Old Acoustic amps vs modern power amps

[pedro]

My experience with ACC stuff is slightly different than others on here. I currently own the 360 and 370 and gig with them regularly. I have owned the 301 cab and the Acoustic 2x15 cabs and hated them! Way too boomy and muddy. I find that if use some of the more modern speakers I can dial in some sweet sounds.

This rig sounds damn nice. 360 with a 300 power amp and 2 GK 410T cabinets.

chris

So you use the 360 preamp with an Acoustic power amp into modern cabs?

 

[banikek]

I do. I used to use mostly 15" and 18" speakers but I have finally found that 4x10 cabs seem "just right". For smaller shows I only need one of the cabs. My amp tech guy says no problem fixing the Acoustic stuff - very simple to service.

chirs

 

[Gizmot]

The Acoustic 360's semi-horn loaded cabinet design had good projection, but didn't have any presence or sonic detail. That isn't surprising because the speaker was reverse-mounted!
A lot of guys used them around 1970, but there were better choices back then.

 

[pedro]

I do. I used to use mostly 15" and 18" speakers but I have finally found that 4x10 cabs seem "just right". For smaller shows I only need one of the cabs. My amp tech guy says no problem fixing the Acoustic stuff - very simple to service.

chirs

Yep I've heard from techs that they are fairly straightforward amps to work on.

 

[pedro]

The Acoustic 360's semi-horn loaded cabinet design had good projection, but didn't have any presence or sonic detail. That isn't surprising because the speaker was reverse-mounted!
A lot of guys used them around 1970, but there were better choices back then.

Can't say that I agree on either count. In large venues they projected very well (IIRC) and had plenty of definition and in 1970 they had no competition at all 'cept perhaps the SVT.

 

[johnk_10]

The Acoustic 360's semi-horn loaded cabinet design had good projection, but didn't have any presence or sonic detail. That isn't surprising because the speaker was reverse-mounted!
A lot of guys used them around 1970, but there were better choices back then.

+1. that described my 360 exactly. my 370/301 also had similar results. it wasn't until i ran a 320/408 when i gained definition, detail and presence.

 

[Phostenix]

And secondly, the physical position of the master volume knob means nothing. Many amps can easily reach their full output with the master volume well below noon, depending on how hot the input signal is, and the taper design of the volume pot. Manufacturers play this game all the time, making the master volume taper very linear, which results in big jumps in volume (which is nonlinear) at quite low levels.

The Acoustic 370 uses 50K linear pots for all 4 of the controls. I'd guess this was cost savings/simplification driven decision, but it turns out to be marketing genius. There's not much more volume past midway on the knob - almost all of the volume range is the first half. You get more grind past 12:00, but not a ton more volume. It's more like most amps going from 3:00 to 5:00 on the dial.

 

[CostaBass]

Acoustic 361's were designed to fill huge stadiums with out being mic'd. The folded horn is the key. The further the sound traveled, the louder it got. They really do push air, I have two of them.

The head (360) is very simple:bass, treble, volume, variamp, and a cheesy fuzz/tuning fork.
But the aggressive nature of the volume pots give it a lot of bump.

 

[pedro]

Acoustic 361's were designed to fill huge stadiums with out being mic'd. The folded horn is the key. The further the sound traveled, the louder it got. They really do push air, I have two of them.

I don't think that they actually get louder.

 

[greenboy]

Acoustic 361's were designed to fill huge stadiums with out being mic'd. The folded horn is the key. The further the sound traveled, the louder it got.

Yes! hardly anyone seems to get this! In fact one night I was driving past a stadium on the freeway and the bass part I heard coming from over there was hurting my ears. So I sped up to get away from the discomfort. But as the stadium receded in my rear-view I felt moisture rolling down the sides of my neck and when I rubbed it onto my hand IT WAS BLOOD!!!! Then the windshield and all the windows exploded just as if a giant Memorex tape had been activated!!!

Later I woke up in pandemonium in an emergency ward, where hundreds of other similar victims from the outlying region were also awaiting treatment. Thank god that was the last song of the night or more people in southern Cal and even Mexico would have died before the sound reached escape velocity!

Thanks for the great physics lesson about the so maligned Reverse Inverse Square Law, Costa Bass!

