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AMPEG QC

#65
fttfbass said:
Are you keeping your 810? Or are you still getting rid of it, along with the CL?
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No, I am keeping the 810. I was going to go back to Hartke..but I decided to go Ampeg one more time. The Pro 6 should ship out today. I should get it by the weeks end or next monday. I'll do a "mini review" on it.
 
#71
Mon Rominee said:
True, but what is it that is wanted? The tone you want, or simply to use an Ampeg? Is the name-drop taking front seat to tone happiness?

Just asking... I love my Ampeg, so....
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I know what my 810e can sound like. When I had my svt1000 head..it just had killer low end and effortless power. But then I tried the svt cl in a store side by side with a svt 1000. I liked the different tone, so, on impulse, I ordered a classic. As I used the classic for a couple months, I just did not realize the broad difference of tone from just turning up the volume...went from full and rich to distorted and restrained.

So as many svt fans like this tone, I don't. But I had to bring it home and experience it for a while to be sure. An hour or two in GC just does not cut it.

When I hit an open e I want to feel it as well as hear it. I want to be able to have the power to shake the walls or, strain to listen, based on my attack alone.

So, I'm going for the new SVT 6-Pro...which they have just verified will ship today!!
 
#72
My SVT-4Pro went out on me the second week of this 6 week tour that I just finished. It started with a slight smell of burning plastic for a couple of days and that had me super worried. But days off were rare on this tour so I could only cross my fingers. Well we get to Nashville and turn it on for sound check and I hear a strange popping sound and then comes the black smoke. Luckily our tour manager knew someone to call that would rent me a head for the night. I had my AI Focus SA overnighted to me while I worked on getting another head. I eventually had a Aguilar 750 sent out to me, which I'm madly in love with now.

Anyway to the point....Lot's of things can go wrong when you are using an amp everynight and it constantly gets slammed around in a bus or a trailer. The important thing is what will the company do to back you you up. Ampeg totally came through for me. We were going to play St. Louis (Ampeg's headquarters) a week or so later after the fateful gig in Nashville so I planned on dropping it off in person to have Ampeg fix it. I bought it used and I had no idea how old it was or if they would even fix it. I had to pay for the repair of course, but they only charge a flat rate of $105 to fix anything. Great deal since they had to replace the circuit board and the poweramp in my head. Street price would have been more than the price I paid for it. I was pretty impressed with what they charge to fix their products and how nice they were to me. I felt like I was dealing with a small company. My Aguilar 728 needs some work, so I hope Aguilar comes through in the same way Ampeg did.
 
#73
billfitzmaurice said:
I am qualified and can say without reservation that those are not engineering decisions. No competant engineer with an ounce of pride in his product would ever condone this. Chalk up insufficient damping and wire gauge to the bean counters.

Note that very few large manufacturers have qualified speaker designers on payroll. Most designs are done by consulting engineers; after all, it's not like Ampeg or Fender etc come out with a new cabinet design every 6 weeks. I've done more than a few, and can tell you that the finished product seldom ends up as originally specified. The original specs are more often than not summarily altered, and never for the better, once the bean counters get involved in the project. The first place where corners are cut is where the consumer won't see it, as in wire gauge and damping material. If some accountant figures out a way to save ten bucks per cabinet, multiplied by two thousand cabinets a year that justifies his salary to management. Even where there is an engineer on payroll when it comes to business it's the accountants who rule the roost. The bottom line is always the bottom line.

Also note that where you're least likely to find cost cutting at the expense of good sound, and a qualified engineer making sure every box is done right, is with small operators like Jim and Jorg who have their own names on their products and take pride in everything they put it on.
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Well, Bill, I DID expect a little better from you...... I am slightly disappointed, actually.....

Wire gauge....

As you of all people should know.... the wire gauge IN the speaker voice coil is far smaller than any wire used for speaker wiring. It may be 28ga or 36 ga etc. A relatively short length of it adds up to nearly 8 , 16, or even 32 ohms resistance...... depending on driver's designed impedance.

What is the point of using a piece of wire that has 1/1000th the resistance, instead of one with "only" 1/500th the resistance of the voice coil? I challenge anyone to hear a difference.

Your choice of speaker wire from amp to cabinet will likely swamp out any such difference...... especially if any 1/4" connectors are involved......

The use of larger than needed wire is pretty much in the marketing category..... it may give the user a "happy warm fuzzy" (if they see it) but actually does nothing for function....

If we needed thicker wire, we'd specify it.


Speaker batting.....

As Bill knows, filling the cabinet adds an effective volume by converting "adiabatic" compression to "isothermal" compression.

OK, what if you don't WANT or DON'T NEED the extra effective volume for teh performance you want? Then you don't stuff the cabinet full. Simple.

Stuffing or not isn't a mark of quality or "not quality"......

