the TRACE ELLIOT thread

[DEVILMAN]

oddio,

Do you speak from experience or ??? It sounds believable but with such overbuilding in the V-8 in most of its areas, it must've been a VERY freak thing...

~S~

Also: Are either of your transformers marked with a Demeter tag?

 

[TRU]

What do you guys think about the quattra/hexa valve stuff? How does it compare to V6 or V8

 

[Plain Old Me]

What do you guys think about the quattra/hexa valve stuff? How does it compare to V6 or V8

I've got a V4, which I think is the same as the quatra valve except in appearance. It sounds great, and from my understanding the V6 and V8 are just about the same with more headroom.

 

[Kelly Lee]

What do you guys think about the quattra/hexa valve stuff? How does it compare to V6 or V8

I own a QuatraValve and love it.

The Quatra/Hexa series and the "V" series are similar in their power sections but the preamps are different.

The Quatra/Hexa series have the Series 6 preamp along with two 12ax7's. It is a clean and well defined tone. More hi-fi than what you normally think of a tube amp. It definately has the trademark Trace sound but with the added flavor of tube goodness.

The V series have a more basic preamp also consisting of two 12ax7's. This series IMO has what everyone always refers to as the warm, fat tone of vintage tube amps.

Personally, I love them both. I will never sell my Quatra even though my next tube head will be a V series...if I can find one! I want them both!

 

[MKS]

Hey it's been seen here before, but I never get sick of posting this picture...

On the bottom there my TE 4x8" cab which I bought from Steve Lawson. It's a lovely cab and compliments the Ashdown MAG-Mon12-200 very nicely (200W head on the Ashdown). I've compared it A/B against the Ashdown Mini 4x8" using an Acoustic Image Clarus amp and honestly couldn't tell the difference. I recently had a small problem with it though and phoned GM Audio (in the UK) who I think are ex-TE staff and they couldn't even remember building 4x8"s. BTW - the problem was a simple loose connection in the wiring - soon fixed...

Anyhoo, this puppy may be up for sale in the near future.

 

[Johnny BoomBoom]

I guess I was kinda spoiled almost from the start. My first bass amp, was a 50 watt Marlin combo.....which was a great wee bedroom amp. But my first proper amp was a Series % AH250 Trace Elliot head. This had the GP11 preamp and the UV light. Quikcly I traded the 2 x 15 Cerwin Vega cab that cme with this for a new Trace 4 x 10. This was my amp for about 8 years! I then added a Trace 1 x 15 cab - boy did that help the low B strings on my 5ers sound good!


This setup was fien for a couple of years, then I traded the head and 4 x 10 for a brand new AH500 and new 1048H cab. My dream rig!

Had this for a couple of years - managed to even gig with it.....once Rig like that deserved to be gigged more - but our band had ......personnel issues!

Well, my back started developing real problems about then, and I guess you could say I kinda sold out (I'd argue I followed evolution though!). I sold off my entire Trace Rig......and bought a brand new Ashdown ABM500 EVO head and Ashdown Mini48 and Mini15 cabs (much easier on my back).

I'm very much an Ashdown man now - but have fond memories of my Trace Elliot days!

 

[Johnny BoomBoom]

I haven't heard of anywhere to find out for sure if a TE product is Pre or Post Gibson. All I can tell you for sure is Gibson bought out TE in 1992.

You can always open the amp up and look at years on the parts. I know pre-Gibson TE amps had hand written tags on most major components that list who it was inspected by, built by, build date, tested by, and part #. I don't know if that holds true for the Gibson era equipment though.

CQBASS, your experience is another reason I love TE amps! Their tough!

I know I'm a bit hazy on it, but I was under the impression Gibson bought out TE in 1999.....are you sure it was 1992 when they bought them?

 

[oddio]

Do you speak from experience or ???

I am aware of two V8 units with this cold solder problem. TE made a board revision to correct the problem and mine was shipped back to the UK for this fix in late 2000. The transformers I have are labelled "Demeter windings".

 

[dlloyd]

I know I'm a bit hazy on it, but I was under the impression Gibson bought out TE in 1999.....are you sure it was 1992 when they bought them?

