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Ashdown ABM owners club


Guest BassAdder27

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5 minutes ago, ern500evo said:

I should stop visiting this thread, every time I come here I end up looking for ABM600’s for sale! 😂

Me too - and I've bought two in the last couple of months as well.

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3 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

Me too - and I've bought two in the last couple of months as well.

I love my amp, I’ve got a EBS TD650, but I’m getting more and more tempted to try a ABM600

EDIT: I’ve also got a very early ABM500 Evo RC, and I think part of it is me wanting to see how much better the 600 is 

Edited by ern500evo
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3 minutes ago, chyc said:

Don't do it! You'll have to change your username!

Haha that’s true, although the amp was only half the reason for it. It was also down to racing 500cc Evo class motocross bikes back in my early days 

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I’ve been through some good and not so good amps and I must say the ABM600 is proving to be the very best.

 

At first it takes time learning about the EQ and when to use or not use that famous Shape Button and you soon learn that this amp is a true gigging star. 
I think I would be hard pressed to improve on it.

Im even liking the ABM cabs too 

 

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I think what’s stopping me is that I made a rule for myself a while ago. Any new purchases, apart from consumables like cables/strings etc, have to be either paid for with money earned from gigs, or something has to go to fund it. The EBS amps are quite hard to come by now, and I’d be kicking myself if I sold it for a ABM and then regretted it. I’d be having to scour the used  market for another EBS 

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8 minutes ago, ern500evo said:

I think what’s stopping me is that I made a rule for myself a while ago. Any new purchases, apart from consumables like cables/strings etc, have to be either paid for with money earned from gigs, or something has to go to fund it. The EBS amps are quite hard to come by now, and I’d be kicking myself if I sold it for a ABM and then regretted it. I’d be having to scour the used  market for another EBS 

Order one and play it for a week and return it if not better than EBS 

Find a store and ask for best price as they often discount 

PMT gave me a good price on my ABM210H cab just for asking 

I also asked for a new sealed in box model ie not a shop floor model 

Edited by BassAdder27
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9 minutes ago, BassAdder27 said:

Order one and play it for a week and return it if not better than EBS 

Find a store and ask for best price as they often discount 

PMT gave me a good price on my ABM210H cab just for asking 

I also asked for a new sealed in box model ie not a shop floor model 

That’s not a bad idea. Other option is but a used one, on the condition that one of the amps has to be sold within a month 

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41 minutes ago, ern500evo said:

That’s not a bad idea. Other option is but a used one, on the condition that one of the amps has to be sold within a month 

And don’t forget you get virtually a lifetime warranty with Ashdown U.K. 

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24 minutes ago, BassAdder27 said:

And don’t forget you get virtually a lifetime warranty with Ashdown U.K. 

I've had quite a few Ashdown amps, and the only times I've had to use the warranty was with a couple of ABM 600 heads. They were replaced without hesitation. 

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21 hours ago, Pow_22 said:

I found the LB550 VERY clean, no grit at all even with a hot active bass.  Also, as with a lot of Class D, it was absolutely loud enough but at the loud volume it lacked 'booty'.  I much preferred the Spyder series when looking at Ashdowns hybrids

Doesn't sound especially clean on this video (albeit I can see the Gain is set pretty high). But I hear you on the 'booty' front

 

 

Edited by Clarky
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On 13/05/2022 at 01:36, Woodinblack said:

 

It was heavy, harder to move and 'only' 100 watts, and I know is heresy around these parts to try and infer that a valve watt isn't worth at least 50 transistor watts, but if you want loud, the CTM does it. If you want clean and loud, the ABM does it better, and if you want any kind of control over your tone from the amplifier, the ABM does it a hell of a lot better - the CTM tone control is more like a set of hints to the amplifier than control as such. In fact, the knobs really don't do much, the buttons are the real tone control.

Oh and if you play in cramped venues with a single coil pickup, don't stand close to a CTM - it has a lot of transformers

 

 

The CTM EQ is somewhat quirky but has become my favorite. Magnificent with Passive Bass /Flatwound strings

 

I don’t think the CTM is for everyone but for me it’s the bees knees

 

I still use my 98 ABM Klystrom as well. 

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On 13/05/2022 at 05:04, FinnDave said:

I've had quite a few Ashdown amps, and the only times I've had to use the warranty was with a couple of ABM 600 heads. They were replaced without hesitation. 

I have had no issue with Ashdown gear aside from wear and tear / basic maintenance. 

