Merton

I got a new short scale yesterday, in the ACG flavour. It seems my son has decided to steal it from me already 😫

Just to open this up to everyone- Stoneham are interested in making a small-footprint 100W bass valve head. I’ve spoken to a few people today and am gauging interest - it might be that the economies of (small) scale production may assist. May not of course, I might be taking bollocks! FWIW I’m thinking Ashdown Little Bastard size and features but 100W - likely 2x KT88s.

Stoneham have just replied. Uh-oh, that’s all I can say. @ikay PM me and I’ll fill you in

This was mentioned to me on my quest as well - looks great. Got a friend in Canada who even offered to help broker a deal to get one over here. But 47cm is too wide for me sadly. BTW still nothing from Stoneham

The main issue for the ABM is the preamp board runs the full width of the head. It needs some serious redesigning to get it to fit a smaller body. I (along with @eude and @Sibob I seems!) think it's worth the investment but Ashdown don't. TBH I wonder if an RM preamp and ABM power amp would actually be enough for most people?

@eude and I have given up asking….

Still trying to work that out myself!

Did it sound better than the other day when you weren’t happy with it?

The ABM 600 EVO IVs are UK built too I believe. So even fewer reasons!

Ah! I was there too and only managed to ID the ABM! I loved the rigs being labelled Low, Lower and Lowest 😀

Eddie’s just bought my Ashdown OriginAL preamp pedal. Absolute gent, pleasure to deal with 🙂

Knowing the supply issues the company I work for is facing I can only imagine how this affects small builders such as Handbox. We’re the biggest manufacturer of pressure gauges in the world and have things on 6 month+ lead times at the moment Damn good price for the WB-100 mind you - even with the duty on top. Soooo enticing 😬

Are you able to make this year’s SE Bass Bash? Would love a crash course in compression if you are able to 😀

Nice! Yep I think those early red-face MAG heads used the exact same power amp as the ABM 👍🏻

Could well just be crappy hall acoustics, guitars and drums eating into your frequency range and making it feel like you were lacking in heft… Those sorts of gigs are not fun!

That’s very surprising and I can understand your disappointment- that rig should be tearing down walls! Fingers crossed you’ve got another gig soon to restores your faith like you say 🤘🏻

Peavey website currently says “available in September” 😞

Chris just bought an MXR bass compressor pedal from me and was an absolute gent to deal with 👍🏻

TBH I think the mids are cut a bit more there than normal! Bass is essentially a jazz bass

FWIW this is roughly my EQ/valve settings on an ABM500 and I reckon the tone you’ve described is the sort of thing I go for too:

If I get anywhere with it I’ll let you know - maybe it would help the cause of two of us are after the same thing 😎

Crank the input gain (don’t worry about the Vu meter; ignore it in fact), crank the valve. If it’s a 500 that means the valve adds a bit of a nice harmonic warmth and not a huge amount of dirt, but IMO it does what it does perfectly. Preshape button IN (opposite of what you’d expect) Boost the low mids Give that a whirl

Ah nice. Will do exactly that

I emailed these guys about a smaller 100W head (along the lines of Handbox/HotAmps size) but never heard back