Bass Amps not from China

[MtManiac]

I don't think he owned a Traynor amp, maybe though
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Oscar Peterson - Wikipedia

I’ve seen him live and my bass prof from university was performing with him.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

That's been my main and only amp for the past 8 years now. I'm certain that this series would've sold like crazy if it only wasn't for the tacky blue light and very cheap looking letter font because the amp is awesome, it only needed a nicer front end aesthetic that would see wider appeal. The only poor feature indeed is the distortion circuit, which for some reason requires you to crank the preamp gain all the way up before it kicks in. And even then it doesn't sound good. The rest is all great, including the ability to run the amp without a cabinet for DI recording which wasn't exactly the standard 10 years ago.

It's been kicked around. knocked over, saw some road abuse, and still runs great. I've never had a failure of any kind, no cutting out or anything. Very underrated budget amps.

I had to do some basic maintenance however, the push-pull preamp gain pot is a dust magnet so once a year I would run a bit of contact spray to clean it up and that's that. As as consequence of this, since I had an amp for quite a while at this point, the top cover screws have gotten stripped and worn out, and so far I haven't managed to find direct or close-enough replacements in any of the hardware stores.

Hey dax21, I'd suggest sending a PM to @Bassmann1968 and asking him if he has the specs on those. He's got specs on just about anything Eden and by far and away the biggest Eden Pyramid of cabs and amps I've ever seen.

 

[seamonkey]

I'm normally OK with: Made in Canada
but I bought some Canada Dry Ginger Ale and there's absolutely no Ginger in it at all.
Maybe they could work out a deal with China to import some?

No Ale in it either. Ooops - mine's not even bottled in Canada!

 

[As5Hat]

I'm normally OK with: Made in Canada
but I bought some Canada Dry Ginger Ale and there's absolutely no Ginger in it at all.
Maybe they could work out a deal with China to import some?

No Ale in it either. Ooops - mine's not even bottled in Canada!

I'm from canada and most people buy ginger beer if they want a ginger beverage. non alcoholic btw. Spicy as F%$

 

[DJ Bebop]

I’ve seen him live and my bass prof from university was performing with him.

Alain Caron?

 

[MtManiac]

Alain Caron?

Nope - Skip Beckwith.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Nope - Skip Beckwith.

He was the third one I was goin' to throw at ya

 

[MtManiac]

He was the third one I was goin' to throw at ya

Who was the second?

 

[Basically Bob]

Traynor SB200H and SB500H made in Canada.
Have a look at the following links, especially the "Key Features" para.
SB200H – Traynor Amps
and
SB500H – Traynor Amps

As most things though, I would suspect that many of its individual parts are made...elsewhere.

+ a two-year transferable warranty. The L&M site shows eleven, five-star reviews and the list price at Long and McQuade is just $499 CANADIAN for the SB500. The SB200 is $369.

 

[Mark Reccord]

Quite a lot of electronic components are made in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea. I don't know what percentage versus China, but I'm willing to bet that 99% of the electronics we come across here are not made in China. Most of the electronics China produces are also consumed by China.

I was being a bit flip with the 99% comment, but the fact is a large number of electronics components used worldwide are indeed fabricated in China (I would consider Taiwan China, BTW). My point is that even if you're buying a piece of electronics "made" in a particular place you're still almost certainly buying stuff from China and sometimes a lot of it. I don't have any particular issue with this as the parts made by reputable manufacturers in Chinese facilities are as good as any others, you just have to watch for the counterfeits. In the product I just designed, 50% of the parts are fabricated in China (I checked) while more than I would have thought were actually manufactured in the US. I have to choose PCB fabricators carefully if I don't want them made in China (time and copyright concerns there) because a lot of the North America based companies do their fab in China.

The biggest IC foundry in the world by far is TSMC in Taiwan and just about every major semiconductor manufacturer has their highest speed, smallest gate size devices fabricated at a TSMC facility. In fact 5nm parts can only be made by TSMC or Samsung, though I think Intel is catching up.

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I know for a fact that he really really hates it when people call him Bruce Cock-burn as opposed to Co-burn. I watched him flip out about it at a show once.

 

[seamonkey]

WaferTech - a TSMC company is based in the USA
Solid state can be made all over the world, including USA

 

[Mark Reccord]

WaferTech - a TSMC company is based in the USA
Solid state can be made all over the world, including USA

I didn't say it couldn't. Wafertech isn't doing 5nm though, or anything close to it. The cutting edge of semiconductor fabrication is still squarely in Taiwan or South Korea. I think 14nm is the smallest gate size tha can be manufacture in North America, currently (Intel).

