steviedee Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 (edited) Hi Has anyone got info for or experienced of an Ashworth Electronics AJ301P Double Bass Transducer. Just picked one up. I know they went out of commission a while back but very little info available.. All the best S Edited May 14, 2020 by steviedee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 I used Ashworth pickups for a while, the one element version of what you have. The maker was very innovative and an approachable and helpful man. They had an amazing natural sound and I had no problems being loud enough. I was playing in Don Rendell’s band at the time and in a jazz context was a very loud band. The pickups were not very robust and didn’t last very long. I bought several but kept breaking them. I gave up in the end and went back to my indestructible Underwood which didn’t have such a natural sound. I think you have a great buy but treat it carefully if you want it to last. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steviedee Posted May 15, 2020 Author Share Posted May 15, 2020 (edited) Hi Anon, thanks for the reply, great to hear you had a good experience. I think the inventor, Alun Jones died quite suddenly and the company stopped trading. He invented the Ashbory bass (I’ve spent the night googling). I bought two unused twin transducer versions so looking forward to trying them out. Edited May 15, 2020 by steviedee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 It’s a long time ago now, early 1990’s I think when I was using them, but I seem to remember that it needed a tight fit to get the most out of it and the shrink wrap around the transducer element was quite fragile, which didn’t help. Similarly the cable into the element was very thin and prone to break. I don’t know maybe the lightness of the whole thing helped it sound so good. I plugged it straight into various Polytone amps and it always sounded fantastic. It’s wonderful that unused examples are still out there, good luck with it, or them seeing you have two! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassBod Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 They had a great reputation in the folk world - the stick on bug types could be used to good effect on all sorts of things! I had one of the bridge wing pickups on an early cheap double bass - with a preamp it sounded good, but died after a few months. He did at one time sell a complete bridge, with the elements set inside, but I never heard or saw one. Talked with him a few times, and he repaired an Ashbory bridge for me at very little cost. A real loss to the music scene. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steviedee Posted June 5, 2020 Author Share Posted June 5, 2020 19 minutes ago, BassBod said: They had a great reputation in the folk world - the stick on bug types could be used to good effect on all sorts of things! I had one of the bridge wing pickups on an early cheap double bass - with a preamp it sounded good, but died after a few months. He did at one time sell a complete bridge, with the elements set inside, but I never heard or saw one. Talked with him a few times, and he repaired an Ashbory bridge for me at very little cost. A real loss to the music scene. I have a couple of them now, I’ve not tried them out yet. But I’m looking forward to using it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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