Kaman bought Trace in 1992 with a view to expanding the company and off-loaded it in 1997 at the earliest opportunity due to unacceptable profit margins.

They had a bit of a problem with reliability of some models of amps in the later Kaman era which led to a lot of warranty returns. This, in turn, led to the reputation problems that people associate with Gibson taking over in late 1998.

Here's part of an interesting email I got from a guy who worked for Trace throughout that period...

Yes, some specific models had specific problems and if a shop only took these particular ones, that’s all they know and tend to generalise on overall quality. Trace also started to make much cheaper product; entry level and practise gear, which by its very nature is not going to be as good as the top Pro gear. We expanded so widely that at one point we had 140 different products, some with 5 voltage variants, but overall the quality was better than most in the market.

With the experience that we all gained in R&D over the years, the last designed products, examples being: V4 & V8 valve Bass amps, re-designed Trace Acoustic Amps, Speedtwin Guitar range and the Evolite PA systems, were without a doubt Trace’s best ever products. These were supremely reliable and incredibly well engineered. There was over £500, 000 on back-order when Gibson pulled the plug!

In the mid to late 90s, we were producing massive amounts of product and had some really daft production issues that caused 100s of MOSFET Bass amps to fail intermittently. This was caused by a simple connector that wasn’t right for the job. By the time we found the problem, 1000s of units were in use all over the world. There were a number of reliability issues from that period, but as production was on a much larger scale, these problems can seriously affect a company’s reputation. There was also a batch of output transformers in the little Vellocette amps that would go short-circuit after a certain number of hours use. Not something you’d ever pick up in R&D or production testing. This news spread around the world like wildfire, but it was only a small number of components in many 100s of thousands of products.

 

[dlloyd]

Another couple of interesting things

At a particular point we experienced some problems with our old supplier of EL84 valves and had several amps where one of the valve went into 'meltdown' and consequently ruined the valve base and PCB. We now use Ruby Tube EL84s which have proven to be very reliable and we have changed to valve base to a different material.

I can only expect that you friend in America unfortunately had one of these with the problematic valves.

The Tridents and Bonnevilles and very early Speed Twins (the ones fitted with toggle switches on the front are early, cream push switches are new type) are an entirely different matter.

Many of these have had problems due to the PCB layout. In those days I was merely the circuit designer and wasn't responsible for laying out PCB's. This task was carried out by someone else who, although very highly qualified, didn't fully understand the workings of a high voltage valve amp, he tended to lay out PCB as if they were for low voltage solid state (transistors/integrated circuits) technology. When then had lots of problems which were due to the clearances between pads/tracks/components, there simply wasn't enough.

I could see what was wrong and battled with various people to allow me to layout my own PCBs but was out ranked at the time. However, the culprit was 'made redundant' in 1997 and I was finally in control of my designs. The Tridents and Bonnevilles were dropped (shame because they sounded great, when they were made reliably) and I set about on a program to completely redesign the entire Speed Twin and Velocette ranges.

In autumn 1998 Gibson were sufficiently impressed with the Veloecette 12R that they bought the company and renamed the range 'GoldTone'.

I hope that doesn't sound like I'm just making excuses.

Originally posted on uk.music.guitar

 

[oddio]

...the cheap fuseholders post Gibson TE used onboard.

I just wanted to add a little something there oddio. Hope you don't mind.

After TE sold out to them the quality just started going downhill.

Don't misquote me now. Here's a bit from someone who really knows, concerning an early model:

Trace fuse holders suck! For as well as the rest of the amp is built, I have no idea why they used such a crappy fuseholder. I ended up replacing the one in my VR400 after it shorted. It's a cheap fix that any compenetent tech can do pretty quickly and a good fuse holder costs about $5 max. Get it replaced.

 

[tekhna]

I believe Gibson purchased TE in '92-Which makes the vast majority of Trace Elliot products out there Gibson era. But it is important to note that it wasn't until '96 or '97 that the quality of the product declined. Correct me if I am wrong, but the entire GP12 SMX series is 'Gibson era', but still a very high quality product equal to the the pre-buyout amps.

 

[oddio]

The V series have a more basic preamp also consisting of two 12ax7's.

