Al Krow

Please define "great".

Ashdown amps have earned a very loyal following on here, and are a great UK success story to be celebrated. But with the arrival of superb multifx like the Helix Stomp, this belated, expensive and underwhelming foray into pedals by Ashdown feels like someone deciding that diesel engines are the future when the rest of the world is moving onto hybrids.

No, no, no! Mixing cabs of different makes is akin to creating mules according to "them that know better" and to whom forlock tipping is required.

You would be already regarded as a minor rock god if you had. Made of vonder clay.

Weird he should think that. In my experience drummers manage to change key (and rarely moan about having to do so) quicker than just about anyone else in the band 😂

The TC is an amazingly good value combo. I also had a 115 that @Pat2019 now uses as my first bass combo. The 210 and 208 came out soon after I bought mine and I suspect if I was starting over, I'd go for one of these two instead now, just for the tighter punchier bass tone they seem to deliver.

Congrats! I suspect you'll totally love it. The clips I've heard of Cuzzie playing through his have been great (I hope he doesn't mind me saying). And I know I regularly get beaten up for my neanderthal views on speaker cone size, but if there were no other considerations (weight, power handling, frequency response etc) and I wanted a single cab, I really don't think I've come across anything better than a 212 for getting everything right. Funnily enough 95% of the folk who tell me I've got it wrong own either a 212, or 2 112s, or are making do with a single 112. (I appreciate I'm being a little Fearless in making such a claim). 😄

So Cali CB, DG AO Ultra and Pitch Shifter sorted. I think it's just paid for itself! And that grin on your face would obviously be priceless 😁

That's overstating it a touch. Yup leaving the lead in drains it. But if you remember to unplug it at the end of the day when putting your gear away the battery should last a fair while (months in my experience).

The best value multifx IMO is still the Zoom B3N and I'd happily recommend it as a great starting point if you're on a budget. If you can fork out the extra, then the quality of the Stomp, in terms of its chipset and processing power, delivers effect sims at the next level.

All fair comments. However 3 quality single effect pedals can easily get you past £400, and then that's your lot. Cali CB + DG AO ultra = how much new? Whereas a Stomp can expand on demand at no extra cost and allow you to try out all the effects you fancy using without having to separately buy them. It won't nail them all, synth in particular. But that's what a FI is for

Totally. The amazing generosity of time in sharing experience and expertise by our fellow BCers is something to be treasured.

That's very kind of you to say! I don't think there is a great deal of difference in dimensions and weight between the 1025 and 735A. The 735A has been slimmed a touch, but it's still very much a BB design bass - which I think you'll see from the pics I posted a page back in this thread, together with a rough 'bathroom scale' measurements of weight - it is also a touch lighter. If size matters - then I hate to say this on this thread(!) - and if you're after a smaller comfortable body, I'd actually consider getting an Ibanez SR. I'm also a big fan of those basses, particularly the Premium range as I really like the more 'throaty' Nordstrand big singles, although my Ibbys are all J/J rather than P/J configured pups. Having said that - see also @bigsmokebass's comments above about the subtleties of difference adding up (and there's, of course, also the not subtle at all addition of an active EQ, although he is not using that additional feature, but which I most certainly will be!).

Good question. I guess I'm a bit old fashioned and tend to assume that tone from a bass is driven by the following: 1. Type (P/J/MM etc) and make of pups 2. Position of pups 3. Quality of EQ including whether active or passive mode 4. Strings (and playing position). And then some way behind the above in terms of impact: 5. Variation in type of woods used. I suspect the the tonal difference between the two basses would be less if I was using identically aged same strings and I guess the simplest way to do that is to put a new pair of the same make strings on both, but I'm too much of a cheapskate to want to do that until the strings actually need replacing

Often only noticeable, anyway, when you're practising at home alone. The moment you're surrounded by the noise of a pub or start playing you'll be hard pressed to notice at all. (And although not relevant here, cooling fans can often be just as noisy or more so than any amp hum).

