Hell yeah. Thanks for sharing. I love having a visual representation of what a particular piece of gear is doing sonically.
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Quilter Bass Block v803
- Thread starter gtirard
- Start date
Hell yeah. Thanks for sharing. I love having a visual representation of what a particular piece of gear is doing sonically.
After having used the v803 for a few weeks I am still floored by how well made, good looking and great sounding this amp is.
I would have bought it if it had only 200 watts and I would still love it as much.
The only thing that still trips me up is the control knob layout, I keep turning the treble knob instead of the bass
I would have bought it if it had only 200 watts and I would still love it as much.
The only thing that still trips me up is the control knob layout, I keep turning the treble knob instead of the bass
I have been mostly using my v803 in low volume gig and practice settings with the BD10. LAst noght was my first real rest with a louder band. I mounted it in a BD12 and had my Boss ME90B with compressor and a preset EQ in front. Went into the regular input on Vintage voice. SOunded fine by itself but I was blown away at how well it fit in with everything when the whole band kicked in. Sounded like a much bigger rig. EQ was flat with gain at 1 o'clock and master at 9 o'clock. Room was a decent sized bar/pool hall in a strip mall. It really reinforced my decision to go all in on Quilter.
I agree. I own a v803 even after years of despising the tone layout on G-K amps. I like the Quilter so much I'm willing to overlook it!The only thing that still trips me up is the control knob layout, I keep turning the treble knob instead of the bass
Anyway, the Quilter sounds so good flat, it doesn't need a lot of tone adjustments.
I recently swapped my trusty 800 of 6 years for an 803 and it's been awesome so far with one small thing. My main tone is pretty distorted (I play in a Sabbath-y 3 piece) so I am always running dirt of some kind. Both at home through a cabsim (Darkglass Element into headphones) and during practice (through a vintage Acoustic 215) while both the Modern and Warm voices sound awesome while running dirt, the Qtube voice does not seem to play well with any dirt I throw at it. I've tried a variety of OD/dist/fuzz but at nearly the full sweep of the gain knob, I get harsh overtones that are not present in the other voicings when engaging the effect.
I guess this may be the obvious result of hitting a clipping circuit with more clipped signal, but it seems like people in the wild have been running their dirt into the Qtube voice (if you can trust Instagram lol).
Has anyone had any success stacking dirt into this voice?
Current bass for this band is a Sire P5R 4-string stock, BBv803 is set to Passive. Thanks!
I guess this may be the obvious result of hitting a clipping circuit with more clipped signal, but it seems like people in the wild have been running their dirt into the Qtube voice (if you can trust Instagram lol).
Has anyone had any success stacking dirt into this voice?
Current bass for this band is a Sire P5R 4-string stock, BBv803 is set to Passive. Thanks!
I use some distortion/OD pedals occasionally (Creation Audio Labs Grizzly Bass OD, MXR M80, DOD Buzz Box) and also found they didn't really play nice with the QTube setting. I haven't researched it, but I assumed the QTube setting is meant to function best without additional dirt on the front end of it. It's not a big deal to me - I just flipped over to the Warm setting which worked fine.
Phew! Glad to know I wasn't the only one. I came to the same conclusion as well - Qtube may just be a standalone channel rather than a stacking opportunity. Cheers!
Don't run heavy distortion into Qtube. Drive the input with boost, tube or otherwise. It may not be the exact flavor you like, and the limiting in the amp can get heavy-handed, but good things will happen.
I need to try this with my Tone Hammer pedal as a clean boost.
I've tried several boost pedals. All are good, but I'm partial to the Sushi Box More at present. I bet the Time Hammer will be nice.
I was researching this today and found high res pics on Sweetwater, spotted the made in China on the back panel and feel the same way "would prefer USA production" but at this point, what IS made in USA? Sure, great price point, but only because "made in China." I have a couple of these Quilter heads that were made in So Cal. Great amps / I have no need for this new one. I just bought a pair of Markbass Traveler 102P cabs - Indonesia. Genzler = overseas production. I know, the list is long. I'd be curious to know WHAT bass gear is made in USA at this point. I believe Walter Woods was the first to make a class D high power "micro head". I used to use a WW 1200 blue light head. His price on a 1200W amp 10 years ago was $3K. If he's still building, they're probably $4K now. I saw a WW (refurb by Walter in 2022) on Reverb for $6K today!!! So the point is, it's nice to have a lot of micro heads on the market now for under $1K = AFFORDABLE. If Quilter WAS to make these here, what would the price be? I'm guessing $1500, but who knows. Like gtirard, I'd pay up for USA made amp, but not $3K to $6K! At this price, I'm tempted to pick one up, but I already have several amps that serve all my needs.
Those must have been the days. Wouldn't touch a WW with a barge pole today. No parts available and he's disappeared, baby. Gone. That coupled with that fact that he sanded the part numbers off of the some of the components that he did use.
You may or may not have missed this bit of news last week: Fuchs discontinuing Walter Woods and Acoustic Image service
Edit: Fuchs Audio with a bit more about the AI/WW situation.
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This is why I sold my WW about 10 years ago and started testing / trying / buying / flipping micros = b/c I knew Walter would be retiring soon = then, no service, no parts, no dice! I did not hear that news about Fuchs. Walter is most likely in his late 80s by now, so... He would disappear on a regular basis. If he was on vacation in the summer and you try to call him = leave a message on his answering maching and he'll get back to you whenever
. That was his M.O. period. I needed service a few times and that was the way it was, so I always had a backup amp of some sort. I DID hear that he'd sand off the part numbers of the components. Thanks Walter. Smart guy though -"nobody else will service my amps - or copy them!" Unfortunately, the biz stops with him - no kids to hand it over to etc. They were great amps, but that era is over. I'm glad he came up with the concept though. Look at all the micros available now!
How about an Aguilar AG700. It has plenty of power and the volume pot doesn't peak out at "1".
There's a thread about what amps are made in the USA today, but I can't find it.
Mesa Subway amps are still made in the USA.
Fuchs Audio too.
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LOL. I don't know if any of you has had a chance to experiment in real life this self limiting feature (to 450 or 500w)?
I think I'd be death long before it happens...
Seriously, is there a situation when this even matters? For me, it's nice to see that Quilter is serious about safety, but I think you're all overthinking this.
