Recommendation For Canadians Who Can't Access Ashdown Product To Audition

[BassInstincts]

Hello,

 

I'm interested in Ashdown gear, but there is only one dealer in Canada, and they don't stock much of it; largely because they also manufactures their own amps and cabs. What little Ashdown gear they do have on hand suffers a ridiculous markup (60% above what Ashdown recommends as a Canadian retail price), which I have already brought to Ashdown's attention.

 

I need a capable practice amp with a small footprint. I will never be gigging or jamming. I am interested in a boutique product that sounds great at modest volumes, which I can stand relatively close to and still catch the beam of the highs without immigrating to the other side of the room. I am 'assuming' the OriginAL 300 as the amp, either as a combo in the Kickback 15" livery, or as a head with a Column CL 310, but I can't find either to audition.

 

Does anybody here have experience of either of those cabs with that amp. 

 

Thanks!

Edited December 4, 2023 by BassInstincts

[BassmanPaul]

Just for interest, as Canada is a big donkey country, be more specific!!  

 

LOL I used a colloquial term A S S  and the post was changed to donkey! That made my day, I needed a good laugh!

 

Edit to add: many people around the world have no idea of the sheer size of  this country.  On my father's first trip to visit us in Toronto he asked if we could take a day trip to see the Rockies. It broke my heart to tell him they were as far away from Toronto as he had just flown from the UK.  I miss him dreadfully.

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by BassmanPaul

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

+1. Some 90% of GB can be driven to from any other place in GB within ten hours. Some 95% of Canada cannot be driven to within ten hours from any other place in Canada. The province of Ontario alone is five times the size of Great Britain.

[Downunderwonder]

Doing rough maths, in other words 5% is within 10hrs of some other bit, most of it is surrounded by the rest so ignore the coast and border, but GB is strung out, it's complicated! 10hrs north south GB is the diameter of a 5% circle drawn on Canada, if most of it is accessible by some kind of road. Big doesn't cover it.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Downunderwonder

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Big to say the least, but 90% of the population of Canada lives within 100 miles of the US border. Montreal is only a five hour drive from me; I visit there pretty much every summer. Another hour north and you're in the middle of nowhere. For the most part it's miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.

[Woodinblack]

12 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Montreal is only a five hour drive from me;

 

And then another 5 hours getting round the roadworks!

[Downunderwonder]

It's easier if I square everything down. It's probably even more accurate as roads tend to grid up on big spaces.

 

So UK is three squares worth = 10 hours. A 5% chunk of Canada is a square block of 36 squares, the centre point in that chunk is 3 squares from the edge.

 

x 20 = 100% = 720 squares. Holy moly.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

And then another 5 hours getting round the roadworks!

It's not bad, certainly no worse than any major American city, better than New York. When I get there the car stays parked, I either walk or take the Metro.

[Downunderwonder]

I looked it up and Canada is 'only' about 40x the size of UK so something is amiss in the analysis.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

It's not just the area, it's the roads. In GB you can hardly drive more than 10 miles between roads. In most of Canada you can drive 100 miles between intersections, if there are roads at all. Nunavit province is mostly islands that can only be reached by boat or airplane. At 800,000 square miles it alone is ten times the size of Great Britain, yet has a population less than 40,000.

 

[BassmanPaul]

19 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Big to say the least, but 90% of the population of Canada lives within 100 miles of the US border. Montreal is only a five hour drive from me; I visit there pretty much every summer. Another hour north and you're in the middle of nowhere. For the most part it's miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.

When you do visit stop off in Toronto and I'll buy you a beer -  or two.

Edited December 6, 2023 by BassmanPaul

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I would but that's out of my range for a weekend trip, which is as long as I can be away from home. If you haven't hit the Comedy or Jazz festivals in Montreal you need to add those to your list.