Sorry Kelly, I don't want to seem like I'm nit-picking but there are eight preamp tubes in the late versions of the V-Type (post-2000 such as the V8) which have 7 x ECC83/12AX7 plus 1 x EM84 display. The pre-2000 TE preamps, such as those found in the V4 and V6, have two.

 

[dlloyd]

I believe Gibson purchased TE in '92

Nope, that was Kaman. Different company altogether.

Which makes the vast majority of Trace Elliot products out there Gibson era. But it is important to note that it wasn't until '96 or '97 that the quality of the product declined.

I've heard that kind of assertion before, which is one of the reasons I spoke with various people who worked at Trace Elliot at the time. There was a problem with some of the Kaman-era solid state bass amps (IIRC) which led to them having an intermittent fault. There were problems with valve guitar amps. And the new Commando practice amps looked cheap.

When Ashdown were really getting off their feet, Mark Gooday said that he had problems with the large American company that had bought Trace Elliot in 1992 (Kaman).

Link Removed

When he said that in December 2000, Gibson had owned Trace Elliot for a couple of years and, I guess, a lot of the readers immediately assumed he was talking about Gibson. The reliability issues mentioned above were also fresh in peoples' minds. Therefore "post-Gibson Trace = bad".

 

[43% burnt]

I am about to buy an AH350-SMX, which I wasn't sure about at first but by the sounds of things is not only a great-sounding amp but should be plenty loud enough for me (small-med gigs).

Go for it! I have the AH250 7-band...It sounds phenominal, and it's plenty loud through a 2x10 and a 1x15. I play in a metal band next to two LOUD Mesa boogie half stacks. My Trace has no problem cutting through, w/ plenty of room left. I use GenzBenz cabs which I think are great. I definitely recommend adding 15 or a 12 to handle the lows. If I were to change my cabs I would go for a more high end setup probably Bag Ends. Dream rig: Trace Elliot v-8 w/ Bag End 2x10 D10BX-D, 1x15 S15X-D.

 

[NV43345]

Go for it! I have the AH250 7-band...It sounds phenominal, and it's plenty loud through a 2x10 and a 1x15. I play in a metal band next to two LOUD Mesa boogie half stacks. My Trace has no problem cutting through, w/ plenty of room left. I use GenzBenz cabs which I think are great. I definitely recommend adding 15 or a 12 to handle the lows. If I were to change my cabs I would go for a more high end setup probably Bag Ends. Dream rig: Trace Elliot v-8 w/ Bag End 2x10 D10BX-D, 1x15 S15X-D.

+1

 

[VtypeV4]

As much as I love my Trace stuff and all me complements of there equipment, my combo let me down last week on stage... Its my 4808 V-Type unit suffering "old jack sockets in the FX loop" syndrome. I've replaced and all is now good again but was still annoying none-the-less. Anyone got any info on this model? The only info I can find has been posted by myself mainly... I understand they made 48 of these..

The V4 -yes, sorry still out of action until at least next week- is a great sounding unit, plenty of power and loads of warmth and punch and the overdrive is just naughty, just like a V8 with less power (the later version V4) but where you would seriously need full tilt out of a V8 escapes me, my V4 will pretty much keep up with a new SVT CL...

As for the AH400SMX, pure Trace Elliot, 12 band graphic, the best compressor ever (split band), 400 healthy watts and of course, the UV tube!

Nothing is better in my opinion, I'm on the same wavelength as Kelly Lee and all the other Trace guys on here...Trace all the way man

 

[43% burnt]

Nothing is better in my opinion, I'm on the same wavelength as Kelly Lee and all the other Trace guys on here...Trace all the way man

 

[VtypeV4]

You know it makes sense! Even if they are defunct!

 

[oddio]

where you would seriously need full tilt out of a V8 escapes me, my V4 will pretty much keep up with a new SVT CL...

Yep (nods agreement). The V8 with the half-power switch set is loud and still has enough headroom for many cabinets. Set to full power it had enough ooomph to drive a pair of Acme B2 cabinets well with the right amount of headroom still available. When I compared to my V6 (sold a while back) it seemed to have more power than was expected.