 

[Metal Mitch]

as the stadium receded in my rear-view I felt moisture rolling down the sides of my neck and when I rubbed it onto my hand IT WAS BLOOD!!!!

dude. that's so metal. you could sell these by the truckload to Dethklok.

 

[seamonkey]

Yes! hardly anyone seems to get this!...

Mount St. Helens blew in 1980 because some fool in Austin opened a club window during a bass solo. The whole incident drove Acoustic Control Corp out of business.

Pluto is no longer a planet because the sound waves from the 70's finally reach it and it shattered.
Yes - they were so loud their sound could actually travel through space and gain volume as it did.



It's a joke. Or at least and attempt at one.

 

[Rockbobmel]

I had and used a 370/301 setup which I added a Traynor 2-15 with EV SROs, so I had the outward projection of the folded 18 and the presence of the 2-15 and the amp grunting along at 2 ohms.
It was loud, but I often felt I was running out of steam with the crazy guitards and drummers back then.

Hey wait, guitards and drummers haven't changed one bit!

 

[Gizmot]

I was a keyboard player in a band back in the 70s with a bass player that had 2 x Acoustic 360s and they were reasonably loud, although nowhere near as loud as an SVT or one of the big Sunn amps that were all the rage at the time. The Acoustic amp design didn't have a lot of headroom and the rear-firing speakers didn't have any presence. You can't call the cabinet design a folded horn because as large as those enclosures were, they were WAY too small to control the output at low frequencies.

 

[pedro]

I don't know it seems like its become the thing to put them down but I recall them sounding pretty darn good. I'm not saying that there aren't better options now but back then I don't recall anything that was even in the same ball park except the SVT.

I saw lots and lots of big acts using them in the day but will pick this one if only because we came from the same neighborhood.

 

[CostaBass]

I use to have a old Ampeg 8x10, I really did love the tone, but the thing weighed 127 pounds. It has no wheels or a tilt back so I had to custom make a dolly for it.

The head was great but if one of the 3,000 tubes that are inside blew. You are out of luck.

 

[Rockbobmel]

I don't know it seems like its become the thing to put them down but I recall them sounding pretty darn good. I'm not saying that there aren't better options now but back then I don't recall anything that was even in the same ball park except the SVT.

I saw lots and lots of big acts using them in the day but will pick this one if only because we came from the same neighborhood.

I Just want to add that I loved the tone and the way it used the power. I tried some tube amps too but they mushed out too much.

 

[Bassmec]

+1. that described my 360 exactly. my 370/301 also had similar results. it wasn't until i ran a 320/408 when i gained definition, detail and presence.

In the worst exesses of my pure watt hog youth days I too bought a 370/301 but also discovered definition detail and presence with the mighty 408 cab.
Although in the end via development I used the good offices of Mesa Boogie for a pre amp, James B Lansing to do the speakers and the crossover (260 DSC) and a few thousand watts of lead sled Crowns for the Juice:
Invalid Link Removed
With Acoustic Its all about cubic inches but if you fill this:

with something light and modern like eminence 3015's and drive it with thousands of d class watts you can tell the guitarist to turn down a bit or else.

 

[ducknturtle]

I love telling this story. In the early 80's I found an Acoustic 126 at the side of the road that had been left for the garbage truck. It looked bad, as if it had sat in two feet of water, and then someone had kicked in the 15 inch speaker. Still, the head section seemed ok, so I pulled it out and built a box to hold. I used that as my main amp for years on top of two Hartke cabs. It sounded very good and was loud as hell. Much louder than my Ampeg 3pro.

 

[FingerDub]

The Acoustic 370 didn't really have that much power. The single 18 w cab had a 4 ohm speaker in it that helped to maximize power from the amp. I used a 370 head with a Sunn 200 S for a while and it wasn't much more powerful than a Dual Showman I had used before, and never sounded anywhere NEAR as good as the Fender.

I SUSPECT THE OUTPUT WAS CLOSER TO 200 WATTS rms AT 4 OHMS.

I'm not sure how you can say that. I play through a 370 every week with an Acoustic 8x10 from the same era and it flat out destroys. I cannot turn up more than 4 while competing with 2 FULL guitar stacks. We play metal, rock mostly. The tone is stupid good.