Ashdown Studio 8 Review Plus

[MadJack]

Well, after over an hours work, I'm going to try this again. I couldn't recover the previous draft!

I've been play around with and working on guitars and tube amps for years. My personal experience with bass was with my daughters bass and amp. They went with her when she got married and moved out over three years ago.

The end of this last summer, I decided to get into bass and try a little more seriously, as my budget permits. I started with a Donner DPB-510B P-Bass copy. With new strings and a setup it's actually pretty good, especially when I got it on sale and before the price increase. Just $118.40 shipped.

Now I needed an amp. I was shopping all the major name brand combo practice amps, when I happened upon the Ashdown Studio 8 as the Stupid Deal Of The Day on Musician's Friend. It was $99.99, but at the time, normally $164.99. Shortly after it came off sale, it jumped to $199.99! A couple weeks later it went up to $219.99! Then I checked it a couple weeks ago and now it's up to $249.99! I guess I got in on it at the most opportune time.

The amp does sound good, nice warm tone. Problem is it has a low volume, even for a 30 watt 8" bass amp. It struggles to keep up with the 3-1/2" studio monitors I use with my laptop. It runs great up until half way on the control knobs and a modest volume level on the guitar. If I go any higher the speaker starts to distort, especially on the lower notes. I should be getting more from cleaner settings.

The light weight make for very easy handling. I mean this thing is really light! Either 13.4 of 15.8 lbs., depending upon the source.

Seeing as all the issues I found were all speaker related, I started looking for 8" bass guitar speakers. There are none specifically. Reading through a few threads (Fender Rumble Club, The Combo Club & others), I found that those who have done speaker swaps, did so with Bass/Mid-Bass/woofer speakers. Most notably was the Faital-PRO 8FE200.

I needed to get the speaker specs to order the correct speaker. The grill is Velcro'ed on the front of the baffle like most bass amps, but there was no pull tab. I used an inch and a half putty knife and pried up one corner and pulled it off from there. Underneath was the typical flat black baffle with the speaker surface mounted in the middle with four very small wood screws. The speaker had the typical spade type connectors. The speaker had no EIA code on it. It does have two stickers on it. One says "ASH/8/4/20/BLACK" and the other just says "STUDIO-8" & "2008." Looking behind the spider, the voice coil looks very small, maybe 3/4", one of the smallest I've ever seen on any speaker. I did a DC resistance check and got a reading of 3.6Ω. Knowing the DC resistance is slightly lower than the AC impedance, I knew I had a 4Ω speaker. One Faital-PRO 8FE200, 4Ω on order.

This is a bass speaker?

Now for the cab. The speaker is isolated from the amplifier components. The ad copy states it is "Constructed using super lightweight poplar ply...," but I can't seem to find any type of plywood inside the cab. the baffle, top, bottom, sides and amp panels are all an "engineered wood" product of some sort. It's lighter than normal MDF and is composed of finer grains than MDF. There is a port in the back of the cab, but it's sealed to the front baffle and open in the back, but sealed. There is no porting to the inside.

The Faital-PRO speaker came in and I immediately noticed the difference in the build quality and the weight. All the specs of the speaker said it should work great in this amp.

Stock on the left, Faital-PRO 8FE200 on the right.

The new speaker does require the use of all 8 of the screw holes. I used four #4 wood screws and drilled the appropriate hole and mounted the speaker with all 8 screws. I did have to put washers under the four stock screws, as the holes in the new speaker are bigger than the light little speaker.

The speaker did add about 2-3 lbs to the amp, but that doesn't seem to be an issue, as the amp was so light before.

Now the performance of the new speaker, it is noticeably better! The 95 dB sensitivity really brings the volume up to a more respectful level for this amp. The bass response is much better. Much fuller and tighter. It didn't lose any of the warmth or the treble response. In fact, the treble is more controllable. The speaker doesn't distort till much further up the dial, even with the increased speaker sensitivity. It's way louder and has much greater clean headroom. It handles my OD pedals well. definitely a worthwhile mod here. It does hang with laptop and monitors and will hang with my Taylor acoustic and my sister singing.

