Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
Don't go confusing things with actual facts, please. Facts are obsolete.
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Thunderbird Club
- Thread starter TBird1958
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- club thunderbird
Haji
Supporting Member
Trace is one of those brands, like SWR, that was super cool and unique that was wrecked by being sold. All these conglomerations purchase companies, especially amp companies, and shelve them. If it can't be run profitably, how didn't they know that already? What good does it do to shrink the available market? That just invites start ups; look at Genzler. Buying competition to make them go away rather than profiting from them as well just strikes me as stupid and a huge waste of capital.
As are - in the past 10 days - a lot of other things.
Yeah I actually thought of that after the fact lol. Amp 1 would send it's preamp to amp 2 then just adjust vol.
I never cared much for most SWR stuff I tried. Always seemed a bit sterile too me for my tastes but YMMV. Genz was another brand that always seemed to underrate the power. They were always very loud and sounded good to me. But you know how subjective sound and tone are.
Well, with SWR the problem for me is that there are a few things I simply cannot abide in bass gear.
Tweeters
Rat fur
and most of all, baked-in mid-scoops
I always found Genz stuff similar to SWR. Not sterile I guess, but they were very "mechanical" for lack of a better term. Modern I guess you could call it. I've always loved Mesa's stuff but nowadays I'm in love with Orange amps. I also really like GK stuff. They are quite different, I know, but I like them both.
LOL - any 810 is gonna be a moose to move but as long as it has casters on the back and a handle placement made for tilt and trolley use its really only an issue to lift in and out of your vehicle.
After messing with an Ampeg fridge for a while I switched to a Bergantino 610 for my big rig and haven't looked back. It's lighter than a fridge by far and designed for tilt and roll and load in/out. Much easier on my back than any 410 or 210 or even 115 I've ever owned. And it sounds as loud and as good or better than any 810 I've ever played.
The pain is the SVT-VR sitting on top. That's a two person carry for any distance more than 50 feet.
Yeah those Berg NV610's are amazing cabs. Way easier than I thought it would be to move.
If you look at the Peavey site, it appears that they don't market a Trace-branded product, with a speaker in it. It looks like they have essentially reduced the brand to a line of pedals and one micro head. Too bad.
I had an NV610 for about a decade. It was fantastic in every way, but I ended up letting it go in favor of modular GK Neo offerings.
Haji
Supporting Member
That Trace micro head is ridiculous. 200 watts that'll literally fit in a back pocket.
They keep this up and I'm going to have to sell my Trace amps and buy one of these. 200w in a d class is not enough though. Need a 500w version of this.
Haji
Supporting Member
I was talking to my bass playing product guru Matt at Music Central av out this head. I'm betting the reason they went 200 watts is that with a head that tiny, you're not gonna plop it on top of a 810; a head that light means a lightweight rig, so maybe a single 12 can that weighs 20 pounds or less.
I think that's exactly the target market. I was reading a story today on Premier Guitar, I think, and they were taking about all the downsized gear and guitars designed for the singer-songwriter/acoustic/coffee shop musicians.
Nobody is pumping out stadium gear anymore.
I think with the evolution of the modern PA you really don't need a big rig anymore. In fact from the FOH petspective it's generally undesirable.
That leaves us local club rangers and gig pirates to haul around our old iron. It's not going away, but honestly there's so much of it circulating on the used market, and the money is looking to new trends. When less does more, you use less!
But not me. I'm just a hopeless romantic, I'm afraid. drool
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Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
Exactly. When I speak of folded horn overkill, it is from ongoing schlepping experience. I kinda like the idea of a 612 and micro head, but the beasts are paid for.
