DGBass

First gig of the year this afternoon and it was a dep for some old band mates. 4pm-7pm Sunday afternoon type easy going blues/jazz event at Baker Street in Stirling. Band going by the name Blues Delux this time. The name seems to change every gig at the moment for these guys as does the lineup. Drums/bass/guitar/saxophone/vocals and harp. Very enjoyable three hour gig and for the most part a bluesy jazzy jam with good friends. Only downside was not having a huge amount of room to set up. The new LFSYS cab was a godsend size wise and there wasn't really any room for anything bigger. New Mighty Mat carpet square is my latest gigging accessory and its job is to keep cabs and stuff off dirty pub floors. Works perfectly! Over-did the amp side of things but well I just had to hear for myself if Trace Elliot watts are different from all other watts😉 Good feedback from quite a few punters asking the name of the band, and surprisingly good feedback about the bass sound from several band mates. The cab was phenomenally good and it takes some getting used to hearing everything so clearly. It's easy to assume the amp is up far too loud, but it wasn't. Saw some folks taking video footage but nothing available yet. Home by 8pm, got paid, and relaxing with a nice Bowmore malt to see out Sunday evening. Lovely.

Something new, something borrowed and something blue...road testing this weekends rig of choice for my Sunday gig at tonights (Fridays) regular studio jam. I can't say much about the cab at the moment other than it's not a Monza, it sounds fantastic, punches way way above its size and weight, which incidentally is I think the lightest LFSYS model yet at under 9kg. All to be revealed in the near future.😉

Having a cab rated at twice the rating of the amp was certainly something that was widely suggested a good plan to have when I started playing many years ago. It may seem over cautious to some, but I've never blown a driver in a cab ever using this approach. I once asked a local repair guy in our local music shop why I needed a 200 watt cab for my 100 watt superbass, and why all the local shredders with their 100 watt super leads seemed to managed ok with their 100w greenback loaded 4x12s. The truth he said was that the shredders had their cabs back in for repair to blown drivers every three or four months. Over time the 25W Greenback drivers were all replaced with 50W McKenzie drivers and after that was done, the cabs never came back for repair again. The point being he said, having a bit of reserve in the tank thermally speaking is no bad thing where speakers are concerned. I've run a 500watt class A/B head into a 200watt 4 ohm cab in recent times as an experiment, and it worked fine for a lo-fi gig but I wouldn't do that on a regular basis. Listening carefully to a cab will often tell you whether the drivers are struggling long before they are ready to fail. Speaker ratings these days do seem to be getting more consistent and perhaps accurate with quality component manufacturers providing lots of technical data openly for their products. I wish i could say the same about power ratings for modern amps. The same amp could be rated 800watts @ 10% THD, 703watts @ 1%THD and 596 watts @ 0.01 THD. They may all be accurate figures for the same amp, but which of those ratings will sell the most units? I'm always a bit wary of claims where its said as long as you use a clean signal, you can use oodles and oodles and oodles of power without affecting your speaker even if its rated the same or below an amplifier rating you don't really know is real world accurate. Hmmm. Yes its all very confusing to me. As far as the OP is concerned, I'd love to know if BF asked to return the faulty driver for an investigation into why it failed in the first place.

I think its curious that only one of the two drivers has a problem. If they were both subjected to the same usage, I think it would be fair to expect both to wear at a similar rate. Re the 4 ohm/8 ohm thing, I'm sure the earlier BF210 were 8ohm/400w rated, that may have gone up to 500w in time which may suggest the later drivers were refined or improved in some way. 2 x 4ohm drivers wired in series? When i used two BF 110's I recall asking BF about replacement speakers for them and at the time they said for all the 110, 210, and 410 cabs they had sold up to that point, they hadn't had a single driver failure reported. Reliability was in fact very good. That was a few years ago now and I suppose driver specs may change so a current replacement may be slighty better than the original from 7 years ago. As has been said, it would probably be in BF's interest to do a post mortem on a failed driver, if only to rule out any late manufacturing issues that are only showing up after several years of use. Things coming apart due to dried out adhesives, or bits of a brittle coil former snapping of and rattling around in the magnet air gap, or a loose spider assembly are all things that can't normally be viewed externally. I'm not suggesting your driver has any of that but the only sure way to find out is likely taking the thing apart. I'm guessing the cab is well past its warranty date so BF would be within their rights to charge the going rate for a cab repair. There's nothing to loose by dealing with them in the first instance except maybe a few quid for a repair. Its worth getting it repaired with the right units so it can keep performing as designed. Sticking a couple of beta 10's in your cab might get it going and be cheaper but it won't perform anything like it has previously done. Still, i'm surprised a premium product like a BF cab has developed problems after just seven years. Speaker drivers do fail occasionally, and they always will as long as they are around. Seems a bit premature though.