Is this amp worth the new price? Nope!

Was it worth the price of the SDOTD I got it for? Most definitely!

Was the speaker upgrade worth it? Absolutely!

 

[MadJack]

Through the whole write-up, I forgot the picture of the amp itself!

 

[MadJack]

I did little experimenting with it yesterday. I took some Polly-fill, teased it out and lightly filled the cab with it. It wasn't a major improvement, but was definitely noticeable. It smoothed out the mids and made the amp a bit more articulate. The audio from the LINE IN is much less boxy sounding. Not so cringey when playing along with a song.

 

[Analogeezer]

Cool story, glad it worked out well for you.

How much was the Faital speaker? I believe those tend to be rather expensive but you get what you pay for of course.

Question for the TB crowd; is this the same driver used in the Trace-Elliot cabs? I know the 2 x 8" is 8 ohms so probably not the exact same speaker unless they wired 4 ohms ones in series.

RevSound uses Celestions in their 8" cab products, it's not a speaker you can buy off the shelf though.

These are really, really good sounding for bass, apparently designed for bass, not a pro sound driver that is suitable for bass.

Analogeezer

 

[MadJack]

Cool story, glad it worked out well for you.

How much was the Faital speaker? I believe those tend to be rather expensive but you get what you pay for of course.

Question for the TB crowd; is this the same driver used in the Trace-Elliot cabs? I know the 2 x 8" is 8 ohms so probably not the exact same speaker unless they wired 4 ohms ones in series.

RevSound uses Celestions in their 8" cab products, it's not a speaker you can buy off the shelf though.

These are really, really good sounding for bass, apparently designed for bass, not a pro sound driver that is suitable for bass.

Analogeezer

I feel really lucky having getting these items on sale when I did.

The FaitalPRO 8FE200 4Ω was only $52 at PE. I was considering two speakers that met the specks I was looking for at a reasonable price. The other was a Dayton Hi-fi woofer, that cost $20 more. I wasn't too sure about the upper frequencies on the Dayton, as the profile looked like a hi-fi speaker response. I went with this speaker after considering the response ranges and reading a few reviews here on TB, where one TB'er put one in a Pignose Hog 30 and another who put one in a Ampeg BA108. Both had good things to say.

I've primarily been a Tube guitar amp aficionado, building and modifying them to my taste and a few for some others. One of the big things I've found about OEM speaker in the last 20+ years, most use cheap OEM, off the shelf speakers, which are typically not available off the shelf retail. These may be from a major name brand or a small company. These speakers meet the fairly loose parameters the OEMs are looking for in a particular amp/cab. Then the OEMs will slap a label on one of the speakers and call them "Special Design." Eminence is a big manufacturer that makes these speakers. The Chinese made Eminence are the OEM speakers (a few exceptions for Special/Limited Edition amps), while the speakers you buy retail are the USA assembled speakers. Those RevSound Celestions are most likely as I described here.

It is not likely these are the speakers used in the Trace-Elliot 2 X 8" cabs, as these cabs are rated for 400 watts rms (200 watts each speaker), while these are rated for 130 watts rms each. Looking through faitalpro.com, I didn't see any off the shelf speakers that meet those parameters. The most accurate way to find out who made the speakers would be to pull one of the speakers and see if they have the EIA code.

 

[MadJack]

I downloaded WinISD and started playing with it using my Studio 8's specs and the FaitalPRO 8FE200 I installed in it. I don't have the scientific measuring setup to confirm what the speaker did for the amp, but to the best of my knowledge, it seemed correct.

