Dan Dare

I'd wager that a major reason for using aluminium cones is cost. Alu' is easy to form into shapes, can be made to have consistent thickness across something of any size and shape and is cheap and readily available. There is relatively limited use of pure aluminium. It's not strong or rigid in raw form and prone to fatiguing. Consequently it's often blended with other metals to create alloys to make it suitable for its intended use. You'll see aluminium described as being of 1000 - 8000 type. The number denotes what other metals it's blended with. 1000 is pure alu', 2000 has added copper, 3000 manganese, and so on (Google something like "types of aluminium" and you'll discover what they are). 1000 is very conductive, so is typically used for electrical transmission. Being cheap, it's also used to wrap foodstuffs. 2000 alloys can be heat treated to increase strength whilst retaining lightness and so are used in things like aerospace. 3000 is easy to weld, so is used for cookware, roofing and flooring, etc. I wonder which alloy is used/best for speaker cones. Now there's another rabbit hole for audiophiles to dive into 🙂

I found it a bit meh. The instrumental textures were well done, but the melodies were naff. Clever, but I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to it and certainly wouldn't pay to do so.

ParcelChuck was my nickname for ParcelForce. It's what they do...

If you can get one for a kid's bike, it shouldn't need cutting down.

I wouldn't worry about going through all the companies' sites. Their prices are going to be within pennies of each other. I sent a bass by ParcelChuck recently for around £15.

I found singing lessons helpful. The main benefit for me was that I learned to use my voice efficiently and without strain. The techniques also come in handy when I need to project my speaking voice.

Blimey. Another p1ssing contest. I've owned 5 basses over the course of 50 plus years. There's obvs something wrong with me.

Given that "thunderous low end performance" often seems to mean sounding like a poorly designed disco sub', that might not be a bad thing...

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) Talkbass is American. With no disrespect intended to our US members (who, having elected to join BC, must all be sensible people with excellent taste), that might explain the worthy, censorious attitudes you encountered.

According to the Bax Shop website (which has photos of all sides of it), it isn't ported. The product description includes "port? No". I'd check with Ashdown to be sure. They're very helpful when it comes to answering enquiries.

I had the mosfet one. When I bought it, I could hear negligible difference between it and the valve one, so I thought I might as well save 50 quid. The M may have been a touch brighter, but that was it. Many of these class D amps that boast valve drive just use a single ECC83 in the input stage. I have a Carvin that does just that. It doesn't add much in my experience. Rounds off the sound a little when you push the gain, but that's about it. You aren't going to get a full-on valve overdrive out of them.

I reckon a lot of the stuff in these sorts of listings is probably nicked. Little Jimmy Scrote doesn't have a clue what the item is, so gets AI to come up with some tripe.

Before loading and firing the parts cannon, take it to a tech' for diagnosis. It's easy to spend a lot of money - more than you'd spend on a tech' - on replacing parts by guesswork.

Agreed. I had the mosfet one as my spare and it was great. Sold it when I got my AG700, but only because I didn't feel I needed three amps. Truth be told, it did the job just as well as my other two amps (barring the fact that it wouldn't run into 2 ohms), but I'm a gear tart.

This. You wouldn't buy a car without driving it first. As Bill says, watts are not a very meaningful way to rate amps and some manufacturers' claimed figures can be a little optimistic. If you're looking at the standard class D offerings from most companies, they all give (or are claimed to give) around 300w into 8 ohms and 500 into 4, because that's what the Hypex, IcePower and similar modules they all use put out. Many people gig quite happily with them, so they should all suit. Whether you like the sound they make will depend on your preference. The preamp designer will have made choices which affect that (Markbass tend to do old school very well, for example). Cabs are another story. Efficiency and quality affects how much they will deliver for a given input power. You really need to try a few things before deciding.