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Whats wrong with the Ashdown Little Giant 1000?

M

Murphys Law

May 7, 2009
288
6
Germany
#1
Hey folks,

So, lately I was browsing my favourite onlineshop, checking out some price drops and couldn't believe my eyes:
The Ashdown little Giant 1000 has dropped in Price by over 50% from about 650€ to 300€...

This amp landed in my sights a while ago when i was looking for a decent class D amp, but until now the plans were canceled because these amps were too expensive. But these 300 bucks would fit my budget...

So I have to ask myself: where is the catch?
I checked Ashdowns homepage and haven't seen a new amp of this category which would outdate the little giant and I don't know of any known issues with these amps.

My question: Can anyone solve the mystery? Where is the catch?

Thanks alot,
Karl.
 
#6
TrevorOfDoom said:
As an owner, i know of no problems. Mine's reliable and sounds great. Only thing bad i could say is that they need a 4 ohm load, but it's set up with two 4 ohm outputs (meaning it can go down to 2 ohms!!)
Click to expand...

Not necessarily... it may be two 4 ohm jacks that are really just connected to each other. Then, plug in two 8 ohm cabs, and you've got on 4 ohm load. But, you may be correct.
 
#7
The design itself is flawed. They could have done better by just making it a monoblock amp with 500-600w instead of 2 separate 500w (@4ohms) amps that can't be bridged. I do not believe it can go down to 2 ohms! You figure they would have learned with the Superfly! There's a very small market for these types of amps unless you own all 4ohm cabs!
 
#8
It can't go down to 2 Ohms, its 2 separate 500W-4Ohms poweramps.

After researching more i found out:

-There seem to be some issues with the preamp-poweramp setting, the preamp seems to be set to a low power level which decreases the overall volume. It was consideres plugging a level-booster into the FX Chain to fix it.

Edit: for those wanting to bridge the two seperate poweramps:
Would work, but you would and up with a 1000W-8Ohms amp which cant go lower than 8 Ohms!
 
#9
DWBass said:
The design itself is flawed. They could have done better by just making it a monoblock amp with 500-600w instead of 2 separate 500w (@4ohms) amps that can't be bridged. I do not believe it can go down to 2 ohms! You figure they would have learned with the Superfly! There's a very small market for these types of amps unless you own all 4ohm cabs!
Click to expand...

+1 The combination of the disasterous Superfly (on so many levels), the non-bridge-able design, and (rightly or wrongly) the perception of low reliability of the brand resulted in these micro's never really catching on, at least in the US.
 
#11
I believe it is because of the colour and the jolly giant cartoon. Puts a lot of people off! Also, people associate Ashdown with grungy rock tone, whilst these are a lot more clean and hifi which puts them in competition with the likes of Markbass and Genz Benz. They may have sold more if it had a more classic look and nailed the ABM tone, then they could have had a piece of the market that Orange just cornered with the Terror Bass.
 
#12
Got one.. its a nice unit which would be immensely more useful if:

1) it had a biamp mode with adjustable xover point
2) the two power section outputs had separate volume controls so one could adjust the volume betwixt them
3) was bridgable into a 4 ohm load

As it is... a very nice unit if you have 4 ohm loads to drive... especially handy as a backup.
 
#13
Foz said:
Got one.. its a nice unit which would be immensely more useful if:

1) it had a biamp mode with adjustable xover point
2) the two power section outputs had separate volume controls so one could adjust the volume betwixt them
3) was bridgable into a 4 ohm load

As it is... a very nice unit if you have 4 ohm loads to drive... especially handy as a backup.
Click to expand...

+1 And +1 on the goofy giant icon, and the Superfly disaster. All those things must have the folks working in the Ashdown marketing department jumping off the Big Ben Tower.

I have an LG 1000 and it's been great for powering an Avatar stack (2x12 and 4x10 both 4 ohms). The irony is that its so light, my neo cabs are still pretty big - therefore its not that mobile.

I haven't had any reliability issues, but because of my horrific experience with the Superfly shutting down at a gig, I'm still nervous every time I switch on the LG.

And once you figure out the LG's EQ its great - but the "Shape" button is worthless. Sounds like a tin can.
 
#14
I have one and I like it. I am currently trying to sell it only because I got a good deal on another ashdown amp. I would say that for the price, you get a lot of power and a flexible EQ.

As far as why places are clearing them out is probably because they don't look like the normal ashdown amp that everyone is used to seeing--the guy with the arms folded are a lot different from the classic looks of the other ashdowns, but then again, maybe they were trying to reach a different audience...either way it didn't really work lol
still a nice amp though
 
#17
If you have a 4 ohm cab with voicing that agrees with your goals - and consider that at some point you might buy a matching cab to build yer stack up [or if you already have a pair of matching 4 ohm cabs] - then a LG 1000 would make a lot of sense. You get a versatile light weight head pushing 500 watts, and when you add that 2nd cab you double up on watts and air moving potential. I can imagine an awesome light weight rig of doom with this amp.

There are however circumstances where other heads would make more sense [you are looking to bi-amp, have two 8 ohm cabs...]. Bottom line I like the head, but its a shame that it is not more versatile - nice package, nice eq, but a couple of stupid design choices severely limit how you can use the unit.

If it had separate volume controls for the two outputs it would be much more useful [jeez what would that have cost to build into the design... $0.50???]... if it was also bridgeable with 1,000 watts into 4 ohms it would be awesome... if in addition it had bi-amp capabilities I'd call it the cat's pajamas of micro heads. But it aint.

My $0.02
 
#19
The reliability perception of Ashdown is due TOTALLY to the chinese made versions of their stuff, which was the MAG line and some of the early EVOII chinese made stuff... Ive had alot of the UK made stuff and I have had a single issue with any of it!!
 
#20
really scared me off Ashdown amps for awhile now. A TX TBer has a, I think EVO-III?, the blue faced one in a tolex-style case, for sale and I'd really like to snag it. But I went thru a rough time with my new EVO-IIRC a few years ago. It kept going from TX to NY Ashdown repair centers like a ping-pong ball trying to get repaired, at least it seemed that way.

The dude from US-Ashdown CS, Michael I think, was really great about calling my home phone back then to say where it was headed next for repairs, LOL. :p Hell, we'd talk for a few mins each time to catch up on our gigs and stuff, like ol' buddies. He was very cool and did all he could to help me.

I really loved the way that amp sounded and was really miffed when it went down and the subsequent 10 months to repair. When the store called to say it was ready, they'd given me a GBE600 in the interim, I told em to keep it.

So, reliabilty and that cartoonish, Jolly Green Giant looking character on that little amp puts me off. Looks like it oughta be hanging in a Toys-R-US rack in the windup toy guitars aisle, sorry just saying.

And I own several 4 ohm cabs so it got my attention for short while. Now, my two MB F1's setup get me my 500 watts per cab for me. Hope Ashdown gets it right again soon.
 

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