One thing I found a little odd with the amp is the port tube to nowhere. It has a 3" i.d. tube the starts at the opening in the back to the front baffle. No opening inside the amp. WinISD showed that a 3" port 5.623" would give me a tuning of 52 Hz, which boosted the low end of the curve. I used a hacksaw blade and an X-Acto knife to cut the cardboard tube to 5-1/8" inside the cab, through the 8" speaker hole. Take your time and be very patient if you try this!

While this isn't a high wattage 8X10, it did significantly boost the low-mid to low end (below 200Hz), giving a better tone for around the house. I also stuffed more Poly-Fil in the cab, which seemed to smooth out the little bit of muddiness the amp had.

Comparison of the transfer function curves:



I did have to tweak my amp settings, but now the bass sounds fit better when playing along with my powered studio monitors.

 

[NZBassman]

thank you for doing this review
I've got a Fender Rumble 15w and looking to upgrade to a 30-40w practice amp - this one was on my radar and is at a good price, but I might give it a miss and look for another brand

 

[MadJack]

thank you for doing this review
I've got a Fender Rumble 15w and looking to upgrade to a 30-40w practice amp - this one was on my radar and is at a good price, but I might give it a miss and look for another brand

Most any amp in the 30-40 watt range, with an 8" speaker would be just a minimal step up. Something in the 75+ watt range and at a minimum, 10" speaker. A 12" or 15", with 100+ watts would be much better. It would most likely be enough for jam sessions to small to mid sized gigs with a modest drummer. I just picked up an Ashdown AAA Five 15/FF125, a 15" 125 watt combo for just these reasons. It sounds like a bigger version of the Studio 8 with my mods, to which I'm loving both.

 

[SaltyFingers]

Thanks for the information. Serious question. I haven't taken out the speaker from my Studio 8 yet, but was curious about your thoughts on if I could fit a 10" speaker in this cabinet (of course I would have to cut the speaker hole to size). Thank You!

 

[MadJack]

Thanks for the information. Serious question. I haven't taken out the speaker from my Studio 8 yet, but was curious about your thoughts on if I could fit a 10" speaker in this cabinet (of course I would have to cut the speaker hole to size). Thank You!

Fitment is likely to be tight, but the cab size would be too small for most 10" speakers. A better 8" speaker is most likely the best option for this little amp.


Another change I did since my last post in here was I tried an Eminence Alpha-8A and there was a ever so slight loss of total volume the lows sat in the same range as the FaitalPRO. What happens there is the highs and mids are rolled off a little, but the lows stay the same. End result is the total volume is down barely noticeably, but the low mids to lows (that are available in an 8" speaker) remained at the same level. You hear more of the lows at an equivalent volume level.

Overall, it's still a great little 30 watt, 8" practice combo, and it's still my favorite solid state practice amp. It's no longer my most used amp, that goes to my Ashdown CTM-30/RM210/RM115 stack. Sweet all tube Ashdown sound, but much louder, warmer and fuller. The CTM30 can get about as loud as the Five 15, but it's a dirty tone only at that volume level, but what a dirty tone! If cleaner tones are needed at those volume levels, the Five 15 or my MAG300 head would be better choices. I still use the Studio 8 when I do my lessons and practice or when playing along with tracks, but I go to the CTM for blasting some fun!

 

[SaltyFingers]

Fitment is likely to be tight, but the cab size would be too small for most 10" speakers. A better 8" speaker is most likely the best option for this little amp.


Another change I did since my last post in here was I tried an Eminence Alpha-8A and there was a ever so slight loss of total volume the lows sat in the same range as the FaitalPRO. What happens there is the highs and mids are rolled off a little, but the lows stay the same. End result is the total volume is down barely noticeably, but the low mids to lows (that are available in an 8" speaker) remained at the same level. You hear more of the lows at an equivalent volume level.

