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Ashdown Superfly first impressions.......

jady

jady

Jul 21, 2006
4,726
8
54
Modesto, CA
www.myspace.com
#1
Well I got a Superfly from American Musical for $250, it just came in today. I hooked it up through my Accugroove El Whappo in the garage and this is the first impression.

It sounds really friggen good!!!!!!

I was wondering if it would be too under powered for the whappo and where as it is only 250 watts it pushed a lot of sound. It's snappy, punchy, and fairly HiFi sounding as well. It is a pretty muscular tone as well, if this is how good all Ashdown stuff sounds I may be a new fan.

It does have the high pitched hum I have heard about but it is very quiet and would never be heard in a non-studio environment.

The compressor sounds great as well, going from off to a nice 2.2 ratio tightens up the sound very very well. Squishy but still pretty open sounding.

It comes with extra long rack ears and the shoulder strap connects to the head not the bag which is a good idea considering the bag is kinda flimsy.

I will play around with the USB editing tonight and see what I can tweak.

I have it's first gig on sunday night so I will report back after that but all in all for $250 I am very very happy!!!:hyper::hyper:
 
#4
Mine has started make sound that sounds like digital "overdrive". Came out of no where. Plugged it in one day and it sounded like poo. I thought my cab speakers was bad at first. Had the head less than 6 months. When it worked properly it sounded pretty good...
 
#6
DumDrummer said:
Mine has started make sound that sounds like digital "overdrive". Came out of no where. Plugged it in one day and it sounded like poo. I thought my cab speakers was bad at first. Had the head less than 6 months. When it worked properly it sounded pretty good...
Click to expand...

This is something I would have checked out before continuing to use it. Something like a dodgy output MOSFET could take your speaker down with it, if it decides to let go completely.
 
#12
Sorry it took so long to get back to this, I honestly forgot about the thread :eek:

I played in a small to medium sized room through my El Whappo cab. The sound was great. Not what I am used to so it was a bit weird. I used to run a Trace Elliot pre through a Crest CA4, a punchy and muscular tone to say the least, it could cut through a redwood trunk!!!

The Superfly is much more subtle but it seemed to blend better in the full mix. I was on about 2 oclock on the master volume and the amp kept up just fine running only 1 channel at 250W. The fingerstyle tone was rich and fluffy. Very very smooth and pretty responsive. When I went to slap it changed character completely, bright, crisp and punchy. It was very responsive to my slaps and the pops cut real nice without being harsh (the El Whappo helped a lot tho).

All in all I am very happy with this head for $250. It does run hot though, I took the outer metal covering off and it was still pretty warm after only a 45 min set. We'll see how it holds up for a 4hr gig. For what it's worth, Chris Cain's bassist had a GK 1001RB and 2 2x12 neo cabs and Everyone said my tone blew his away.

I give it a 9 out of 10 for bang for the buck at this price!!!!
 

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