chyc

Now he's done the work of building the cabs I'd love to see what happens to the sound as the mic goes futher away, and off-axis. In particular I'd like to see the cabs with the multiple speakers at different distances from each other and how that affects the sound when the microphone isn't shoved up to the cone.

Don't do it! You'll have to change your username!

Are items available in the west using this stolen IP? I cannot find any information about this online.

I don't own that exact Peavey, but I own one of similar vintage, the TNT115 combo. It sounds great but it weighs a ton so moving it is a real chore. Can't speak for the Ashdown.

I own an Audient. It's wonderful. Like @lowdown says you need to set the buffer size to as small a number as you can get away with. Too low however and you will get skipping as your computer's CPU runs out of puff. It'll run out sooner the more plugins you use and cab simulators can be quite high cpu usage. To get you some idea of numbers, at a sample rate of 48k I have a block size of 128. I don't even notice the lag (which according to my DAW should be ~5ms) and I can run all my plugins except an octaver on my 2019 laptop. Specific to the Audient, you can set this either in your DAW (probably), or the iD program that manages the various levels of the different inputs

If Ashdown has a distinctive sound that people like, surely you can see a desire for someone to have it through a pair of headphones when practising at home?

Thank you @javi_bassist for your review. It looks very tempting but the sentence above is a dealbreaker for me. I've read in another thread that Ashdown have confessed the headphone out is poor in the RM amps. This seems to be replicated in their other products, which is such a shame.

I love the idea of an Ashdown and in particular the ABM tone, but at the same time I look at the stuff ABMs are not so strong on (no headphone out, fan noise, size, weight) and I wonder if I would be better served with an Ashdown pre into a small Class D or headphones. I can see on PMT the Origin Pre DI on sale for £276. I can also see the Origin-AL Pre on sale at Ashdown for a comparatively astronomical £625. Other than name they look identical to me but if anyone knows the difference I'd be very interested to know. The main question I have is has anyone experience of using these and could they get ABM tone using it and say a PA speaker? I'm mostly interested in headphone practice but with the option to take that sound and send it somewhere loud if I need to! I tried the Ashdown Tone Pocket and was not impressed by the level of unwanted noise it generated through the headphones while at the same time, it didn't offer me any benefit as a bump between the bass and my amp.

I really really don't like posting negative reviews. However, I was for a brief period an owner of an Ashdown Tone Pocket Bluetooth (TP) before I returned it, and I wish someone had posted the following before I wasted PMT's time thinking it was a faulty unit. Firstly the positives of the TP: the bass itself when listening via studio headphones sounds great. The EQ is versatile and you can dial in pretty much any clean tone you want. I own an Amplug2, which I do not like, at all. It feels cheap, the sound is naff and there is a really annoying hiss to it. The Tone Pocket by contrast is well built, amplifies the bass beautifully, and doesn't have the hiss. However....... there was a really annoying tick when playing, and I'm fairly sure it's the bluetooth causing it. It's constant, around 5 per second. When you pair a device the ticking gets much better (one every two seconds or so) but it doesn't go away. There's also terrible interference sporadically, but is easily demonstrated when pairing commences. I took the device back to PMT thinking it was a faulty unit. They ordered in a second unit which exhibited the same behaviour. So I returned it. Now, this may not affect you. When I was in PMT I was lucky enough to be given some ultra high impedance headphones to try with the TP. The ticking was almost inaudible and I probably wouldn't have noticed, let alone cared. Unfortunately I don't have studio headphones, I have in-ear buds and the ticking was relentless and irritating once I got the unit home. It's such a shame. I tried the non-bluetooth unit and it was perfect: no ticking, great sound. However I really really wanted bluetooth. Heck I even started a thread asking for this functionality. I may think about ped's suggestion of a BT receiver and use it with the non-bluetooth TP. Aside from this issue, there are some things that irritated me, but I'd definitely would have lived with if the TP had delivered: The packaging, box and instructions were for the old v1 model. I had to download the instructions for v2 bluetooth separately. The v2 bluetooth instructions are poor. There's no guide as to what the lights signify (is it charged? charging? faulty?), has no mention of how to pair your device via Bluetooth, although I figured that out in the end, and absolutely no mention of important specs like expected battery life. Recording via USB had an audible hiss but passable. Recording via lineout and battery was superb. Recording via lineout when plugged in to charge via USB was unusable due to the digital background noise. I have sample recordings if people are interested. The unit has since been returned so I cannot diagnose any further. However I tried everything from charging the battery fully to moving to different rooms. I've heard the ticking before: on my ~£20 bluetooth alarm clock. That had the two main advantages over the TP, 1. it being reasonably cheap and 2. it not doing it when BT it turned off, such as when it's on DAB. The TP is neither cheap nor can its BT module be disabled. I contacted Ashdown. They suggested swapping the unit which I did. I guess it's something which most people live with and probably don't notice with over-ear cans. Moral of the story is to try before you buy. In particularly try it with the headphones you would use at home. That was my mistake.

