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My New Ashdown Superfly...

#83
seamonkey said:
Does it have two of the TDA8927 chips in it?
http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets/philips/TDA8927TH.pdf

If so they must be already bridge in themselves to get 250w per side.

I would be curious to see how much they deviated from the reference design.

Maybe tin whiskers are causing the bleed through from the PWM side :-)
Click to expand...
I haven't looked inside yet. It appears that they sourced most of the innards from Alto, the power amp is that of the PM12 Dragonfly. The schematic shows a pair of 8927s in push-pull. The supply is +,-25 volt. According to the Philllips data sheets a single 8927 in BLT mode is good for 140 watts into 8 ohms, so a pair should go for 250 into 4 ohms without breaking a sweat. With only a 50 volt supply bridging the two amps isn't worthwhile unless you do so into a 2 ohm load, and I'm not sure how happy the power supply would be with that.
 
#85
Couldn't resist at $299. I can already tell the difference from my Mag300. Nice tone. Mine seems to be quiet in the whine department. I have Ashdown Mag cabs 210 and 115 (8 ohms). The 210 has a tweeter. Maybe I got a good one.

Many online reviews of the product mention 30 presets. Mine has 9. What is up with that?

Is there any source online with more suggested settings to program in to the system?

Right now this looks like an unbelieveable deal. Love the lightshow!

Is this unit made in China or UK do you think?
 
#86
whammerjammer said:
Many online reviews of the product mention 30 presets. Mine has 9. What is up with that?
?
Click to expand...
The first 9 are already loaded and can't be changed. The rest you have to create yourself. That's where the manual is useless, it doesn't tell you how to hook up the amp to your computer, go to on-line and use your mouse to program it using your computer screen as a controller monitor.
 
#87
Source of the advertised weight descrepancy found. The exterior case consists of two aluminum side panels, an aluminum front panel and steel top and bottom panels. Remove them and you're down to about ten pounds, and if rack mounted you don't need any of those exterior covers. You'd think the aluminum side panels are heatsinks, but they aren't. Mine are history.
 
#88
Man, my head is spinning trying to keep up with this thread. :ninja:

My band and soundguy at church like the Superfly so much I'm going to replace my ABM EVO II 900 with it for awhile. The "on-the-fly" ability to set the EQ is very cool and frankly it just sounds warmer than the Ampeg SVT 3PRO I use to use or the EVO 900. I'm just not having any trouble with it.

I will say its "quirky" compared to some amps. Like when you turn it on and it takes 5 seconds before it lights up (makes me think I forgot to plug in the power source). And according to Martin - the Ashdown guy, not our fellow TB'er - the Superfly actually gets hotter when its not being played. My church gig is 3 services over 6 hours so I left it on the first Sunday I ran it, and it was HOT at the end of the morning. I mean HOT. I thought that the aluminum siding was heat sink material too, but Martin said its ok to just turn it off when not in use, so that seems to do the trick. I just have to remember the 5-second start-up time.

I'm not having any noise issues to speak of, but some of the EQ presets are kind of hissy. I just stay away from them as I only need one or two anyway. I usually use 4-ohm cabs anyway (church cabs = Ampeg 6x10 and an Avatar Delta LF 2x12), plenty of volume there. But it also sounds great through my Ashdown mini 4x8 and mini 15 even though they're 8 ohms.

I also asked Martin if the "runs-hot-when-not-being-played-through" issue was the reason the SF was being discontinued. Here's his reply on that:

No, this was not the reason to stop selling .... It's just we have something new coming along shortly. We have sold 1000 Superfly's all up...
Click to expand...

So based on my experience, this unit is the best bang for the buck I've had in a while. Mark me down as a believer...


:cool:
 
#89
PWV said:
I also asked Martin if the "runs-hot-when-not-being-played-through" issue was the reason the SA was being discontinued. Here's his reply on that:



So based on my experience, this unit is the best bang for the buck I've had in a while. Mark me down as a believer...


:cool:
Click to expand...
The chipset used dates to 2001, which in the world of digital makes it as obsolete as Windows 98. The aluminum exterior pieces have no direct thermal connections with the internal heatsinks on either the power board or amp board, so I don't see their need, and in a rackmount a half-pound fan will work a whole lot better at keeping things cool anyway.
 
