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What is the attraction to Trace Elliot amplifiers?

#41
smeet said:
For years I gigged an 80's AH500X. Very heavy, VERY loud and versatile, with two independent power amps. Also it reproduced low frequencies better than anything else I've ever played, even my DB750. It made my Eden sound thin and hollow in comparison.

Weird, but when I turned it on and the fan started blowing, it also smelled really good. Not a smell I could identify but somehow comforting.
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Glad you said that!!
Marshalls smelled really good. The late '60s SuperBass & SuperLead 100 just had this great bouquet.

No fan so you just leaned over the vent in the top. Yummm!
 
#44
rtav said:
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^^^^
This is the whole reason why I like them before even playing through one.

In the late 90's when I just started playing guitar, I've always wanted to play bass, but never got around making the switch. So every time I walked into our local music store, I would check out the bass gear, and one day they got a load of TE gear in the store accompanied by a stack of catalogues. So I picked up a copy when went home reading the entire thing. It made such an impact on me and the color combination with the red stripes just struck me as being super cool.

From that time onwards I always wanted to have a TE rig. That was 15 years ago, but life got in the way and I finally got my own TE head just last week. Still don't have any old TE cabs with the red stripes, but I guess that'll have to wait as they're not readily available and even if they are, it's a PITA to have them shipped across the globe.:(
 
#45
will33 said:
It works!

I ran into several of the 410's around here as backline in the '90's. Saw Tommy Shannon playing the same stuff quite a bit, probably same rental company used locally. Sliding the ports in and out changed the character and "bigness" of the sound. It's one of the things that started getting me interested in how all that stuff worked. I just remember the amps as being clear sounding and seemingly loud for their comparitively low power ratings as the Edens we got around the same time, which were also supplied backline quite a bit back then.
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Thanks Will and everyone else for sharing your stories. I would love to try a vintage TE next time I head for "the lower 48."

I hope other owners chime in :-)

:bassist:
 
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#46
I think trace Elliot lives from its great reputation from +20 years ago.
When I started with bass playing, there was not so much to choose from as novadays. And trace Elliot was known as bulletproof bass-sound heaven.
I went with it, too. Friend of mine bought a MK-V GP11 4x10 combo and removed the head from it to run it with his own 350SMX head. So I bought the combo head from him. Just 150 Watts, but the sound is sweeeeeeeeeet.
I always say, TE is not made for everyone, I met a lot of bassists that wouldn't like the TE sound. In fact, TE heads do only sound right to me with the pre-amp shaping active. That's more or less a scoop function, but I have to admit, the best I ever heard.

I will never sell this head, but I would not buy any TE again. Have one, love it, but it's a bit of gone glamour with TE. Their products disappear, their marketing is nihil and the heads are outdated.
In the local markets you see people still rely on the good name of TE and ask prices for products that are totally surreal.

Oh, I never heard or used their Valve stuff. Would like to, btw. The valve pre-amp in the SMX350 of my friend back in the days wasn't utterly convincing but their all-tube heads seem to be killer
 
#51
I did a European tour in 1987 with Bo Diddley and the backline many times was a TE. Sometimes it was a 15 and a 210 cab with one of their more powered heads but sometimes it was the 410 combo. I actually liked the 410 combo better than the larger rig.

Wally
 
#53
Wally Malone said:
I did a European tour in 1987 with Bo Diddley and the backline many times was a TE. Sometimes it was a 15 and a 210 cab with one of their more powered heads but sometimes it was the 410 combo. I actually liked the 410 combo better than the larger rig.

Wally
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A trace head and 4x10 cabs is a real sweet spot in the TE sound chain. It can kick like a mule and yet still retain nice highs and fast responce. It sits in a mix very nicely
 
#58
Iristone said:
Ashdown is the new Trace Elliot - down from the ashes. The Peavey-resurrected Trace Elliot is seeing progress, too.
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The Peavey owned Trace products are entirely unrelated to anything by the original Trace products through the KMC and Gibson eras.
 
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