Mudpup

Brian bought my Magellan 800 in a deal that was smoother than a shaved and greased sealion! Highly recommended and a top guy :-)

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Black all day long. Subtly understated class.

Just bought an amp from Kert in a shady hotel car park transaction......totally 100% guy and an easy transaction. Great comms and nice dog(s) 😊 Cheers Jon

even though its fairly modern its going to be played for years......

The Sire V7 has an off switch for the active preamp. You have passive pickups and a Volume, Tone, Blend arrangement if you switch the preamp off. With it switched on it adds active Bass, Mid with a sweepable frequency and a Treble control. And the tone still works as well. It will do exactly a really good passive jazz sound if that's whats required. The jazz sized neck is really amazing - rolled edges and satin finish are awesome and it is so easy to play. Tuners are fine - they had a bad rep on the version 1 but were fixed on the version 2. I'm not so keen on the bridge but it's more visually than functionally - i filed off a corner of a saddle because it was a bit sharp but otherwise it works fine. And i swapped the plastic knobs for metal ones for £15 - that makes it a bit nicer. I've had a lot of expensive name basses (Spectors, Zon, Sandbergs, Musicman, G+L USA) and this honestly is worth 3 times the £400 asking price. In fact i'm looking to buy a spare whilst they do interesting colours that i like. Re the Mexican Fender comparison - they vary a bit i think. I had a Mexican Blacktop Jazz and the quality was a bit shaky but i currently have a 50's Classic Lacquer P bass and it is really good. You would probably need to play the individual bass to see whether it's a good one or not. And for the price of that used one i would get a new one for a touch more. Have a look at Andertons who are having a sale on them..... Here's mine 🙂

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You're correct! Has anyone patented 'midi amp' yet....if anyone wants one i know a bloke who's selling one.... I'm getting no work done today........

Another Abm600 was actually floating around my mind actually 🙂 The one that got away.... It's interesting about the Thunderfunk as well - i had one last year for about 6 months and found i didn't get on with it - sounded too close to a 'microamp' to my ears - I couldn't get it to do what i was looking for. But to be fair it had loads of adjustability and maybe i wasn't doing it right. It just goes to show we all have different aims and tone goals doesn't it?

Wow that was a while back!!! Dreadful carpet i seem to remember and a guitar dep we'd never met before. That wasn't a microamp - it was an Ashdown ABM i think. I rest my case......(said with a smile 😉)

No, i tried to but he never got back to me......think i missed the boat. I've decided on a Handbox instead i think 🙂 I was thinking about an older m900 but i think i just don't do microamps in gig situations (i'm not calling them class D anymore because it derails threads)

Fair point - I just haven’t found one yet 😊

It's not a volume thing with class D - they can be plenty loud enough. For me its about maintaining the quality of the sound as you push them. I find they get thinner sounding and more 'shouty' as they get louder - still plenty of volume but not in a good way. Some other types of amp seem to keep the thump and welly more intact as you get louder and that's what i prefer - it can actually be quieter but still have the thump that you can feel. I read somewhere a while ago - on the interweb so it must be true - that class D can only maintain the initial burst of power for a relatively small amount of time whereas older technology could physically 'hang on to it' a touch longer and this was what made it sound a bit fuller at volume i suppose. It's more that you can still feel it rather than just being loud. I don't remember the science behind it but it sort of made sense to me. But anyway, the class D thing has been covered loads elsewhere and everyone has a view on it.

If you decide to change yours you need to cut a tiny bit of credit card and put it in between the split shaft pots. It stops the knobs going on wonky...You effectively need to make them like a solid shaft

I've tried it cranked up - no buzz issues ☺️ I remember watching a video somewhere - maybe Andertons? - where Marcus was saying the knobs were plastic because it affected the sound of the preamp if they used metal ones. Sounded like marketing hogwash to me 😂 Or at least trying to deflect some criticism over the cheap feeling knobs... New knobs are way nicer though

Decided to go mint in the end. Bit of a story around the new scratchplate though. I ordered it from Thomann at the same time as getting the bass - it was only £13 so i thought i might as well. Went to fit it last week and there was about 1mm difference in size around the pickup and base of the neck so it wouldn't go on. I mailed Thomann with a few pictures and they think the Sire V2 is either slightly different from the V1 or the plate was faulty. They said to just keep it and they would refund it. Brilliant customer service from them. So today i thought i would get the Dremel out and cut some lumps out to see if i could fit it anyway and it worked out pretty well i reckon. I like it anyway.....😊

Soundcheck without them in then put them in. That's what i do. Once the soundcheck is done you just need to trust you've done it right and don't worry too much about the sound during the gig. But you have to do a decent job on the soundcheck.

This.....

No - you'll only be putting out about 300w thru the 8 ohm cab. You'll be pushing very hard to keep up imho. You'll need 2 x 8 ohm cabs or a single 4 ohm to grab some headroom back and get the full output.

I personally haven't found any regular class D mini amp that will hang with my loud rock covers band. Same as the OP, they sound great at home and have brilliant features on them and i love them until i take them to a noisy gig and they get buried by the drums and twin guitars. I can get by with them but i haven't found THE ONE yet. I always seem to go back to my Gallien RB700 and i've come to the conclusion that i'm just not a class D guy. I've tried loads of them and the only one that comes close to keeping the punch and slam and not just flattening out when you turn it up is a Quilter BB800 - i've had it for a few years whilst others come and go but you have to get used to its quirky layout. Had a Mesa D800 earlier in the year, got a Magellan 800 now that i've gigged about 4 times and will be moving on soon. I've had a Markbass Evo, GK Fusion500, a Genz Shuttle over the years. I'm thinking of giving it one last go and trying a Darkglass M900. The newer breed of class D are much better than the old ones to be fair. Maybe i'll just order a Handbox R400 and hope its not just a niche trend that new amps become on here sometimes - that's probably a more sensible option and sounds more likely to be the right thing for me but the Darkglass looks fun. If i had £1000 to spend and didn't want a Gallien i think i would grab an Ashdown series 4 ABM600 (a great rock amp with tons of slam and much more versatile than you may think) and a decent 2x12 or a couple of 1x12 cabs from the classifieds on here. Maybe a Barefaced or Bergantino cab for £400/700 or a Fender Rumble cab of some sort. Ashdown are selling hand made ABM600's for £550 direct at the moment or they come up fairly regularly on here for £400ish. They're a friendly mob on here, pretty wise in general and you wont lose your shirt if it turns out the gear doesn't quite work for you.