Just powered up today since I bought this on FB marketplace for £30. The pre-amp section was near mint, only the little bulbs behind the Trace Elliot logo needed replaced. The amp was sold as no output but it was making a sound, albeit slightly distorted. The problem was easily 'traced' to the ubiquitous PM-4S mosfet output board used in many TE's of the time, and fixed with a few minor component swaps. Weighs a ton right enough, but i can practice my scales and work on my winter tan at the same time 🙂 It also sounds absolutely amazing. It's my third AH250 and the best (and chepeast) one yet.

None of those boxes look in tip top condition, and despite that legendary TE build quality, probably don't sound that great in their present condition. I also can't believe they mostly still have their coloured knob caps intact. They are usually the first thing that falls off old TE amps.

I knew I had a picture of the loudest and heaviest 150 watt rig I ever owned somewhere. The rig was bought for £100 and fully restored to like new. It sounded colossal. Trying to shoe horn it into a small hatchback lasted ony a few times before it had to go. I did make a bit of money on the resale but even so I had to basically give it away for what it was. The 1818 cab was just something else. You could bomb the bass as much as you wanted and it handled it all without any fuss whatsover, better than sone 8x10s I've used. The 1048H cab was immensely loud. Both made of MDF were immensely heavy. If I had a roadie or even a much larger vehicle I may have been tempted to keep one of the cabs as they sounded so good. That's why so much modern bass gear won't ever come close to sounding like these types of cabs. They may be smaller, and lighter, but modern day tone just doesnt compare to the sound these things made. IMHO. My back hurts just thinking about how I managed to lift the 1048 onto the 1818😐

@Phil Starr, I see your cab build has what looks like cross bracing inside between the top and side panels. I didn't see this on the original build diagram. Is this a late revision and if so, were they just glued in place and do the two braces connect where they cross? What wood did you use for the braces? Cheers, DG.

Both of these were purchased for less than the OPs 1048 cab, which is really a travesty of modern times, but very good for the TE enthusiasts amongst us. The Mark 4 GP11 is in regular operational use, The Mk 5 is on the bench but should be working soon. Viewed in UV light as all vintage TE's should be.

I suppose 'Rescue & Restore' would also be an appropriate name for a thread where old Trace Elliot stuff is concerned. Kudos for keeping some quality old school TE stuff gigging. I've had some similar TE kit pass through my hands over the last five years in particular, and the thing about old TE stuff, apart from the weight, is that it was built to last. That being said, the 'old TE classics' do now have plenty years under their belts and it's more or less a given that a good proportion of it will need repairs and servicing of some sort. So buying cheap, especially with amps can be a gamble. The J112 fet that was failed on your SM head is quite a common thing on these amps, and an inexpensive fix. The older Trace stuff with output sections using Hitachi Mosfets can lead to more costly repairs if they go wrong. Cabs though are usually bomb proof and it takes a lot of abuse to break them. I've just bought an AH250 GP11 MKV for the princely sum of £30. It lights up beautifully, but the output is suspect. I know whats wrong with it, and it will need a bit of TLC. However, these amps are legendary, and well worth a little repair work to keep them going. Also rather nice to see a heavyweight thread where lightweight amps and cabs won't be mentioned😁

Maybe there will be more realistic prices for used gear now that sellers don't have to add-on something to cover their eBay selling fees? That's if anyone actually ever did that 🤔

I've been following Miss De Tiger's career with interest since around the start of the pandemic. There's no doubt she has bass chops, and knows how to hold down a groove. I'm sure she will go on to greater things and is in my opinion an ambassador for young up and coming players. Always good to see new and interesting bass players breaking through. Purely from a bass point of view, and regarding her signature model, its way too bling for an oldie like me, and a fairly hefty price tag for a MIM bass imho. Back in 2020 she was playing an Ocean Turqoise American Elite Jazz, and some of the live sessions, and tab sessions she did really popped using that elite jazz bass. It may be a little pricey compared even to her new signature model, but I'd plump for the Elite Jazz in Ocean Turquoise every time. Just curious who the target audience might be for her new signature model. I think its safe to say her signature model has even out sparkled the Adam Clayton purple signature jazz🙄

As any surplus gear moves on, the more adaptable and useable stuff that's keeper material begins to make more regular appearances. This Sunday's setup for an afternoon light duty gig was my regular Laney R210 4ohm cab used in landscape mode for the first time. Sounded fine and still very audible. Amp wise at present, its a toss up between the ABM and its backup OriginAL EVO. Both are more than sufficient for any gig, but the ABM just feels like effortless power, and quite capable of doing a low volume gig with a low power cab as long as I keep the master volume in check. A P-Bass is pretty much standard these days.