agedhorse

I agree. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using subs, and in reality the power alley thing is greatly overblown in most smaller indoor situations. It’s actually overblown in general, it’s just one of the tradeoffs that a pragmatic pro audio provider deals with on a day to day basis. The greatest benefit is to use subs for low frequency extension, to take the pressure off of the top cabinets to provide that extension. They do not have to be used to add “boom” to the system.

It comes down to “the quality is proportional to the cost”.

This is one of the reasons I have stuck with ICEPower for all of my designs. There were many Asian vendors that made great promises yet every one of them had significant questionable elements with their offerings. Ultimately it made more sense to pay a premium price for a premium product.

Not at all very elaborate. The values the caps are labeled as and what specs they are built to can be entirely different. Below is a far more elaborate "mis-labeling" than a simple printed number:

You are putting a lot of faith into numbers that can be totally made up, or perhaps mean nothing.

Why not? A used amp is a used amp unless somebody’s already attempted to repair it or modified it. Every amp is a used amp once it’s been used.

It’s not creepage/clearance that’s the issue. Mains plugs have to withstand reinforced insulation creepage/clearance at 375Vpk (240V high line peak voltage) whereas the insulation requirements for a speaker jack needs to be designed around basic (or possibly functional) insulation values based around no more than 150Vpk. I don’t have my tables handy, but I would guess creepage required for a speaker connector is under 5mm, maybe as small as 3mm. It’s more the touch-proof requirement for higher powered amps as well as temperature rise under high current density conditions which can cause arcing conditions (PIS).

No, not that I am aware of. They are not “touch-proof” jacks, and are easily confused with DI outputs. They are also not rated for the necessary current, something that safety regulations have addressed through terminal temperature rise.

For clarification, the Streamliner also operated the tubes at 300V.

Yes, RMS would be 1/2 of the peak value, making it 125 watts RMS into 8 ohms and 250 watts RMS into 4 ohms.

The Magellan pre is a full, complete preamp. It’s designed to drive a power amp or effects return of a bass amp. Because it is a preamp with the function of bringing instrument level signal up to full line level, bypassing the preamp defeats the primary and principle job that the preamp was designed for. Most comprehensive preamps have already evolved to top mounted jacks, this is becoming the standard which makes sense given the number of connections. Even in the guitar world this is becoming much more common.

Not getting any sympathy here! Preparing some racks for another season on the road:

I don’t think so. Also, I saw that Thomann just updated their EU site to reflect what they have due to arrive.

To follow up on the availability (as I promised earlier), it appears that some dealers/distributors ordered more guitar products and less (or no) bass products because as a dealer they are more invested in then guitar side than the bass side (a few sell no bass products except for special order). Those dealers more focused on bass apparently ordered and sold out of their allotment right out the gate, hence the backorder status. The good news is that there are more containers landing in Europe shortly and there is bass products in them. Cabinets are still in somewhat shorter supply because we just can't build enough of them as fast as we really need to and insure that the fit & finish is maintained. Hope this helps.

The Berganitno Forte D is £1200 at Bass Direct and the Aguilar AH700 is £1169 at PMT UK and the Darkglass Microtubes 900 is £1169 at Andertons. These are actually more similar to the D-800 than the D-800+, but in the ballpark based on feature set. The D-800 is £1149 at Andertons, also well within the ballpark. My point is that there are other brands that are priced in the same range as Mesa (I'm talking about Bass gear, I don't know anything about the Guitar side).

Yes, and the Subway amps are not GK amps. If a lower price is what you are interested in, there are plenty of good options out there. Mesa is not the lower cost option, it’s on par with Bergantino and Aguilar however (who are also not a lower cost option IME)

I don’t know much about the whole lifestyle thing, and I would not be a lifestyle product customer myself. On the bass side of things, the Subway amps are pretty much in line with the costs of other non-Chinese built, premium products.

There was absolutely nothing condescending intended about a product not being a good fit for a particular player. It may be the price, the size, the weight, the tone, the dynamics, the cosmetics, etc. If anything, I would be the first one to agree with different amps or different brands for different players. I don’t understand why anyone would argue otherwise?

Just CONFIRM that any amp you might be looking at that requires a conversion actually has a universal primary transformer. This is not always the case, and some amps may be shipped with a region specific transformer even though others of the same model may not. I see this a lot.

Then it’s pretty clear that Mesa amps aren’t for you. Nothing wrong with that, but you speak for yourself and fortunately not for others who may disagree with your perspective.

This is generally the way it was designed to be used, to drive a power amp. Stacking one preamp on top of another may result in voicing conflicts which generally don’t sound all that great. It can be done, there are just more things to think about. If using it into the instrument input of a bass amp, the bass amp should be set for an active bass or low gain input.

Without seeing the power transformer, there’s no way to know. They MAY use a different transformer in the European builds. Just because the chassis can be marked 230/240V doesn’t automatically mean that it has a universal primary transformer.

That's an 8-32 x .250" undercut flat head Phillips, (not a standard flat head,, has to be undercut to work with the sheet metal thickness). https://www.amazon.com/Prime-Line-9000703-Machine-Phillips-100-Pack/dp/B07BP1MS6R/ref=sr_1_18?crid=1DQ4TL4MNKHQ7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ldnK2UJ5G4yXq98-9aA9OYGUckZkPsSTbM4j3L_FnhitcZohVR26UCeB7Q9V1JdNfuo5_CdT0RPoeTD8fZ4z-gh7zGKR9-XR4XWn66Xf3EjR_MGpw0Poj0Q1xbQ_MLjui9MSLG57B-P4ytrUsxV0fpSiE4pqOdMEEq1a77YcgqGS7_rv4lU2-LpW6vMXBGZa2LLia8C2MysAFFJTtHF02GXPb0SsoBD1RkE4kMOb_Jw.SQtrEJp6BScXhdLcn0dSH34lPQ3KCsRlh5DQ02v0gXg&dib_tag=se&keywords=8-32+x+.250"+undercut+flat+head&qid=1712262174&sprefix=8-32+x+.250+undercut+flat+head%2Caps%2C200&sr=8-18

The number of attempted repairs that ends unsuccessfully is grossly under-reported, because mostly "success stories" are the ones folks "brag" about. Since we have to warranty our repairs, this changes the metrics because we don't want amps coming back again and again with continuing issues. Not only is this extremely costly, but it also impacts the customer's further trust in the products.

It’s another option, though the turnaround time in the factory service program is usually only a day or two.