Stingray aftermarket 2 band pre

[Jerry J]

WHOA! that sucks! You've got to be kidding me?

Voids, globs and most likely cold joints. I can't even believe they would send something like that out. That is high school level shop class.

 

[JoshuaTSP]

You could probably use a very small bread board and do the same thing.......


....would EBMM issue a cease and desist if you started mimicking their preamp designs?

 

[walterw]

more to the point, this seems like a big step down from the stock preamp, so why bother?

 

[bongomania]

It's only very recently that EBMM started offering a reissue of their original design of 2-band preamp. For people that want the "classic sound" of an old SR or Sabre, a clone of that early design, for cheap, is not a bad idea--assuming the clone doesn't suck.

 

[blmeier7]

It's only very recently that EBMM started offering a reissue of their original design of 2-band preamp. For people that want the "classic sound" of an old SR or Sabre, a clone of that early design, for cheap, is not a bad idea--assuming the clone doesn't suck.

Before I bought this pre I email EBMM to see if they offered any 2-band pre for a Stingray and they said they didn't. They were quick to email me back...which surprised me. I have heard their customer service is good.

I would love it if EBMM would just sell their 2-band pre outright.

 

[Jerry J]

....would EBMM issue a cease and desist if you started mimicking their preamp designs?

Probably not if someone is selling an aftermarket version on ebay.

 

[Jerry J]

Before I bought this pre I email EBMM to see if they offered any 2-band pre for a Stingray and they said they didn't. They were quick to email me back...which surprised me. I have heard their customer service is good.

I would love it if EBMM would just sell their 2-band pre outright.

I've found their customer service to be exceptional.

 

[walterw]

I've found their customer service to be exceptional.

when it come to keeping your EBMM working, sure. good luck getting them to sell you anything separately, or help you change your bass from the stock configuration in any way.

 

[pandathe3]

Hows this going??

I'm currently in talks with John East about designing my own 2-band EQ based on the btb-MMSR. I'm having; Master Volume (w/pull switch for series/parallel) / Bass / Treble (w/pull switch for 'bright') And thats about all i need and want

I'd prefer a 2band over a 3band any day! I dont like my mids being controlled by one knob

 

[bongomania]

I received mine today, and it has the same soldering work. I'll be re-flowing each of those joints for sure. The good news is that it's smaller than the pics made it appear, about 1" x 1.5", and it looks like some effort was made to choose appropriate caps. The wiring diagram is not great, it assumes you want a 3-knob configuration and it assumes you are using a 4-connector output jack. Of course it is not a big deal to reconfigure if you already know how. And though I knew they do not include the pots, it's still annoying because one of them is uncommon and I'll have to order it.

So before even wiring it up, I'm dubious about my $39 spent. Here's hoping it sounds great once installed!

 

[pandathe3]

Where are you getting these from?? If you can PM me once its installed and you have a 'review' on it that'd be great.

 

[Stevieconlon]

Looking forward to the review!

 

[BassLife77]

installed one on my OLP and it sounds good to me. B string is rattling the walls. size of the board fits perfectly in the cavity. found all the pots at Mouser for $4.50, even the 1M reverse audio for the treble. went with audio instead of linear for volume, to keep it "Leo Fender old school". I leave the volume wide open anyway, to drown out everybody in the band The ebay seller sells a lot of these and his feedback rating is 100%.

 

[Jerry J]

So if you are converting a 3-band to a 2-band does one of the pots/knobs become a dummy?

 

[bongomania]

The "3-knob config" here is Vol/Bass/Treb, if that's what you're referring to.

@pandathe3, the seller is on Ebay, just look up "stingray preamp".

 

[mgauge]

blmeier7, that's probably the worse soldering I've seen since my own.

Indeed, U dont want to see my hack job.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Is it a Stingray or a Sabre preamp? While they used the same IC they do seem to be quite different.

Also, if you are handy with a soldering iron, the schematics are out there on the net, not a very expensive build. (most expensive part is the IC which seems to be quite rare these days).

 

[bongomania]

So, I left feedback for the seller, saying essentially "great delivery, badly-soldered product"; and he responded by asserting that the soldering was done by an EE from the Department of Defense. I pointed him to this thread here, and here is his response:

The gentleman who builds these solders them all by hand. He's one of the best out there. Take notice the size of these boards. They are about 1" x 1.5". Most mass produced soldering is done by what's called wave soldering not by hand. You don't see much electronics these days soldered by hand and even less this size. There's no excess solder for that size board done by hand and if there was a little it would not effect the function or tone of the unit. What would be appropriate would be a photo next to a penny to give reference to the size of the preamp. Please feel free to post my reply on your message board. I would greatly appreciate it, Thank you again -Jeff

(bolding mine)

 

[PilbaraBass]

So, I left feedback for the seller, saying essentially "great delivery, badly-soldered product"; and he responded by asserting that the soldering was done by an EE from the Department of Defense. I pointed him to this thread here, and here is his response:

(bolding mine)

“one of the best out there”???

The dude may be an EE for the dept of defense, but that doesn’t say anything about the fact that he’s a total HACK with a soldering iron.

It's quite obvious from the photo that the entire board was done with an iron that was too cold for the solder being used. A very common problem for an inexperienced solderer.

Thank you, Bongomania

I will avoid this seller at all costs…

 

[Music Stuff]

Hello my name is Jeff. I forwarded the link of this thread to the gentleman who builds these.

In his defense he wanted to point out

"that the size of the board is about a U.S. nickel in height by about two nickels width in order to fit a small bass guitar cavity (1" x 1.5"). 16 components one of them an 8 legged IC. The red circle in the photo is approx 1/8" (3.5mm) in diameter soldering 3 components together at an IC leg. All soldered by hand not wave soldered". He said this "you don't have to be a rocket scientist to solder one of these up but a good hand, a good eye and experience helps". "For the record I do not let anything past with a cold solder joint, void, or anything that would compromise the circuit. What you are seeing there is solder flux not solder overflow. There's nothing there out of the ordinary for a hand soldered board that size. There might be confusion compared to wave soldered boards that are a lot tighter in solder specs and cleaned of flux when the process is finished?"

He's been soldering for close to three decades, trained by the D.O.D. for work on missile defense and radar technologies. He's an ET not an EE. "EE's design circuits ET's build them and repair them". I myself would like to say that I have had hundreds of happy customers over the years and never a complaint until today. I know that there is a lot of happy Talk Bass forumites that could tell you as well. I personally think that the size of this photo is misleading and appears much larger than it really is. If the preamps photo was taken next to a penny I think the average soldering folk would be quite impressed with the mans work.

It's a fantastic bass preamp btw, and very well made I might add.

Thank you and rock on!