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Mesa Subway D-800+

#501
The input has an O/L (or overload) indicator that is designed to indicate when you are beginning to overdrive the preamp gain stage. Because the input has tube overdrive emulation, this might be a desirable way to run the amp. The output has a limit indiactor which shows when the output stage of the power amp is entering a different type of tube overdrive emulation (power tube) and while this too might be a desirable tone or feel, this LED shouldn't be on for more than ~25 to 35% of the time because the amp is delivering more than its rated power under these conditions (as much as 950 watts RMS, with a much higher average power than speaker indusrty power ratings are made at) and it's possible to damage your speakers, and under some high ambient conditions it's possible to thermally cycle the amp, though it is protected from this kind of fault.

This is all covered in the manual, you might want to download a copy from our website and look it over.
 
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#503
sstillwell said:
Quoted for truthiness..."desirable" may be an understatement, depending on your tone goals. For me, it's VERY yummy.
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Yes, we understand that everybody has different tastes and we have tried to accommodate reasonable amount of range as possible because of this. If there's not enough overdrive or distortion for you, there is a wide variety of overdrive/distortion pedals to choose from... a different flavor for every player.
 
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#504
sstillwell said:
Quoted for truthiness..."desirable" may be an understatement, depending on your tone goals. For me, it's VERY yummy.
Click to expand...

+1. I'm a clean freak, in terms of my personal tone goal, but I've messed around with deliberately running the input hot enough to get the clip light to blink. I liked the way it's easy to get a touch of breakup when you dig in. I could def see players wanting that.
 
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#505
Thanks for the replies! Seeing that it's possible to clip the preamp, can these amps approach the level of distortion that can be achieved by the Aguilar Tone Hammer series? If you crank the Gain and Drive knobs on those, you are talking almost full blown fuzz distortion!
 
#507
gpx1200 said:
so is it safe to use those same screws from the feet to attach the amp to a 1/16 thick rack shelf without the feet as spacers?? my rack box doesn't have covers and the amp moves to much for my taste with the velcro
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Maybe, but I don't have one with the feet here at my R&D lab to measure. How long are the screws on your unit (from the underside of the head to the point)? I should be able to calculate backwards from that.
 
#511
agedhorse said:
That would be too close. The thickness of the foot mounting surface is probably >.150" which is where the necessary clearance comes from.
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Well crap, it looks like I might have screwed something up, I mounted it to the shelf the other day with the 2 front screws and then removed them when I saw your post about the screws but just a while ago I hooked it back up and turned up the amp a bit (gain and volume @ 12 o'clock) and noticed a significant hum that I don't remember hearing before at this volume, im going to try another head to rule out all the other speakers and cables but I have a bad felling about it.
what do you think could I have caused the hum by sinking one of the screws to deep in the front or would that have killed the amp alltogeather??
 
#512
gpx1200 said:
Well crap, it looks like I might have screwed something up, I mounted it to the shelf the other day with the 2 front screws and then removed them when I saw your post about the screws but just a while ago I hooked it back up and turned up the amp a bit (gain and volume @ 12 o'clock) and noticed a significant hum that I don't remember hearing before at this volume, im going to try another head to rule out all the other speakers and cables but I have a bad felling about it.
what do you think could I have caused the hum by sinking one of the screws to deep in the front or would that have killed the amp alltogeather??
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I really don't know, I haven't encountered this problem (yet)...

There should be no hum, amp should be very quiet (assuming the power source is properly grounded).
 
#513
agedhorse said:
I really don't know, I haven't encountered this problem (yet)...

There should be no hum, amp should be very quiet (assuming the power source is properly grounded).
Click to expand...
well good news this morning, I went threw all my conections and didn't see a thing wrong but I unplugged and replugged everything anyway and now the amp is dead silent once again, I need to look into it more because I must have a bad cable or plug some wear but at least it doesn't seem like I screwed my amp :)
 
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#514
Seems like tricky business to get the screws from the rubber feet to go j-u-s-t far enough into the bottom of the amp.

What about putting the feet back on the amp, getting some pipe strap (the perforated soft metal) at the hardware store and fashioning a couple brackets to go over and across the amp and bolt to the rack shelf on both sides? You could spray it black for looks, and pad the underside where it contacts the amp. (Old bicycle tubes work great for such things.) With the amp feet on, they'll add a bit of slip resistance, as well.
 
#517
Enough with the feet, and on to the feat of designing and building this marvelous amp. I've now had it out of the house a few times, mostly playing fretless with a 5-piece Pan American/Rock band, into a Fearless f112. I am pleased! I've been looking for the ability to generate a drum-like attack and penetration, but also present warmth, girth, and old-school thump, when required. This combination is doing it for me, big time…and I've never before felt so successful in bringing the fretless to this band, which can hit hard, but also sometimes can benefit from the strong focused attack and rhythmic precision that frets often provide over fretless.

Verdict: Keeper! May be selling a whole lot of stuff in the next few months….
 
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#520
dazmond said:
Would there be a significant amount of extra power on tap with the hpf set at max vs lowest setting? Enough to gain a few dB extra over the average spectrum?
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If you set the HPF higher (within reason) you decrease the mechanical excursion at the point that the cabinet begins to unload acoustically and thus increase the effective power handling. The mechanical limitations occur within (typically) the bottom octave of reproduction. This would result in a little bit more effective SPL average.
 
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