’s size but absolutely no match to TE never mind GK in terms of impression you get from how it sounds.

Fantastic thing though given it’s A5 in size and just over an inch thick, very quiet fan.

 

Moral story:

If i was pushed to keep one or two it would be definitely:

1:GK

2:TE 

3:Ash

4:Warwick

 

There is something in the old iron, it’s just the feeling that you can open it up and actually see what is wrong with it rather than shrugging the shoulders and bin it..

 

If it is old & heavy it must be good.. 👍 😁

 

 

 

[Minininjarob]

1 hour ago, ClusterOne said:

Hello,

 

Funny enough, looks like i am not the only one somehow feeling that the old gear is ,,the thing,,..

 

I have accumulated few bass heads lately since i moved away from,,headphone,, silent practice (Zoom B1 Four) to fully fledged bass heads & cabs..

In the order i got these:

Warwick Gnome iPro v2 

Trace Elliot GP7SM 150W 

Ashdown RM 500 EVO

and latest acquisition GK 400RB III 15” combo.

 

I can for sure say that Trace Elliot is great sounding (to me) and what surprises me (bear in mind i am forever newbie and not really experienced in amps as such) it can push low end very nice and clean without being pushed hard on overall volume.
Simply said at low volume it can by loud in terms of low end without breaking sweat or I don’t know how to explain it..

Found out by using ,,shape,, button and generally mucking about with graphic eq etc.

Sounds fab for measly £55 i paid for it though had to drive for 2 hours each way..

 

Ashdown sounds good too.

 

The GK 400RB III - for that brief time i played with it yesterday evening i can say this combo (15” speaker) is just from another planet…

Everything that i said about Trace Elliot applies here, the sound is obviously different so i am not going to say it’s better the Trace as this is highly personal opinion to everyone.

The cherry on the top is the cooling fan - it doesn’t spin if there is no need for it..

So dead quiet, actually I need to find out how to push the amp to see if it kicks in at all..

Heavy as hell though 😁

 

Warwick amazing at it’s size but absolutely no match to TE never mind GK in terms of impression you get from how it sounds.

Fantastic thing though given it’s A5 in size and just over an inch thick, very quiet fan.

 

Moral story:

If i was pushed to keep one or two it would be definitely:

1:GK

2:TE 

3:Ash

4:Warwick

 

There is something in the old iron, it’s just the feeling that you can open it up and actually see what is wrong with it rather than shrugging the shoulders and bin it..

 

If it is old & heavy it must be good.. 👍 😁

 

 

 

The 400rb on its own as a head is amazing, I thought of taking the head out of a combo and making a new head and ditching the rest of the combo but I’d have to make an outer case. 
Also the GK sounds better the more you turn it up. 

Edited Sunday at 21:56 by Minininjarob

[Sparky Mark]

This old TE head sounds amazing through my Bergantino ceramic magnet driver cabs.

[Sparky Mark]

This was my TE combo on cab tower.

[Bass Direct]

Lots of love for Trace Elliot here, its a shame the new offerings didn't have more of a nod back to the old times with the graphic, glowing green lights etc etc

[la bam]

Such a good sound. I'm loving the fact everything is on the facia too and is switchable on/off. 

 

2 eq presets

13 band eq

Tilt eq

Compression hi

Compression lo

Valve or solid state pre

Etc

[SimonK]

5 hours ago, Bass Direct said:

Lots of love for Trace Elliot here, its a shame the new offerings didn't have more of a nod back to the old times with the graphic, glowing green lights etc etc

 

...or the tank like build quality...

 

The new Trace amps are really Peavey, a company who I may never trust after this which possibly explains the title to this thread (a lost art!):
 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Would it be a sin to remove the gp11 preamp from my 1110 combo and marry it to a 500W class d power amp?

[Sparky Mark]

11 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Would it be a sin to remove the gp11 preamp from my 1110 combo and marry it to a 500W class d power amp?

Absolutely not, but what are you wanting to achieve; a lighter weight?

[prowla]

10 hours ago, SimonK said:

 

...or the tank like build quality...

 

The new Trace amps are really Peavey, a company who I may never trust after this which possibly explains the title to this thread (a lost art!):
 

 

In fairness to Peavey, I think they had good intentions and were perhaps caughtup in the programme, but then commercial reality hit.

Their ex-employees weren't treated fairly though.

[Stub Mandrel]

9 hours ago, Sparky Mark said:

Absolutely not, but what are you wanting to achieve; a lighter weight?

 

Making it practical to use.

[Bass Direct]

11 hours ago, SimonK said:

 

...or the tank like build quality...

 

The new Trace amps are really Peavey, a company who I may never trust after this which possibly explains the title to this thread (a lost art!):
 

 

We know  

 

[la bam]

11 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Would it be a sin to remove the gp11 preamp from my 1110 combo and marry it to a 500W class d power amp?

 

Its the 'iron' of the power amp in these, and similar ones, that gives them a lot of the sound. 

[King Tut]

5 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Making it practical to use.

In my view the heavy amps are practical to use despite their weight. It’s the cabs that are back breakers. If you wanna go down that road might be an idea just to buy an old trace pre and pair it with an amp of your choice but sounds like a lot of ball ache to me.

[snorkie635]

The only surviving image of me, when I played through a TE Quatravalve into a 1x18" and a 4x10" and a 4x5" brightbox. So young back then, I didn't even notice the weight. 😢

[Sparky Mark]

3 minutes ago, snorkie635 said:

The only surviving image of me, when I played through a TE Quatravalve into a 1x18" and a 4x10" and a 4x5" brightbox. So young back then, I didn't even notice the weight. 😢

Do you still have the Dolphin?

[snorkie635]

1 minute ago, Sparky Mark said:

Do you still have the Dolphin?

Afraid it swam off as a trade against an Overwater, many moons ago.

[Sparky Mark]

2 minutes ago, snorkie635 said:

Afraid it swam off as a trade against an Overwater, many moons ago.

That's the only Warwick I'd be tempted by in addition to my Thumb.

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

4 hours ago, la bam said:

 

Its the 'iron' of the power amp in these, and similar ones, that gives them a lot of the sound. 

 

I no longer believe this. I have heard and played through too many good class D amps.

The Trace Elliott mosfet power amps are good, solid designs but there's absolutely nothing special or innovative about them, they are very basic designs. A simple differential amp taking feedback from a push-pull ouput stage. 

All the 'Trace Magic' is in the preamp design and the fact that the output stages were genuinely powerful. Class D is ultra faithful to preamps and most have headroom and power way beyond Trace designs.

[peteb]

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I no longer believe this. I have heard and played through too many good class D amps.

 

Funnily enough, despite my best efforts, I'm in the opposite camp. I tried out loads (and sent a lot of money on one), and even though some of them have a decent enough tone, I've never found one that has a response that works for me live. I ended up selling my expensive Class D amp and getting a Handbox hybrid amp, which is an easy one-hand carry but sounds great. 

 

As far as the OP goes, I'll see your Trace Elliot and raise you an old SWR amp. For me, SWR coming onto the market was the big step forward for bass amplification. You can pick up secondhand SM-900 heads for a song these days and they are serious amps (the cabs were superb as well).