#90
Let the amp sit at idle today until it got nice and warm, about two hours, no oscillation. Whatever it is it seems that it might be caused by the extra aluminum casings, since it didn't do it with them removed. It's still not hot to the touch, but I plan on using a low volume fan on it anyway once I put it in the rack.
 
#91
Well, this is the now the sixth outdoor gig I've used my Superfly on and it is still giving me the best tone and volume I could ever ask for.

It was a hot evening, and even though I left my amp on all night (even between sets), it got very warm, but not terribly hot.

One thing I noticed is that when I took it to practice and plugged it into a bi-ampable Peavey 1820 (one jack to the 18", one jack to the 210's), it gave off an incredibly loud whine, the likes of which I never heard before. It was a very loud whine, which sounded more like a warning siren.

But, if I unplugged either side, the whine went away (and sounded great, though not as loud obviously).. When plugged into different 4 ohm cabs, I get no whine at all. It appears to me that this amp was truly designed to work only with either one side of the amp (one cab of 4 or 8 ohm), or to use both sides into two 4 ohm cabs.

While it really could be a very frustrating experience for anyone who has had these issues, for me the Superfly is one of the best amps I've ever used. It seems too hit and miss to really be considered a great production bass amp, but for me it's been wonderful.
 
#92
It is possible that the crossover in the Peavey cab leaves the grounds connected when in biamp mode. If so, and you had a cable wired backwards..... OR, maybe the cable wasn't wired backwards, but the 'fly doesn't like its amp grounds "touching"....
 
#93
BassikLee said:
It is possible that the crossover in the Peavey cab leaves the grounds connected when in biamp mode. If so, and you had a cable wired backwards..... OR, maybe the cable wasn't wired backwards, but the 'fly doesn't like its amp grounds "touching"....
Click to expand...

Yep. The two power amps do not share a common output ground. I suspect that even though bi-ampable the Peavey might be shorting the high and low section grounds at the input jacks.
 
#94
billfitzmaurice said:
Yep. The two power amps do not share a common output ground. I suspect that even though bi-ampable the Peavey might be shorting the high and low section grounds at the input jacks.
Click to expand...

Well, it's no big deal to me, as using only one side of the Superfly at practice is more than sufficient. I use my own cabs on gigs with both sides of the Superfly and have no noise or issues.

I only noticed the Superfly whine when doing that and was wondering if it was the "whine" some have talked about.
 
#95
OK , so UPS came at 8:30 this morning and delivered my replacement SF. I only have 1 cab on hand to test it with (Aggie GS112 8 ohm), but here's what I've found.

One output channel has no whine at all (left side looking at the back of the unit), and is more than quiet enough to keep me happy. The second channel (right from back) has a SLIGHT whine through the tweeter, turn off the tweeter and its not audible as before. I can live with this.

So, next, I removed the cast Aluminium covers and the steel top and bottom cover (the ones with the white logo (top) and rubber feet (bottom)). Inside is a more conventionlly shaped amp enclosure. This doesn't expose any electrickery and is totally safe.

The weight saving is huge, 15lb2oz with the casings attached and 9lb2oz with them removed, and the benefit of better cooling.

I'm taking the SF to practice tomorrow and I'll gig it on Saturday with the GS112 and an ABM410 (both 8 ohm). I'll also take the ABM500 in case the SF can't hack it (no PA support on this one).

If it all works out I'll need to sort some 4 ohm cabs, maybe a pair of BFM Omni 10s, but we'll talk about that another time.

In the mean time...

Peace
 
#96
Is it 10 presets or 30 presets as many have written? Well, Martin of Ashdown replies that there are actually 20 presets on the Superfly when shipped. Though 10-19 are unnamed and can be written over. Hmmm. Since my Fly was out of the box when I bought it new, how can I be sure that my 10-19 have not been tampered with by the time it got to me? No worries, they sound great anyway. I would like to here about other successful Superfly settings I can program in to mine. I've got 80 openings! Don't bogart your cool settings!
 

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