A tale of two pedalboard amps

[moon-bass]

I've been re-doing my set ups to almost an OCD level as of late. I want to make sure I am covered for any gig situation, from small coffee houses to huge festivals, and everything in between. In addition, I walk or bike to many gigs (I live close to many venues and parking is also non-existent) so I needed portability and scalability. I looked at a pedal board amp, one that I could use a variety of preamps with and still be reliable and portable. I put together two pedal boards and ended up getting rid of one after deciding that having an extra wasn't needed. Pics below. Fwiw, I decided on keeping the HX Effetcs with various preamps, depending on my mood. I'm parting out the other pedal board.

I bought the Straight Ahead SA-500 and the Baby Sumo. I tested both in a number of configurations. I will detail the results below.

 

[moon-bass]

Sorry for the long gap, work's been busy ...

So first - as noted, I was looking for an ultra portable rig. I like the idea of being able to swap out different preamps depending on my gig and/or whims, so I put together two pedal boards to test with.

The first one is just an HX Helix FX that i simply used with a variety of preamps. The second is a small board with "the essentials" - a Broughton HPF, micro tuner, Synth pedal, envelope filter, three band parametric EQ, and a preamp that I could swap out as needed.

As a side note, I put together this second mini-board and ended up parting it out as I found that I really didn't need all of that. I put together another, even smaller board, consisting of the tuner, HPF, and a single band parametric EQ. The HX Effects plus a preamp did everything the small board did and more, and ended up being even more portable.

My plan was to use the pedal boards in conjunction with the pedal board amps and a small speaker. Very portable and very flexible. The HPF was key part of this - by trimming just a little bit of the low end using the HPF, i was able to get significantly more volume out of the smaller speakers. The single band parametric was needed to switch between fretted and fretless - i found the three band to be overkill for my needs.

Speakers tested:
Trace Elliot Elf 2x8
Trace Elliot Elf 1x10
Barefaced 1x10
Markbass Traveller 2x10
Aguilar 1x12NT
Markbass Traveller 1x12

Preamps tested (some benefited from a Radial JDI)
Darkglass B7K Ultra v2
Eden WTDI
Trace Elliot SM-7
Aguilar Tone Hammer
Sansamp VT
Sansamp Para DI
EBS Valvedrive DI
GK Plex
A few others that I can't remember right now ...

Basses:
Mostly Jazz-style basses with active and passive electronics, including 4, 5, and 6 strings, fretted and fretless, vintage and modern, including a 64 Jazz, a 72 Jazz, a 74 Jazz with EMG active pups, several Sadowsky basses (including 5 strings), a Warwick Thumb fretless, and an F Bass fretless 6 string. Others as well, check out my profile for the full list.

First impressions:
These are two very different approaches to pedal board amps. The Sumo is built like a tank. It's solid and heavy duty. The SA is lighter and made with thinner materials.

The Sumo is much, much heavier and is twice the size of the SA. The SA, while lighter and smaller, seems less durable. The question I had to ask myself - am I looking for something more portable (SA) or more durable (Sumo)?

The fan in the SA was a little loud, so i replaced it with an ultra-quiet, high airflow computer fan that I got from Amazon. I'm not sure if the fan was damaged in transit or it is just a louder model, but $9 later and now the fan is ultra quiet.

So i tried them both with all the preamps and speakers above. Both sounded great! I felt the Sumo was a little louder and had a little more headroom, but i didn't feel like it made that much of a difference - both are gig worthy and could easily fill a small/medium size room and would be perfect for a lot of gigs, especially where portability is a factor. Neither had any noticeable distortion, and both benefited from the HPF (although this may have been a speaker limitation as well). Neither had any issues with a low B.

Next up: Conclusions!

 

[moon-bass]

Conclusion #1: I decided on two pedalboard set ups. One is the Helix HX Effects with a preamp/DI. I could use the Helix with just a DI but I like to be able to pair it with different preamps, especially effective with a Fender Tone stack. If I need/want effects, or tonal flexibility, this gives me what I need, I can send to the house and a pedalboard amp, it will take to a variety of speaker set ups.

The second is the bare essentials. A tuner, parametric eq, and Hpf. I pair that with a pedal preamp and I can use multiple basses, enhance mwah on a fretless, dial out low mud and increase volume for smaller set ups. If the preamp has DI, I can send to front of house without a separate box....

I can fit the entire set up, cables and all, in my gig bag. Gig bag over the shoulder, speaker in my hand, I can easily walk or bike to gigs. Plus, I can swap out preamps as needed. Maybe I feel like an Eden, or the Tone Hammer, or the EBS Valvedrive. Works for many, many gigs.

 

[moon-bass]

Conclusion #2:. I sold the Sumo and kept the SA. Purely came down to portability. I needed something that I could easily put in a gig bag and the SA won out. If I had a larger pedal board or didn't need something as portable, the Sumo would have won. As it stands now, I can use either the Helix with any number or preamps or my small utility board with preamps as well, plug into the SA, and have an ultra portable rig.

 

[letsgethandsome]

I know this is an old thread but very useful information here! I am thinking of picking up an SA to use As a power amp two different boutique preamp's that I have. Very similar scenarios to some of what you detail above. Thanks for taking the time to put this out there and if you have any additional were new thoughts a year later, let me know!