We put the stuffing that IS in the cabinets in there for damping reflected sound... And in certain cabinets we leave some areas uncovered, too.

We do NOT have decisions over-ruled by bean counters in the way Bill Fitzmaurice and a few others have described. Any place that does, has a serious problem.

I submit that Bill and the others have NO IDEA why certain decisions were or are made in our facility... and have made conclusions based on what are, to some extent, offensive assumptions....

One, that bean counters tore up the product. Another that implies the designers to be totally unqualified.

AND that conclusion has now been published for the entire internet to see....

Before assuming that the designers are unqualified, or that the bean counters "forced us" to cut wire sizes and reduce stuffing, or that some outside contractor's good design was ruined, you might think a moment and consider that decisions may be made for engineering reasons.... There is no advantage to over-engineering everything.... when it makes no difference to function, OR may even hurt performance.

As far as QC, there were some difficulties about 5 or 6 years ago.... which should be long gone. That has been discussed a number of times.

We honor our warranty, which will protect you from that sort of thing.
 
#74
"I seem to remember one of the participants in this thread mentioning that same sort of behaviour on another board, where he was "slandered". IIRC he was boasting that HE "got it shut down"........... "

Mr. Tiers,

I am the "Participant" to whom you are refering to. I, at no time, have "boasted", "I got it shut down". Now I reccomend that you keep to what you know, designing, and leave politics out of this. I fought hard to keep that forum open...and have emails of communication with the person in charge to back this up, however, because of all sorts of wrongdoings on MANY peoples parts, that forum was shut down, for a "cooling off period". Please don't start throwing untruths around on this forum.
 
#75
I mentioned no names, don't intend to, and may very well not have been referring to you.

There are several persons who have "claimed credit" in various places for getting things closed on the Ampeg board.

There are a number of people who post on this board and were there also. So there is no need to feel you are being singled out.

For what its worth, you behaved pretty well over there in the face of a lot of very vindictive postings...... IMO

I have removed that portion of the message, since it really isn't necessary to the point, and seems to be a focus point aside from the real point.
 
#76
Jerrold Tiers said:
I mentioned no names, don't intend to, and may very well not have been referring to you.

There are several persons who have "claimed credit" in various places for getting things closed on the Ampeg board.

There are a number of people who post on this board and were there also. So there is no need to feel you are being singled out.

For what its worth, you behaved pretty well over there in the face of a lot of very vindictive postings...... IMO

I have removed that portion of the message, since it really isn't necessary to the point, and seems to be a focus point aside from the real point.
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Mr. Tiers...you have my humble appology and thanks.... I want to move forward from that experience....
 
#77
Fair enough, but how do you account for people who have experienced stuffing coming right off because of bad stapling jobs? I understand the company went through some issues in the past with QC, but it is still common to hear of someone getting an Ampeg product DOA...

One product I would love to get but have been weary to is the SVP-BSP preamp. Have all the noise issues with that unit been resolved? If so, I will definately be picking one up soon.
 
#78
OK, what if you don't WANT or DON'T NEED the extra effective volume for teh performance you want? Then you don't stuff the cabinet full. Simple.
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Stuffing/lining is not simply a matter of adding enough material to reach a certain level of effective volume. Point of fact, this effect is secondary to the primary purpose of damping, which is to minimize internal reflections. Any midrange reflections back to the driver cone will result in response peaks and valleys, depending on the degree of phase shift between the initial impulse and the arrival of the reflected wave back at the cone. In a reflex system these same reflections are able to exit the port, leading to further response zits. Fully lining and/or stuffing cabinets as required to give the best possible response is more than just accepted practice in the high-end audio industry; it is expected.
 
#79
Oh, there is stuffing, but the cabinets are generally not stuffed full......

As you say, there would otherwise be reflections..... "Lining" with absorbent material is used to prevent that, WHICH WE DO. We simply don't stuff them full.

TEF testing has revealed no significant reflected energy exiting the box....... So that shouldn't be an issue. I have used the same material previously in PA cabinet designs, again with demonstrated good reflection prevention.
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As far as stuffing which comes out, that is obviously not supposed to happen, and, as the other poster said, could be due to a fastener not holding correctly, or a piece which was not held together properly by the "net" that is on the material surface.
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DOA? Obviously bad. Often due to really rough shipping.

We have our packing certified through a shippers association standardized test.

However, I am convinced that UPS, and their competitors, could break an anvil. You would not believe some of what has come back. Things that appeared to have been dropped some large distance onto concrete, possibly 15 feet drop or more.

UPS, for one, has asserted that a 15 foot drop "is possible"..... and of course even after such a drop, they are paid to deliver it, so they do, damaged or not. I know people who have gotten an empty and very torn-up box delivered, although that wasn't one of our products.

Reverting to my own version of "bean counter response", we would like not to have to pack all our products in military type air-drop-qualified containers.........
 

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