Welcome to the dark side of active basses! I've gone from being a purely passive player a couple of years back to also now really enjoying the additional and convenient EQ adjustment that active basses provide - cutting the bass EQ a touch when required to tighten up the low end as you've mentioned, boosting the mids to cut through or rolling off the treble for a more vintage tone. I've typically been using my basses either just in active mode (Ibby SRs or Yammy BBNE2 - the latter is purely active, in any case) or just passively in the case of my one purely passive bass (Yammy BB 1025). The latter is quite nice for practice at home in terms of not needing to remember to remove the jack lead to save the battery! Very recently got a Yammy BB 735A and have unexpectedly found a bass where I'm likely to be using both active and passive modes during the same gig, given the varied tonal palette I can get from the electronics of this bass.

Budget? For a similar price to your bass you could get this: The only thing is, it's not small or compact, but does come with a free 4x10 cab

Dang, that's a particular fantasy unceremoniously ended.

BB 735A vs BB 1025 (first impressions review) I've had the 735A for just a few days now, but managed to give it a bit of a spin including at band rehearsal on Thursday night and I'll also gig it tonight. Thought I'd share first impressions on this vs my BB 1025, which I'm very fond of. The 735A has newer strings and this would account for the 735A sounding a little brighter overall. Solo P setting - treble dialled off (passive) This is a classic 1025 "subby" / vintage tone and a much loved sound from this bass. It's not really something I've found any other basses I've played so far have done as well (other than, I guess other members of the BB passive family of basses, be interested if others agree?). The 735A in passive (but not so much in active) mode comes pretty close - it sounded a little brighter, less muddy, but that could be just down to the newer strings. With the treble back up for both basses, the 735A continued to feel a little brighter. 735A Passive vs Active With the 3 band EQ at neutral there was almost no difference between active and passive for 735A, which is a good sign. In terms of the EQ, bass cut worked to tighten the sound. Bass boost was less effective in increasing the low end thump (in the way that the Ibby SR EQ and, in especially, the BB NE2 delivers in spades). Mid cut to give a scooped tone or mid boost to cut through the mix both work well and the treble provides a decent range from very (too!) bright to nicely dialled down. As noted above for the most 'subby' tone I needed to switch to passive mode. The combination of passive and active modes delivers a significantly wider tonal palette than available with my BB 1025. Overall impressions so far This bass is growing on me very quickly. I love the fact that I can get pretty close to the vintage sound of the BB 1025 in passive mode and then, at the flick of a switch, get a much more modern punchy (or indeed scooped if I ever want it!) tone. I found myself making use of the both passive and active modes a fair bit at band rehearsal. This is not the case with my Ibby SRs where I have the bass just in active mode; the passive mode is just a nice emergency back-up should the battery ever fade mid set. The overall tone was a little sweeter than the BB 1025, but I'm not sure how much of that is simply down to the older strings on the 1025. I can see that the ease of ability to access such a broad tonal palette on one bass is going to totally appeal to the convenience junky in me, and that the BB 735A is going to become a 'goto' bass for me. It's been an itch that I first had back in March 2017 when I wandered into the London Yammy store and first started to seriously consider getting a Yammy bass. I'm very glad that I've finally got round to scratching that particular itch

Welcome to the FI club! Looking forward to hearing from you how you get on with it.

"it just plays like an absolute dream and I couldn’t be happier." => or maybe in this case just leave the thing as it is 😊

You make some very fair points, dear chap. Why did I choose these particular two amps for comparison? Well first off, I'm not assuming that they are the best D-class amps - hence the question-mark in the thread title. But to answer your Q: IMO they look great both in terms of design and feature set, they're very current, and if money was no object then I'd be tempted to get one or t'other. I also thought it would make for an interesting thread that could potentially be informative to me and others. I'll just sign off, if I may, by saying you have very poor taste in cars.

@Dood another great review, thanks. There's almost too much going on with this amp in terms of functionality (including semi-parametric across all EQ settings) but I suspect with a bit of time invested folk will be able to pretty quickly get their head around it and save favourite settings to preset for quick access. My only niggle is that it boasts of being 700W @ 4 ohms, but doesn't give an 8 ohm power rating. So I presume its 350W at 8 ohms, which would rule it out for me particularly if I was having to part with £1,200. Would have the welly to drive the low end of a quality Fearless F112 cab? It seems to be missing a key ingredient of any quality amp which, for me, is simply to amplify with headroom to spare.