[BassInstincts]

 

I guess the take away is that no one 'yet' available to the thread has experience of these particular Ashdown components. On the preferred matter of consideration, Ashdown's own advice to me suggested that they too had no idea about Canada's...'disconnectedness' from itself due to size. What makes it worse still (in addition to the poorly valued CDN $, and zero forgiveness when bringing 'goods' back into the country without paying high import duties, in addition to the provincial and federal sales tax) is the costly nature of Canada's small retail footprint and lack of a competitive retail climate. When my wife and I are looking for unique things on line, we are both caused to comment on how often we find what we want in the UK, but we get killed by the exchange rate. Canada is where large, otherwise successful American companies (Target, Lowes, Bed Bath & Beyond, Nordstrom, to name but a few) come to fail in navigation of the stagnant retail landscape. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by BassInstincts

[BassInstincts]

To recover the thread, this is what I'm looking for 'feedback' on.

Edited December 6, 2023 by BassInstincts

[binky_bass]

@BassInstincts - could you not speak to Mark or Dave at Ashdown and see if they could send you one directly? Fortunately for me I live 15 minutes away from Ashdown, so have the luxury of being able to 'pop in', not that I've ever actually done that as yet! 

[Downunderwonder]

Ashdown can't go around their own distributor.

 

Why so much firepower for something that never has to be heard with drums and guitars and assorted noisy bastards?

 

I can appreciate not wanting to be ripped off by a monopoly distributor. Maybe something smaller and less exotic would suit and you would get ripped off less? Traynor make some good stuff. It's pretty exotic if you call yourself a North American.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

If I was Canadian I'd be looking at Traynor/Yorkville.

[BassInstincts]

So I guess the take away is that no one here has any experience of these items, just alternative advice. What a shame. I had hoped for more from a UK based forum on a UK based product. Thanks anyway. 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, BassInstincts said:

So I guess the take away is that no one here has any experience of these items, just alternative advice. What a shame. I had hoped for more from a UK based forum on a UK based product. Thanks anyway. 

 

Sorry - we are all playing the ABM EVOs over here

 

[Downunderwonder]

2 hours ago, BassInstincts said:

So I guess the take away is that no one here has any experience of these items, just alternative advice. What a shame. I had hoped for more from a UK based forum on a UK based product. Thanks anyway. 

I read most threads and true enough, never heard of either until you came along!

[BreadBin]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Sorry - we are all playing the ABM EVOs over here

 

I use an American designed amp made in China into a Polish cabinet! 😀

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, BreadBin said:

I use an American designed amp made in China into a Polish cabinet! 😀

 

Well, I am all patriotic, I can play a british bass through a british cable into a british amp into a british cabinet.

Although most of my gigs i end up playing the chinese one!

[BassInstincts]

I'm not patriotic, but I 'do' have a Canadian made Traynor YBA 200, a 200 watt all tube amp, with a 15/210 cab in my studio (which I no longer record in), but only because it is incredibly versatile, and creates all the great classic sounds while keeping up appearances with the new kids on the block. But I need something smaller in the house for...personal bass exploration. I recently bought a brand new RIC 4003 (in Maple Glo), which I have come to use exclusively as it has, in short order, replaced and displaced both vintage P and J basses that have so long partnered my play, but whose sound I can now suitably replicate using the onboard tone controls alone, allowing me to enjoy the feel of the RIC neck and action even when revisiting old school sounds. 

 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, BassInstincts said:

I'm not patriotic, but I 'do' have a Canadian made Traynor YBA 200, a 200 watt all tube amp, with a 15/210 cab in my studio (which I no longer record in), but only because it is incredibly versatile, and creates all the great classic sounds while keeping up appearances with the new kids on the block

 

I was joking, I am not patriotic at all, it just so happens that I have an Ashdown amp* (amongst others) as I like it,  a british cab** (because it is the basschat 1x12 that I built from the description on here), a british cable as there is a company on ebay that makes whatever size and type of cable that are good, and a british bass***, in fact 3, 1 I made, one another forum member made and one Mr Shuker made.

 

I know what you mean for the house, that is why I got the 1x10 warwick speaker (it was a damaged B stock, so cheap), and a Bam200 amp, my room is crowded and since I started using the BC112 speaker live, it is no longer in my room, so I wanted something small to practice on.

 

* and 2 TC Electronics and bugera

** and 2 TC Electronic 1x12 speakers and a 10" warwick

*** and.. oh lets not go there!