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New US made Tube amp from Ashdown!

ishouldbeking

ishouldbeking

Feb 5, 2007
2,090
32
#1
Apologies if this has been mentioned before -- I did a search and didn't see anything -- but according to Ashdown's website their previously announced US made line of amps will be offering a 400 watt tube head... the BTA400.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I adore my ABM 500 evo II... gotta say I'm really curious about this. The styling is definitely right up my alley, and the available features sound like they'd make for a heckuva tube amp... as far as I'm concerned the preamp on the ABM line is about as usable as they come.

They mention that it'll be an "exceptional value for the money", which seems to imply that they won't be terribly expensive... Anyone know any more details such as release date or projected MSRP, etc?

for more info: http://ashdownmusic.com/bass/section.asp?section=us&c=true
 
#2
Crap, I can't see the pictures here at work, but I am very excited about this. I'd love to see more entries into the mid-priced tube amp catagory.

8x KT88 !! That's going to be massive!!
 
#3
Eilif said:
Crap, I can't see the pictures here at work, but I am very excited about this. I'd love to see more entries into the mid-priced tube amp catagory.

8x KT88 !! That's going to be massive!!
Click to expand...

likely $3,000. And 85+ lbs. And temperamental. Don't transport it in the trunk of your car in the winter to and from gigs. Let it warm up for 1/2 an hour before you play it. And let it cool down completely before you move it - those are the laws of tubes that we lived by for years, unless you like replacing power amp tubes for $200.00+ every 3 months.

But it will probably sound really good.

But not as good as

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=485146


Cheers,
Cameron
 
#5
Oh man, there go my next few paychecks.
And I abuse the **** out of my 25 year old SVT-100, and its always fired right up, so hopefully a new tube amp will be nice a reliable. Why can't you leave a tube amp in your car in the winter? Those tubes are meant to deal with temperature variations of hundreds of degrees more than the difference between my apartment and the 10 degree Boston winter...
It will be heavy, though! Unless they use some newer style power supplies. I don't know why they didn't make a 200 watter a la Traynors (but with a useable preamp...) 400 tube watts is totally excessive for any forseeable situation.

Also, I thought the preamp of the ABM was pretty much solid-state with a tube-driven "drive" knob? Would that make this amp's preamp SS and the power section tube (a la old Music Man heads)?
 
#11
Bassflute said:
likely $3,000. And 85+ lbs. And temperamental. Don't transport it in the trunk of your car in the winter to and from gigs. Let it warm up for 1/2 an hour before you play it. And let it cool down completely before you move it - those are the laws of tubes that we lived by for years, unless you like replacing power amp tubes for $200.00+ every 3 months.

But it will probably sound really good.

But not as good as

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=485146

Cheers,
Cameron
Click to expand...


hard to say how Ashdown will price these. Their ABM line is an incredible value for the money, IMO. The UK made classics however, are stupidly expensive... which is supposedly why they moved production to the states, to keep costs down for US buyers. They mentioned wanting to keep prices about 25% lower than the classic line, which is still a bit high, and it's hard to tell how the slide in the economy plus the raise in value for the US dollar will affect the pricing...

Luckily a good friend of mine still has his endorsement deal from when he was in a major-label band... I'm sure the discount will help quite nicely!
 
#16
For the heck of it I took a look at MusiciansFriend's ashdown stock and it's kinda interesting... looks like they're not carrying any of the ABM line at the moment... must have sold off the remaining abm evo II's and the III's aren't in yet? They do carry the Klystron 1000 (which is basically a dressed up version of the ABM 900 evo III), and they seem to have dropped the price quite a bit... it's only $1199, but they're out of stock for 32 days... Weird that you can't get any of the upper tier Ashdowns from MF at the moment. Must be a period of transition or something.
 

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