Overall, it's still a great little 30 watt, 8" practice combo, and it's still my favorite solid state practice amp. It's no longer my most used amp, that goes to my Ashdown CTM-30/RM210/RM115 stack. Sweet all tube Ashdown sound, but much louder, warmer and fuller. The CTM30 can get about as loud as the Five 15, but it's a dirty tone only at that volume level, but what a dirty tone! If cleaner tones are needed at those volume levels, the Five 15 or my MAG300 head would be better choices. I still use the Studio 8 when I do my lessons and practice or when playing along with tracks, but I go to the CTM for blasting some fun!

So to be clear, you did put a 4 ohm speaker in an 8 ohm amp cabinet? I thought you weren't supposed to do that? The specs for my studio 8 on the Ashdown site say it is 30watts in to 8 ohms...

 

[MadJack]

So to be clear, you did put a 4 ohm speaker in an 8 ohm amp cabinet? I thought you weren't supposed to do that? The specs for my studio 8 on the Ashdown site say it is 30watts in to 8 ohms...

I tested the stock speaker with DC resistance and it read lower than any other 8Ω speaker I have ever tested. It read as low as my other 4Ω speakers. (Aside from my bass amps, I build tube guitar amps. this includes 4-9 watt 8" combos, so I have a few variations of 8" speakers to test. Ted Weber, mostly but also Jensen vintage and new production, Celestion, WGS and other I can't recall off hand.)

Also, note the label on the stock speaker pictured in my post above, it is marked "ASH/8/4/20/BLACK." If it is using the same coding as on my Five 15's speaker (ASH/15/4/300/BLUE, Ashdown 15", 4Ω, 300 watt Blue Line) or my RM115 EVO II's speaker (ASH/15/8/300/WHITE, Ashdown 15" 8Ω 300 watt White Line). If the labeling stays consistent, the Studio 8 speaker is an 8", 4Ω, 20 watt speaker, or under powered 4Ω speaker. With the 4Ω FaitalPRO, it ran warmer than with the 8Ω Alpha-8A, but it never got unusually hot. I can't say if the stock speaker caused it to get that warm, as the stock speaker started distorting so much I couldn't run it that hard. I left the Emi in it, as I like it's voicing better than the FaitalPRO, which I liked better than the stock speaker. The stock speaker sounded wonderfully warm (much like my CTM), but it lacked low end, any reasonable volume (even for a 30 watt Class D) and broke up too soon.

I am eyeing the Studio 10, on sale at Sweetwater right now, to replace my Studio 8 for a little more volume and low end. I doubt there would be any mods to that one.

 

[SaltyFingers]

I took mine apart just now and sure enough I got the same results as you. But I guess the thing is that it is 20 watts so at 4 ohms it will run 40 watts of power since the output is 8 ohms right? Also, why is there a port in the back that leads to a tube that is sealed off from the cab? Whats up with that?

 

[micguy]

My guess as to what happened there is either the manufacturer bought cabinets to make amps thinking they would use a port, and then before they arrived, someone decided it worked better without the port, so they sealed it "creatively". Either that or a previous owner tried something, and backed out of the idea.

 

[MadJack]

I took mine apart just now and sure enough I got the same results as you. But I guess the thing is that it is 20 watts so at 4 ohms it will run 40 watts of power since the output is 8 ohms right? Also, why is there a port in the back that leads to a tube that is sealed off from the cab? Whats up with that?

This is from the other thread, concerning the tube:

The "port tube" is actually a cord storage tube. It wasn't intended to be used as a tuning port, but it was the correct diameter and appropriately located to be used as one, if you don't mind a rear firing port as I did. It wasn't easy to do, but I was able to cut the tube while it was inside the cab.

As for the speaker impedance, who ever wrote up the specs in the owner's manual and/or ad copy may not have known the actual impedance of the speaker used in the circuit.

As for the wattage of the speaker, it's not uncommon for manufacturers to use lower wattage speakers in an amp. I usually see this in solid state amps. For example, my daughter's Fender Mustang II (40 watt 1X12 digital guitar modeling amp) had a 25 watt speaker.