Ashdown Superfly Bridging Mod

[LeftySteve]

Much as I like my Superfly I am finding it's use restricted by the inability of it to work in bridged mode to give 500W into 4ohms. Yes, I could use two 4 ohm cabs but that is defeating the whole point (for me) of having such a small & lightweight head.

So... is it possible to mod it in this respect? Has anyone done it yet? Was it easy to do? Etc. etc.

I am happy with it in all other respects especially after getting one in the Sound Control clear out at a very good price!

Thanks in advance.

Steve

[phatbass787]

I may be wrong and I am sure people will correct me if I am wrong but I think the technology involved in the Superflys 2 x poweramps simply is not bridgable or Ashdown would have included this as a feature, youd be better off waiting for the new little giant heads to come out and get one of those if you dont want to use 2 cabs as the 1000 watt version has 2 x 500 watt outputs so you could just use one cab running 500 watts. Hope this helps

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

[quote name='LeftySteve' post='228089' date='Jun 27 2008, 10:15 AM']Much as I like my Superfly I am finding it's use restricted by the inability of it to work in bridged mode to give 500W into 4ohms.

Steve[/quote]
Even if you could you'd only get an additional 3dB output, and that assumes that you have a cab that's not displacement limited to 250 watts or less anyway. The displacement limited power rating of any cab is a secret more tightly held than Joan Collin's real age, but on average it's 50% of the thermal rating at best, and usually less. Ergo, if you really need more than what the Superfly will deliver with one channel into one cab chances are you need a second cab anyway.

Edited June 27, 2008 by Bill Fitzmaurice

[bassicinstinct]

On the other hand, you could use the Superfly 4x8 stand alone cab which was presumably designed and produced for those wanting to use the head to full effect with only one cab.

Edited June 28, 2008 by bassicinstinct

[phatbass787]

[quote name='bassicinstinct' post='228441' date='Jun 28 2008, 09:28 AM']On the other hand, you could use the Superfly 4x8 stand alone cab which was presumably designed and produced for those wanting to use the head to full effect with only one cab.[/quote]

Ahh I forgot about that, i think from what ive heard the 4x8 is split into two 4 ohm 2x8's so you run an input into each side and get full whack, anyone heard or got one of these cabs? Be interesting to know what it sounds like

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

[quote name='phatbass787' post='228673' date='Jun 28 2008, 01:43 PM']Ahh I forgot about that, i think from what ive heard the 4x8 is split into two 4 ohm 2x8's so you run an input into each side and get full whack, anyone heard or got one of these cabs? Be interesting to know what it sounds like[/quote]
I doubt it would do the OP much good. Four eights probaly aren't going to have more displacement than his 1x15, possibly even less. IMO it's displacement that's his limiting factor, not power. If his Diesel is loaded with an EVM it can't make use of much more than 100 watts through most of the bass range anyway, so one channel of the Fly has enough to drive it to full output.

Edited June 28, 2008 by Bill Fitzmaurice

[tauzero]

[quote name='LeftySteve' post='228089' date='Jun 27 2008, 03:15 PM']Much as I like my Superfly I am finding it's use restricted by the inability of it to work in bridged mode to give 500W into 4ohms. Yes, I could use two 4 ohm cabs but that is defeating the whole point (for me) of having such a small & lightweight head.

So... is it possible to mod it in this respect? Has anyone done it yet? Was it easy to do? Etc. etc.[/quote]
I took the opposite approach - I built a 2 x 10" cab and wired it so that it can run either as a 4 ohm speaker from one input jack or as two 8 ohm speakers from 2 input jacks.

[Krysbass]

I run my Superfly with a couple of Yamaha 4-ohm 2x10’s and only bought the second cab recently. This setup is very portable and although with one or both cabs the rig sounds fine, (I usually have the EQ flat) I have to admit to being a bit disappointed at the relatively small increase in volume I got from hooking up that second cab.

I thought that unleashing all those extra watts would have the rest of the band telling me to turn it down, but no. In fact, last week I did a jam where the drummer was extremely heavy-handed (never seen so many dents in a set of drum-heads in my life) and I had to put the volume up to over three-quarters just to hear myself! I now feel that no matter how many watts you have, someone will come along and prove it just isn’t enough.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

[quote name='Krysbass' post='231310' date='Jul 2 2008, 08:48 AM'](I usually have the EQ flat)[/quote]
That could be a lot of the problem. I don't know where the current penchant for flat EQ came from, but it serves no purpose IMO. Those knobs are there for a reason, and that's to dial in tone and power. If flat EQ was truly a desirable goal there wouldn't be any need for those knobs.
I haven't tested my Fly, and I won't as I don't care, but the vast majority of amps set to 'flat' aren't. They have a built in EQ pre-shape, to make them sound better than they would if they were actually flat.

[Gintaras]

It's seems the superfly has a weak eq. I took and moved all my sliders up 2 notches to run it flat!?!?!? Had a nice increase in volume. I will also be experimenting with just running a Sansamp Pddi directly into the effects return. Just waiting till tuesday when my new PDDI gets returned.

[bass_ferret]

[quote name='Gintaras' post='238656' date='Jul 13 2008, 06:06 PM']It's seems the superfly has a weak eq. I took and moved all my sliders up 2 notches to run it flat!?!?!? Had a nice increase in volume.[/quote]
Of course you did - what did you expect? It may not have been flat though as lots of graphics have overlapping frequency ranges.

[Nick80]

I found with the superfly I had that it used to colour the sound quite noticeably even with the eq set "flat"