New (bass) amp day

Col_Decker

Thanks to the eBay I am now daddy to one of these bad boys ...

 

 

 

 

Ashdown MAG 300 head. £132 inc P&P. RESULT!!!

 

 

You may now tell me how crap they are, and how your mate had one and it blew up at a gig, burned his house down, and ran off with his wife.

Shark_Eyes

I've always wanted one of these, despite the homewrecker potential.

Col_Decker

Oh yes it goes without saying the Mrs doesn't know about it yet.

ThePrettyDamned

My mate had one.

It blew up after making him sound shite at a gig, which led to his girlfriend dumping him for the drummer.

When he got home, he tested the now broken amp and it set fire to the mains. When attempting escape, he saw me outside ploughing his mum.

He was lost in the flames.

Just kidding, that looks pretty great. How does it sound?

Col_Decker

LOL. I won't get it till Friday so I won't now how this one sounds. But I use an earlier version at our practice rooms and I likes it a lot. A simple thumpy warm growling sound. Probably not so great for slap, but you can't have everything.

not_the_dj

Ashdown are never ever referred to as Crashdown....oh no, not ever.

Col_Decker

lol they do seem to divide opinion on the bass forums.

ICBM

These ones are actually slightly less unreliable than the posher Evo models in my experience.

That said there are two (of the older model with the wider casing) sitting in my workshop at the moment. They belong to a local practice studio and although it's rare for two to be broken at once it's not the first time either… despite my best efforts.

jpfamps

By a strange coincidence I have 2 of these (1x15" combo versions) in my workshop too!!

Theses are from an nearby venue and both have blown speakers.

I actually think these are not bad sounding amps.

For reliability I would recommend using an 8 ohm cab rather than a 4 ohm. Yes you will get a bit less power, but it's safer for the amp.

I would also recommend not using the sub octave feature either as this can cause excessive cone excursion and subsequent failure.

ThePrettyDamned

Sorry, to add some seriousness to my comment, my mate had one and it was nice sounding. He wouldn't crank it massively though, even at gigs - just to wherever was necessary.

ICBM

jpfamps said:

By a strange coincidence I have 2 of these (1x15" combo versions) in my workshop too!!

Theses are from an nearby venue and both have blown speakers.

I actually think these are not bad sounding amps.

For reliability I would recommend using an 8 ohm cab rather than a 4 ohm. Yes you will get a bit less power, but it's safer for the amp.

I would also recommend not using the sub octave feature either as this can cause excessive cone excursion and subsequent failure.

The speakers in all these Ashdowns are garbage - the fancy blue cone ones especially. Not capable of taking the claimed power.

I've replaced every blown one with a Celestion Truvox or Eminence Delta and had no further problems.

I agree they're not bad-sounding amps too.

Both the ones I have here have cracked solder joints on the power boards due to the stupid design where they support them only at the four corners but expect them to support the weight of two large heatsinks - so the whole thing vibrates and flexes, and breaks the joints. I've put foam rubber blocks under the middle of them to stop the vibration, which is reasonably effective. I do it pre-emptively now whenever I work on one that hasn't been here before.

A word of warning for the inquisitive - be careful of those heatsinks if you power up the amp out of its casing… they're not insulated from the power transistors, so one is at +60V and the other at -60V relative to the chassis - 120V between the two!

jpfamps

ICBM said:

jpfamps said:

By a strange coincidence I have 2 of these (1x15" combo versions) in my workshop too!!

Theses are from an nearby venue and both have blown speakers.

I actually think these are not bad sounding amps.

For reliability I would recommend using an 8 ohm cab rather than a 4 ohm. Yes you will get a bit less power, but it's safer for the amp.

I would also recommend not using the sub octave feature either as this can cause excessive cone excursion and subsequent failure.

The speakers in all these Ashdowns are garbage - the fancy blue cone ones especially. Not capable of taking the claimed power.

I've replaced every blown one with a Celestion Truvox or Eminence Delta and had no further problems.

I agree they're not bad-sounding amps too.

Both the ones I have here have cracked solder joints on the power boards due to the stupid design where they support them only at the four corners but expect them to support the weight of two large heatsinks - so the whole thing vibrates and flexes, and breaks the joints. I've put foam rubber blocks under the middle of them to stop the vibration, which is reasonably effective. I do it pre-emptively now whenever I work on one that hasn't been here before.

A word of warning for the inquisitive - be careful of those heatsinks if you power up the amp out of its casing… they're not insulated from the power transistors, so one is at +60V and the other at -60V relative to the chassis - 120V between the two!

Also the fan slows down as the amp is driven harder, which would seem to be the opposite of what you want......