Obviously will get a Tubes bill at some point for the CTM-300 

 

When I have contacted them they always reply promptly when given my location they could choose to ignore me😂😂

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On 13/05/2022 at 03:31, BassAdder27 said:

I’ve been through some good and not so good amps and I must say the ABM600 is proving to be the very best.

 

At first it takes time learning about the EQ and when to use or not use that famous Shape Button and you soon learn that this amp is a true gigging star. 
I think I would be hard pressed to improve on it.

Im even liking the ABM cabs too 

 

I very much like the old ABM cabinets. Still going strong. The ABM 1510HX is my favorite. 

 

Once again they are not for everyone and certainly couldn’t be described as “Hi-Fi” but for me they work good. 

 

I had a ABM115 blue speaker (Italy?) as well that was a bit “brighter” 

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On 17/05/2022 at 07:23, BassAdder27 said:

Ok fellow ABM600 owners how about we share your EQ settings 

Mine are as below 4D9015E4-FA7E-4692-88AF-C1C780DCFC0A.thumb.jpeg.99b07261c98da25bf8eba5f6c0d9042f.jpeg

C5518AC9-73C5-4C22-96DC-B92B3B2F277A.thumb.jpeg.954c26512642099a6b2f2a202f0f096c.jpeg

Here’s mine for Pbass

shape off with a slightly scooped eq and some of the top end cut

no valve drive (use an always on pedal for a bit of saturation - works really nicely with a pbass)

Compressor and sub harmonic off also.

this is just my starting point - it’ll really depend on the room how it ends up

Edited by alexa3020
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35 minutes ago, alexa3020 said:

C5518AC9-73C5-4C22-96DC-B92B3B2F277A.thumb.jpeg.954c26512642099a6b2f2a202f0f096c.jpeg

Here’s mine for Pbass

shape off with a slightly scooped eq and some of the top end cut

no valve drive (use an always on pedal for a bit of saturation - works really nicely with a pbass)

Compressor and sub harmonic off also.

this is just my starting point - it’ll really depend on the room how it ends up

Very similar settings ..

Just out of interest which pedal do you use instead of the amp drive 

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It's just occurred to me that as I have two ABM 500 combos, I could take both to gigs and use one as an extension cab, thus giving me a small stack and a 4 ohm load. I'd also have a spare amp. The only drawback is having to carry the damn things - and as I have recently become keeper of the band's PA, might not have room for them both in the car.

It's a thought, though.

Edited by FinnDave
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36 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

It's just occurred to me that as I have two ABM 500 combos, I could take both to gigs and use one as an extension cab, thus giving me a small stack and a 4 ohm load. I'd also have a spare amp. The only drawback is having to carry the damn things - and as I have recently become keeper of the band's PA, might not have room for them both in the car.

It's a thought, though.

 

Or get a bass with 2 outputs or use a splitter box and do the Entwhistle / Sheehan / Wolfenwotsit split rig thing.

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I have got a splitter box - but prefer the simplest option. ABM combos are going so cheap that they are less than a spare cab - so why not treat a combo as an extra cab with an amp built in in case the first one fails. I have had two ABMs fail on me at gigs - the first was an old one and a joint failed on the input jack - used my DI box to finish the gig and resoldered the joint when I got home. The other was a brand new ABM 600 which was delivered to my house by the local PMT just as I was about to leave for a gig. The amp failed after less than 2 minutes, but I had a spare in the car.

I try to take a spare of anything that could fail at a gig - but haven't found anywhere that supplies spare fingers yet!

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2 hours ago, FinnDave said:

I have got a splitter box - but prefer the simplest option. ABM combos are going so cheap that they are less than a spare cab - so why not treat a combo as an extra cab with an amp built in in case the first one fails. I have had two ABMs fail on me at gigs - the first was an old one and a joint failed on the input jack - used my DI box to finish the gig and resoldered the joint when I got home. The other was a brand new ABM 600 which was delivered to my house by the local PMT just as I was about to leave for a gig. The amp failed after less than 2 minutes, but I had a spare in the car.

I try to take a spare of anything that could fail at a gig - but haven't found anywhere that supplies spare fingers yet!

 

That's the beauty of the abm style combo - it can be connected, unconnected and daisy chained, and enabled to take a spare head. That's one reason I wont use the new type of combos (rumbles, gk etc) as you cant disconnect the speaker from the amp if the amp fails, rendering the whole unit useless.

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