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Any Vintage Acoustic Control Corp Users?
- Thread starter Syncopation
- Start date
It's a 301. The previous owner painted over the blue Formica with black paint.
I love the shape of the body on that bass. All round great looking rig!
Thank you. It’s a 1979 Suzuki bass, MIJ.I love the shape of the body on that bass. All round great looking rig!
I have the Acoustic Control 450 Guitar or Bass Head about 46 years old running through an Ampeg 410 HLF Cabinet, Sounds great very punchy the only thing I changed was adding a computer fan internally which drops the temp of the heat sink so the bass tone does not feed back to much as is the natural way the amp gets its distortion, there is also a separate distortion button / vol you can use as well. For a solid state Amp they ROCK!!! not as heavy as my Ampeg SVT Cl Classic all valve head. Was lucky to pick this us at a local Bendigo church as third hand she needed a little TLC through a local Amp tech but a great investment that I will never part with..
I have a 106 "project" that I got recently and am hoping to have up and running in the next weeks. Needs a good cleaning inside and out and then have the OEM speakers (that I have a pristine pair of) loaded into it. It came with 1 original driver (with no dustcap) and an old squareback Peavey from the early triassic era. Besides that just small stuff like standardizing the hardware (not sure what all I have/need just yet, but shouldn't be too hard to get a few bolts and washers), and some nice speaker cable (need to find a place I can get just a few feet of decent stuff). Oil the casters, etc... and thenit should be a pretty kickass vintage cab. I may model it with EVM 15B Pro Lines and if that looks promising I'll see if I can pick one up to go with the one I have. I also have a pair of old Cerwin Vegas that sound great that I'll probably try in it as well (no real way to model those without measuring their TSPs, so might as well just throw em in and see what happens).
And I kind of like the idea of adding a Trace style "bright box" with 4 5s to get some upper mids and highs. Maybe even with a tweeter as well (although that complicates the crossover).
And I kind of like the idea of adding a Trace style "bright box" with 4 5s to get some upper mids and highs. Maybe even with a tweeter as well (although that complicates the crossover).
Hi All,
A vintage acoustic control amp and speaker came my way. I feel very fortunate. Its a 220 with a 404 15" cabinet. Its dirty and a little rusty - but it works and sounds great. I have attached a few pics. I hope to do some restoration I think. All the pots have stopped crackling with a little use. Except the volume pot makes some noise when adjusted. I am not certain if they all did that as its not typical dirty pot noise.
A vintage acoustic control amp and speaker came my way. I feel very fortunate. Its a 220 with a 404 15" cabinet. Its dirty and a little rusty - but it works and sounds great. I have attached a few pics. I hope to do some restoration I think. All the pots have stopped crackling with a little use. Except the volume pot makes some noise when adjusted. I am not certain if they all did that as its not typical dirty pot noise.
Attachments
attached is also a pic of the speaker- pretty sure its original. Some are interested in what speaker these 404 gen 3 cabs came with. And it tests 4.1 ohms. Eminence manufacture date 1980
I'm still loving my 220. I also just got it's little brother, a 120, again in mint condition. Funny enough, the 120 is much lighter than the 220, but almost as loud!
Take time with the tone controls on these amps. They are very effective and even the slightest adjustment can change the sound significantly. The typical scooped out shape on the graphic that most people use on equalizers doesn't really work for me. Instead, a bump in the middle and the bass middle and treble set at about 10 o'clock gives me a nice fat vintage sound. If you look at videos of the Watt Stax festival, where they used mountains of ACC gear, you'll see that's how they had them set.
Welcome to the club and enjoy!
Is the 120 as wide as the 220? These are big amps! yes the EQ is sensitive. Also I have found that even using a passive bass its easy to overdrive the preamp section. I like using the -10db input. I get a cleaner sound and it still can get very loud. I like a more clean tone. if you do push the amp using the -10db it sounds to me like you get the power section drive rather than the preamp.
The 120 is the same size as a 220.
If you are getting overdrive with your 220, I think you may have a problem. I've never been able to turn mine up any more then half way. At that point it's rattling the walls and is still totally clean. Thats with a Jazz Bass plugged into the normal input, power boost off and brite switch off.
I don't think these amps are known for distorted tones. More like loud clean sound. I'm sorry but you might have to let a tech look at it. It shouldn't be distorting. Maybe one of the more knowledgable members like @10cc can confirm that.
Just about all of my ACC amps start distorting once the volume knob goes over nine o’clock. Except for my 360.
They all get really loud around nine o’clock then start to break up the more you turn it up.
Not splitting hairs or anything, but I would say more like 11 o'clock . And when we say loud, I mean neighbors and band members telling me to turn down. More clean volume than anyone should need except for arenas and large venues, and thats what P.A.s are for.
Also @BassMan99 , The issue of the inputs, my buddy plays through my 220 often. He has a Fender Geddy Lee signature Jazz Bass, which I believe has pretty hot pick ups and there are no problems with overdriving the pre-amp. Thats why I think you might have a problem.
Just trying to be helpful . It could be something really simple.
Back from the dead:
Other than the 404 were there other 1x15 cabs that ACC produced during the 360/370 era?
Other than the 404 were there other 1x15 cabs that ACC produced during the 360/370 era?