 

[deff]

I didn't say it couldn't. Wafertech isn't doing 5nm though, or anything close to it. The cutting edge of semiconductor fabrication is still squarely in Taiwan or South Korea. I think 14nm is the smallest gate size tha can be manufacture in North America, currently (Intel).

TSMC's smallest commercially available is 7, not 5nm as far as i know. Intel in the US is down to something like 10 on commercially available parts. There are IBM fabs in the US doing 2nm.

 

[Mark Reccord]

TSMC's smallest commercially available is 7, not 5nm as far as i know. Intel in the US is down to something like 10 on commercially available parts. There are IBM fabs in the US doing 2nm.

5nm will be available shortly, I think. They're expecting to start high volume production in Q1 so chips will be on the market this year some time. It's hard to keep up with who's doing what but I thought Intel was still at 14.

 

[Ric Vice]

Most of my gear is built here in the US.

Walter Woods Electroacoustic Ultra. powered MAS 1/8 & MAS 4x5.5, but the components came from all over the world. The only amplifier I own truly built from parts manufactured in the United States is my 1964 Ampeg B-15N(C) and even the power tubes in it are Telefunken which are really rebranded Sovtecks or Tung Sols.

 

[deff]

5nm will be available shortly, I think. They're expecting to start high volume production in Q1 so chips will be on the market this year some time. It's hard to keep up with who's doing what but I thought Intel was still at 14.

Ice Lake is 10 so not cheap. 7 is close for them.

 

[Nebadon2000]

I've had a Mesa/Boogie for a long time, but it conked out and I wanted to buy a cheap backup...you know, for when I have to ship the amp back to Mesa and wait around for 3-4 weeks. So I start looking at 200-300 watt amps heads, preferably with an FX loop or power amp in.

Ampeg Micro VT: Made in China
Trace ELF: Made in China
Peavey: Made in China
GK MB200: have been made in China, can't tell about the new ones

Anybody have any insight on newer amps made anywhere but China?

Based on your examples your 'Cheap' is $300-400; GK MB200 $369 new Claims to be USA Built [don't see it on back of amp] but only 140 watt into 8 ohm [similar to Elf]; Used market has some options. Aguilar Tone hammer 350, Italian Markbass LM111, Genzler, Etc.

 

[Nebadon2000]

Ahh but it kind of is. 99% of the non hand wired amps that exist have parts from Asia. There are lots of amps that are assembled in the US, but even that doesn't guarantee that the CM for at least a portion of the product is. I'm also not sure that outside of the manufacturers themselves that anyone knows to what degree there are parts of partial assembly done there. Also I assume that you mean specifically China and not Taiwan

There was a company in the Stereo world 'Carver' whom had an American flag on box and said assembled in USA; All they did was screw on top plate the other 99.9% was done in China

 

[NeonVomit]

Walter Woods Electroacoustic Ultra. powered MAS 1/8 & MAS 4x5.5, but the components came from all over the world. The only amplifier I own truly built from parts manufactured in the United States is my 1964 Ampeg B-15N(C) and even the power tubes in it are Telefunken which are really rebranded Sovtecks or Tung Sols.

Same, most of my stuff is made in either the US or Germany, but again... with components from around the world. Example: my '99 Warwick Thumb has US-made Seymour Duncan pickups (stock, it was part of a run where they used SD as opposed to MEC).

I think my only 100% 'truly US/German' things I own are my Marleaux (with Delano pickups and Schaller hardware, both German brands) and MM Stingray (all in-house). My GK stuff has components from other countries, and I believe my Mesa D-800 uses a B&O power amp (although I might be wrong, I'm sure someone can correct me on that).

Sire apparently use all in-house made stuff at their own plant in Indonesia, as do Ibanez. Where they source the components from though I am not sure.

Pedals on the other hand... EBS stuff is made in China and I use a lot of them. Same with TC Electronic pedals, I've got a couple of those. The only pedals I have that aren't China-made are my Darkglass stuff (Finland) and EHX and Tech 21 (USA).

I use Minotaur straps (Greece) and Stageclix wireless (Netherlands).

Strings are mostly Ernie Ball (US), Rotosound (UK), Marleaux (Germany) and D'Addario (US).

As for cables, connectors and other little odds and ends and whatnot, good luck finding any not made in China I guess.

Globalisation, eh.

 

[MtManiac]

I know for a fact that he really really hates it when people call him Bruce Cock-burn as opposed to Co-burn. I watched him flip out about it at a show once.

To paraphrase the Barenaked Ladies - well, can you blame him?