Merton

Big positive from me, I spent half an hour or so at BD yesterday on the way up to Manchester. Played a nice Maruszczyk (which has changed my opinion of them!) and was very close to pulling the trigger. No pressure from Marcus, some sound advice and a very pleasant experience indeed. Will certainly go back

Many mentions of Hysteria but I’d argue that Adrenalize is worse, its production is even more sickly sweet. I still love Hysteria though as it’s one of the first rock albums I heard. Intrigued to hear the remastered versions of their first two albums, High and Dry is still probably my favourite Anyhoo, to stay on topic, I throw in 7800 Degress Fahrenheit and Slippery When Wet. Equally of their time and, especially in SWW’s case, they are both far less good than the band would have you believe.

Paul sold me a Behringer BOD400, absolute pleasure and very quick and easy deal. Cheers!

I concur

Another big fan here, Mark Gooday recently sent me a bag for my new RM500 head purely because I asked him if they were still supplied with the amps - he said “Sadly we no longer supply them with the amp, but send me your address and I’ll sort it”. I did, and he did! Wonderful

Still the best one:

Very cool rig, even cooler bass! 😎

My local rehearsal studio has ABM 600s in it, I really must take my 1999 EVO down to A/B one evening...

So I’ve just annoyed the neighbours again, and I realised my EQ tinkering on Monday had led me to cut the 240Hz to about 10/11 o’clock already. If you look at the pic above where the RM is atop my ABM you’ll see the EQ I settled on in my practice room. I tried flattening it all and cutting 240Hz to 9 o’clock and tbh felt it then lacked something, HOWEVER this is in my little bass room so I wasn’t giving it full beans at all and of course would expect to see more of a smiley face EQ to compensate for good old Fletcher-Munson curves! I should clarify I was using my ACG Finn “P” through a Barefaced Super Compact, so would have expected Stevie’s observations to be repeatable - perhaps on Friday I’ll get a chance to push it all a bit more and see what occurs. I still love it though! The drive is crazy, just a tiny little bit dialled in gives such a lovely extra dimension to the tone.

That’s a very interesting point Stevie, I’ve not noticed it (probably because I’m cloth-eared!) but I will have a play this evening and see what I make of it

I’ll swap you my matt front panel for your shiny one! 😃

Now, some of you may remember me fawning over the original RM800 which Ashdown released back in 2015 - there’s a review in the relevant section to which I’m far too lazy to link! That was a solid amplifier and frankly the best class D head I’ve used. I had to sell it because of cash flow issues and regretted it ever since. Last year I bought a Trace Elliot Elf, believing it would be the answer to my Class D needs. And in some ways it was, but I missed the RM tone, power and drive. I then heard Ashdown were releasing the EVO II which has a headphone socket, the one thing I’d have liked on the RM800. So May this year I decided to sell the Elf, sell my little Hotone Nano Legacy Thunde bass head which I used for home practice, and find me an RM EVO II. There have been a few little tweaks since the original RM800, such as headphone socket, second speaker out, VU meter with blue LED showing mute, separate active and passive inputs, improved drive (not that I felt it was lacking before). Plus the new 500 is lighter somehow - I haven’t looked to find out how! Today it arrived. First impressions I’ll be honest, the new Matt anodised alloy front panel isn’t nearly as cool as the old polished stainless steel but Ashdown have their reasons for it (easier to see under stage lights apparently - I never had a problem before!). But once I was home and got to annoy the neighbours that little gripe went away, this was like an old friend coming home. Everything I loved about the original is there in spades, and it sounds amazing with my Barefaced Super Compact. First gig is on Friday, cannae wait!

Gorgeous!

There’s one on eBay at the moment and I have often been tempted but I agree, the RM module is preferable for me too...

True. Maybe he’s hiding the fact that it’s actually an awesome idea and they’ll bring something out for 2019 NAMM 🤣

It’s the size of the amp which makes it difficult apparently, squeezing it all into the small RM casing. Plus as Mark pointed out they have the ABM series with a valve front end (not quite what I am after but it’s there), and then the OriginAL pedal which you could hook up to a lightweight power amp if you so desire. They just feel their product range doesn’t need more in it at the moment which is fair enough. Wrong, but fair enough hahahaha 😜

I’d love a Spyder 550. I tried persuading Mark Gooday to do that preamp with the RM800 power amp but it all got a bit too complicated to get the valves the right voltage and current supply apparently. But an RM-sized valve front-end with that power amp would be a thing of beauty I’m sure. 😎