Downunderwonder

Tbf they probably don't get to make a choice of who they use in the UK. They have a choice to not use DHL at home in Germany but that would be dopey. Looks like DHL UK sold them a pup with their business plan of send a van to clear out a store room when it gets full or some customer complaints their return isn't being actioned. I wonder what will happen to OP's bass in the end. It sounds pretty dire with faults not economic to rectify. Not so long ago Amazon were in the cart for landfilling all manner of return items instead of sorting the defective and restocking the good, or shock horror donating it to a charity who would.

Only for turning off ime. Mids are my friend.

???? Looks pretty tight to the cab to me, as it should be or it could wheeze. If the maths is right 12 sec is so much less than DAYS that there must be some major disconnect between what OP and Agedhorse are seeing and what I am seeing.

Score.

My back of envelope calc says it would take 12 seconds for 50 w to raise 50l of air by 10 degrees C. So either my maths is stuffed or you're saying a cabinet is a really pish poor insulator. Specific heat of air 1kJ/kgC Density of air 1.2kg/m³ 50l = 0.05m³ 50W is 50 Joule per second. 10deg x1kJ/kgC x0.05m³ x 1.2kg/m³ = 0.6kJ unless I am mistaken. 600J isn't a while lot of energy. 12 sec worth of 50w. BZZZZ, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG HERE!!!!!??? 5w would be 2 minutes. 20 minutes of 5w would be cooking except the cab surface gets warm and radiates. But how warm must it get inside for it to do that???

Either I am missing something or you don't have any appreciation of the thermodynamics at play here. All amps sink heat into the air one way or another. Heat from transistors goes to finned heat sinks or direct to air. The air may be fan assisted or just convection. In this case it is the air inside of the cabinet, with no ventilation! Thus the air gradually gets warmer and warmer with each pass through the amp. All of the aml heatsinks and fans in the world don't change the heat transport to the outside air. Agedhorse seems to be saying the cab exterior surface can radiate enough heat that the air inside won't ever get uncomfortably hot? I think if I ran a hairdryer inside a cabinet it would take quite a long time for the surface to get a little bit warm by which time it would be hell hot in there and likely blow up the hairdryer first. Quid pro quo a cabinet is a good thermal insulator. Down at the other end of the curve the amp heats much less than a hairdryer so conceivably it could warm up the cab just enough that it radiated the same amount but I still reckon that it get would too warm inside for the good of the amp. So all in all it's a bit of mystery. Added to that I don't understand you not wanting to do the first test with the amp sideways, feeling for a warm draught out of the top port, with a chance to decide discretion is the better plan.

Please explain. Ime micro amps all get nicely warm to hot enough to be properly glad it's got a fan. My gut instinct is the inside of a 112 is claustrophobic enough that it would get extra warm in there with that amount of heat being shed continuously and the main heat loss being out through the walls of the cabinet.

That's thanks to fresh air being pumped through the amp by its fan But now it only pumps air previously warmed by the last verse / tune / set very well insulated by the furry enclosure, a recipe for overheating.

The air movement in the cab is very little as it sits in the photo. Any driver induced air moving out and being exchanged as it moves back into the ports is the coldest. Inside the cab it's snug as a bug in a rug. There's a little space heater gradually getting warmer and warmer at the top. You can easily test it by giving it the next workout on its side and feeling the draught exiting the top. All that air changing is what keeps the inside temp liveable for the amp.

Don't kid yourself. The thing to do is run it on its side so the ports act as an efficient thermal chimney. Cold in at bottom and warm out at the top.

I am no tech, but that sounds like a dodgy pot, either input or master vol, that is shorting. You could audition the fx send somehow and if that is blowing out at the same time then the problem is in the preamp, otherwise it's in the output section. Save your tech 10 minutes of checking time.

All sorted for earplug transport downunder but thanks for the offer.

Those would easily take a key ring through the bottom 'corner' and Bob's your hairy arsed Auntie you always have your ear plugs with you.

Thinking about this again, doesn't a 1.5dB increase in volume mean a 50% increase, No. That doesn't even make any sense to me. A 3dB increase in speaker sensitivity would mean you need half the power to get the same loudness, or you get 3dB louder for the same power. +3dB is the minimum amount of volume bump that can be reliably noticed by an unsophisticated listener in a B follows A test. +10dB is defined as twice as loud. A good way to get lots louder is to add a 2nd identical 8 ohm cab to your 1st one. Often the amp these days is quite capable of maxing out the one 8 ohm cab and also fine driving two as loud as they will go. In that case you are going from zero headroom to 6dB of headroom if you keep playing as loud as you were before and only use the extra for the exciting bits. 3dB from cab and 3dB from the extra power delivered. Say you kept 6dB back using the one cab. Now you got 12dB up your sleeve for the jollies.

It's next to impossible to gain a statistically valid picture of an amp's reliability from asking a forum. I don't know that many were even sold in the UK. But my memory is pretty good and I can't recall ever reading about a broken Aguilar on Talkbass either. If you get along with the EQ you could probably do a lot worse. Always use genuine speakons and don't drop it.

Best suggestion yet. My 2c is in line with previous posters that it's a vintage instrument and deserves conservation as a player, the duct tape needs to go and the truss rod needs to work. I guess there are no worthy bassers in the descendants? Tick the fix up boxes and it will realise a more handy sum.

Auto bias circuits have been replaced by adjusting or fixed bias ever since they were invented, problem children that they were. I think you should seek out an oldschool tech.

If you go down that road make sure to get the correct screws. Too long is worse than wrong pitch because you can make contact with amp guts and go poof.

Your brother is very generous. A, Possibly far more generous than he knows? Or B, Generous and so wealthy that he doesn't mind giving away multi thousand pound basses? Or perhaps C, generous and didn't consider the possibility of you selling it even though he has no further use for it himself. You should probably get clear on all that before flogging it off.

There are real deal SMX Compressor pedals complete with balance control. You could try the Wanted section.

^ never play poker with this guy. You'll wind up penniless with no shoes.

I looked again and see it's a pair so I'm guessing it's a homage in the style of Trace, rather than salvage.

Definitely BFM Omni. They could well have been professionally built. Check out the crossover. They are mid heavy in the native response. The badge appears to have come off something Trace Elliot.

Higher power handling gives up sensitivity. Advances in materials have only gone so far and the tougher you make the moving parts the less easily they respond. Since ratings are unreliable and the only commonality is diameter it's only an assumption, but 350/4 is a fair bit less than 250/2.

More than a few backup Elf amps have wound up as the mainstay while ol' faithful stays in the boot.