Oh hello ABM-400, I didn't notice you slink into the Ashdown website! I wonder how much the internals differ from the ABM-600. Website is light on the details unfortunately. https://ashdownmusic.com/products/abm-400-ltd-edition

I'd be fascinated to know what his reasoning is for this: is cost really all there is? Googling "lined vs unlined bass cabinets" gives me arguments about fretless basses

You can decide for yourself if I'm misstating it. This is from his old website: https://barefacedbass.com/product-range/one10.htm

I've been caught out by that but it's been clarified on a thread on BC: 250W RMS does not apply to the cabinet, but to the amp! So what it's saying is that an amp which says 500W on the side is fine, so long as the signal is clean. If you look closely there is no mention of the thermal limit of the cabinet anywhere on their website. I'll be honest, I think that's a bit cheeky as, surprise surprise, the number BF posted is higher than the equivalent number posted by most other manufacturers, but I know about it now and can apply my mental compensators accordingly.

It's back on the market baby! Did someone weasel out? "Oh sorry, I've only just realized it's not the original drivers." https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115303921484?hash=item1ad8a6374c:g:6qAAAOSwDl1iG7HW

Whenever I'm playing at gigs, I'm always surrounded by fans screaming away so loud that I cannot hear myself at all. And then I wake up.

I won't say they are similar. Twelve or so years ago I went into PMT fully expecting me to walk away with a TM. To me the TM could do everything a TT could do, and then some. The reality was different: the TT had a sound that couldn't be emulated with a TM, even in single coil mode, and the TT with both pickups wide open was my favourite sound, so that was what I purchased. It was so long ago that I cannot give any more details than that, but I spent a while in the shop, and got the staff to play while I listened. Even they were surprised that they themselves prefered the TT over the TM in single coil mode. Of course that's a subjective opinion on which one was better, but I don't think it's controversial to say that they didn't sound similar at all.

( 130 + 69 + 18 ) * 120% for VAT + postage ( let's copy £18 excl that Real Electronics charges) = £282.0

I'm a bit gutted, as it genuinely was on my to-buy list. Just needed an owner living near enough to me for me to try before I bought.

Looks like DB Bass has gone. Sad times as I quite liked the look of their cabinets, the embee and elbee. https://www.db-bass.com/about-1 now is a holding page. Sometimes this is just an administrative mistake, but the cabinets are gone on Reverb too. There is a very complimentary review of them on Musicradar

One aspect I'd like to know, and probably won't for a number of years, is the reliability and repairability of this thing. It's a subject so close to my mind when purchasing that I started a thread on the subject. General consensus there is that you would struggle to find a brand better than Ashdown. I would hope this thing is rock solid, but easily repairable in the event for this price.

Banter! Just for the record, I bought these Rotos because I wanted to get something from the UK, and I'm not a fan of the usual suspects (Swing bass etc).

I don't think I'm there yet with my playing: I'm just scrambling around trying to hit the right notes in the right order, so if they sound the same whichever string I use that could only be a good thing for me.

I have some strings that I've grown to love (Rotosound UM45). One thing that was an absolute revelation is that to a large extent, the same note across different strings sounds similar in tone. All strings that I've played up 'til these sounded fine when in the same position on the fret, but with these, I can play an A on the G string, and it will sound similar enough to the A8ve on the A string. This means I can play at the dusty end of the fretboard, then switch to near the nut and not have that jarring tone switch that I'd almost grown used to. This thread is mostly academic as I think I've found my forever strings, but in case I get itchy fingers, what should I be looking for to get this feature in a set of strings? I've been asking the all knowing Google, but clearly haven't found the right keywords.