This Sunday was geartastic. Apparently, after me not seeing Henry for only a short while, he has decided to arm a small brigade of bassists in the near future. His collection was as follows, with small reviews.
Bongo 5: Not my thing in the end, but tonally unique from anything
else I've tried to this date.
Stingray 5: Still a classic, and a class act as well. Awesome B
string that is still current with today's taste for
"modern piano tone"
Sting Pbass: You just can't keep a good P down. Period.
Headless Washburn with Graphite neck:"Holy Zingy ToneBatman!"
Pick style Nu-wave tone? One of the best takes on it.
My RV5 with single coils: complete crapstick. Don't waste your
money on a Sadowsky, in fact, don't even look at
their "in stock" page on the website. Instead I will
monitor said page with credit card in fist.
The Thunderfunk suprised me on some accounts, and confirmed some suspicions that I had speculated upon in the last week, namely that the TFB550B might just B a better option for 'my sound'. In comparison, I noticed some things that I
didn't
like about the UL502.
First off, let me give some props to Henry for graciously allowing some of his freetime, and for disengaging some of my teeth from my gums via his two Bergantino 115's. Man!!!! That sound's gonna stay in my head for some time! Literally. The sonic thrust of the low B of my Sadowsky made a dent in my skull. Awesome cabs.
I started off on my UL502 thru the UL410 just to get some reference. Don't count it out. Its deep sounding with plush lows (almost tube-like on the bstring), and the high end is sweet and airy. I messed around on it, gathering thoughts on what I initially was missing from it. I liked the Bass knob in that it gave me huge presence down low, but yet that thickness didn't exactly translate all across the fingerboard, which IMO left a slight lack of punch and girth from the A-string on up. Very subtle, and something I didn't necessarily notice in the first week or so of gigging.
*****At this point I should stop and point out that everything that I noticed as 'lacking' in the UL502 only appeared to me in comparison to the inherent sound of the Thunderfunk. I simply want to evaluate what differences I heard in every comparable frequency range, ie. Lows Mids and Highs.*****
So, getting back to the lows, while the lowend on the UL502 was actually the first thing I loved about it in that it had a 'spread' to it that reminded me of tubes. Well, the Thunderfunk has more than a few options for getting a thick lowend that also extends into the midrange (we'll get to the midrange in a sec). First, when placed flat, a simple click to the left on the Timbre knob makes a dramatic difference. The amp goes immediately from solid state punch, ala GK IMO, to thick and round like a tube amp. Amazing little knob, and as many have said, 'worth the price of admission alone'. If your not satisfied at that, you can still dial in even more extended lows via the Bass knob or the parametric mid range that allows you to get surgical in those 'big booty frequencies', or 30-120 hrz.
And the sound remained a lot tighter than the Epi did, which is important considering the 'thick to outrageous' bass knob on my Sadowsky.
While the lowend department is a toss up between the two amps, expecially depending on the nature of your B string, the midrange was simply 'No contest' IMO. The Parametric EQ on the Epifani is definitely useful, and I could basically get slight variations on the same thing. That "Epifani Tone' was never far away on any setting. I really, REALLY wanted the Para-mid knob to extend down into the 100-120 hz region. But then again, I like a darker sound with a lot of low mids. To me, the mid knob on the UL502 was adequate compared to the surgical precision of the Tfunk. There's almost infinite options, if you even need them that is, because the flat tone is just about perfect in itself. Set flat, the Thunderfunk is punchy and quick, and would cut through anything. After that, its up to you to get any conceivable sound you might want, be this thick and fat, punchy and bright, deep and wide and modern, vintage roundness, basically whatever. For this reason, I personally will be making the switch.
The Epifani is a great amp nonetheless. It has a definite sound to it. A unique stamp if you will. It takes the tradition of 'clean and crisp with deep bottom' that was introduced in with amps like SWR's and completely updates it. In fact, I will venture to say that the UL502 reminds me a
lot of early SWR amps. Maybe thats why longtime SWR proponents such as Andrew Gouche and Joel Smith made the switch? Perhaps. At first, I thought that this sound would complement the darker sound of my RV5, and that I'd be set up. I was simply wrong. No harm done though, and if I was strictly a 'modern tone' proponent (fat lows with crispy top end) or even a more 'modern' player (fast chops, double thumping high octane slap runs, ultra techinical busy lines), than this would totally be my amp. That being said, for the limited slapping that I do, the Thunderfunk delivers, and actually has more crispness to the high end whereas the Epifani's high end is more 'airy'. Different flavors in that regard.
Its just about the best for that tradition of players such as Matt Garrison, Tony Grey, or any player that plays a gig that demands equal time spent soloing and grooving. Now, this is not to say that the Tfunk is NOT for these players, because even in that regard, the tfunk can somewhat approach what the Epifani is doing. Its just that, for my needs, the UL502 can't come close to the warm vintage-vibe that the Tfunk can put out. I just couldn't find it in there, and God knows that I tried everywhich way. The Tfunk can do that with one click of the timbre knob.
As I write this, it reminds me of my decision to let go of my DB750. In fact the UL502 has a lot in common with Big Daddy Aggie in one simple regard: they both have a unique tonal stamp that you'll either fall in love with or later fall out of love with. I'll always miss the corpulent power of the DB750. And in the same vein, the UL502 has its own 'identity' that can't be duplicated exactly. Its just that everything I loved about the UL502 in the first place can be had on the Thunderfunk as well. So I'm really not giving up anything.
I was craving a more hi-fi sound than my DB750 could give me. The UL502 delivered marvelously on this account. But I completely lost out on that tube-like thickness that I loved about the Aguilar. In a sense, the Thunderfunk is an exact marriage of tube-like warmth and hi-fi sheen. I think that in the end this decides it for me more than anything else. Now if Dave Boonshoft and crew would only give me that DB750 thickness in a 20lb package, then I'd be writing a whole other thread.
Until that day, I know what
I'm goin with. Anybody want a UL502?
one of my fav sounds, and actually kinda makes me regret selling my ag500.
