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Favorite TRACE Amp of all time -
- Thread starter Fred from Peavey
- Start date
OK, fair enough. I just wanted to share with the manufacturer my preferences based upon the way how I work with my equipment. I can understand that my preferences might not be shared by others. Still, ELF is a great tool!
Favorite Preamp is the GP12 with none of the bells and whistles like biband compressors tube/ss. If you look across time and products the simple stuff are the big sellers. A small little Class AB head in the 10 pound region built on the classic Trace preamp would be amazing.
500 watts at 4 ohms, I would buy it .
It could be Class D and 4 pounds but I actually would prefer a slightly heavier Class AB and every amp doesnt have to be tiny.
A good example was the Thunderfunk 550B it weighed 17 Pounds but was a Class AB Amp .
Why not use some of the technology to make a new style Class AB?
But I can tell you if you guys make a liggtweight GP11/12 with traditional Trace looks (as best you can) Im buying it . Class D or Class AB.
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Thanks for the note - nothing is "wrong" with the larger Trace gear ...other then the market has changed. Very few customers for that type of gear anymore. We are focused on modern power supplies and amplifiers - like the ELF - we can do things now that were literally impossible when the "heavy duty" gear was designed more than 10 years ago. In any case stay tuned - we are mindful that the ELF and Transit B won't fit all professional applications. I am bass player myself ..and my rig consisted of a 2X15 and 2X12 cab....so I get the need to move some large air
Some other cool designs might be a 500 watt Elf. bigger is fine. My bigggest trouble with my current Elf is while pushing it my transients shut the amp down occasionally. So just a little more headroom would be great though I love the amp.
Also another cool unit might be a powered Transit B.
You can bet your bottom booty you would definitely sell many of a smaller GP12 .
Also another cool unit might be a powered Transit B.
You can bet your bottom booty you would definitely sell many of a smaller GP12 .
I'm sure the one of those they would sell to you would totally be worth the cost of development and production.
Seriously, what is the advantage of going from 2 pounds to 1 pound? The elf is already verging on being TOO small to be practical as is.
So another thought (this might be strecthing it a little), what would be cool is a 500 Watt Transit with built in Wirless.
One Box and a Cab and your gigging.
One Box and a Cab and your gigging.
Curious if you have played a V-Type? I would caution against writing off such an exceptional amp if you have not experienced one simply because of the architecture of its tone stack.
The Fender tone stack really doesn't determine the voicing of the amp, and IMHO it only loosely determines how the EQ behaves. I have several amps with Fender tone stacks that all sound and behave drastically different. The Ashdown 427 and CTM300 have the most quirky EQ I have ever used and both amps are voiced drastically different. The CTM300 has a bigger low mid push than my SVT, so no typical Fender mid scoop.
Next, my Sadowsky SA200 has the most musical EQ I have ever come across in an all tube amp. IMHO this amp is voiced more like a solid state amps than most tube amps. The Sadowsky has a 5 band EQ, but guess what...the middle three controls are formed with a Fender tone stack.
I also have series I and series II TE V-Types. IMHO the series II is a bit more transparent and aggressive sounding, but I haven't come across a tube amp yet with a fatter, more focused low end than a TE V6 or V4. These amps also put out more power than most amps with equivalent output sections.
I would say take a listen to/play a series I V-Type. If you decide the voicing and feel is worth exploring, it doesn't have to be implemented with a Fender tone stack.
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The advantage would be that it would be lighter, obviously. Not only because it would be smaller, but because the phantom power would allow you not to carry the power cable which adds some weight. In my case, when I do not travel to my gig by car, I need to walk 10 minutes to catch a train, and than again make some walking in the city to get to the club-all done with bass, amp and cabinet hanging over my shoulders. In the end of the night, I can feel every pound, I can tell you.
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I mentioned earlier in the thread, that I think a Trace Elliot D.I. box (passive version, and active version) with nothing more than a switchable pre-shape, would be a really useful stage & studio tool for engineers.
I can see that a deluxe version, with the tone controls, and compressor / limiter of the ELF, would be a really useful tool for bassists.
But I don't see how a 48volt phantom feed could power the ELF, and enable it to deliver 200 Watts of power to a 4 Ohm speaker load.
Unless Trace sold powered versions of the ELF speakers, and then you've just shifted the weight of the power supply from one device, to the other.
I think it should be possible. There are examples out there of small amps being fed by low voltage.
GSS 06B400BPA bass amp - delivers 100W being fed by 35Volts.
Boutique
Quilter MicroBlock 45 guitar amp delivers 45W being fed by 72Volts.
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And there is the Roland bass combo which works on batteries.
Considering the above examples, I think that a hypothetical nanoELF delivering 50-100W being fed by 48V should be theoretically possible.
I don't have technical education, so I can imagine there are technical difficulties which I am totally unaware of. But, overcoming such difficulties is what the RD departments are for, right?
The department of common sense believes no way you can get 100w out of a phantom power system designed to light up condenser microphones.
I have been lucky so far that my ELF has never failed me. It is probably due to the fact that it has even more power than I need so I do not push it too hard (electric upright in semi-acoustic band with PA support). So I love it too!
Oh, I guess it's the same department which believed in 19th century that you have to have a cable to make a phone call. Look around now.
I used a TE Series 6 200w 1215 combo for many years - 1988/9 to 2006. I'd still be using it now (weight notwithstanding) if, thanks to another band member idiot, it hadn't fallen off a trolley and down some stairs on a load in once... 
Look on the bright side, at least he was helping with the load in...
Somehow I just liked the Series 6 12-band preamp more than the SMX models that followed it. Sure the SMX has some additional cool features but every single Series 6 amp I ever tried just had a sound and some real mojo to me. And those 200 Trace Elliot watts coped beautifully with every situation I ever had to throw at it!
Look on the bright side, at least he was helping with the load in...Somehow I just liked the Series 6 12-band preamp more than the SMX models that followed it. Sure the SMX has some additional cool features but every single Series 6 amp I ever tried just had a sound and some real mojo to me. And those 200 Trace Elliot watts coped beautifully with every situation I ever had to throw at it!
Dude, phantom power delivers mA levels of power. No way you get to pump the electrons needed to drive an amplifier. You want whole amps not hundredths of amps of current.
An amp could easily be designed to make 100W off 48V, but only if enough current is available. Phantom power is only designed to supply about 10mA of current. Not even enough current for 1 watt.
