A few questions, need quick reply.

Patricide

Ok buying my half stack was on a major hiatus there untill the leaving cert.Today was the start of the leaving cert so i went looking around to find the best price on an Ashdown Evo 2. On my travels i found out that the evo 2was no longer the top of the line ashdown and that the Klystron now was.

Upon checking out soundslive.com i found the price to be a whopping €1851

http://www.soundslive.co.uk/product~name~Ashdown-Classic-Series-Klystron-1000-Head%2C-EVO-III~ID~6158.asp
so i said, no way cant afford it.

Upon looking up guitarbargains i was saddened i found the 500 watt mono head for €1136. HOWEVER when i looked down i found the 1000 watt klystron steryo head for €596 . In my haste i ordered it beacause as far as i can tell its just a mistake they made with the pricing.

Question is, is there somthing im missing here to make that head so ridiculously cheap?

Also guitarbargains is a european site right?

Also what the wattage isnt going to make the abm cab im getting explode will it?

Also will it be the uk votage coming from guitar bargains?

and finally what do ashdown mean when they say it is 1000 watts steryo? i know steryo means ocming from the left and right on stuff like a radio but whats the story with it on an amp?

punchdrunk

i believe tis an eu site alright,no import duty!
cabs depend on ohm's being matched correctly and once the cab has a higher wattage rating than the heads maximum output you should be okay,the higher the wattage rating of the cab,the less speaker distortion you will get
if it's eu it should be 240v,perfect for us paddies
1000 watts stereo means each side of the stereo image(left channel ,right channel) recieves 500 watts

Patricide

this is the cab its 300 watts at 8 ohms. http://www.thomann.de/ie/ashdown_abm_115.htm

When you talk about speaker distorsion what do you mean?
If i run it with another 300 watt 2x10 combo will this lesson the distorsion?

punchdrunk

speaker distortion is were the rating of the speaker is too low compared to the output of the amp (say a 15 watt speaker in a 30 watt amp) slight mismatches are okay,infact on guitar it can sound good to "drive" the speaker hard,if you plug a very efficent speaker like say a 100watt speaker into a 5watt valve head it will sound very sterile and bland
most speakers can handle spikes in volume well above their rating on the spec sheet but for a bass plugging say a mono 300watt cab into a 500 watt amp cranked up is going to sound pretty farty (for want of a better word) and if the mismatch is extreme you'll blow speakers by forcing the coil in he speaker to move beyond the physical limits of the cone and it rips

just one other thing a 15inch speaker moves alot slower than a 10inch,so you'll be lacking in attack and punch with just a 1x15 cab

Patricide

I know but i have a 5 string bass tuned down a step so i actually need it the 2X10 on its own cannot handle the bass response, i can just buy a 2 x 10 aswell and run them together.

So is my 300 watt cab likely to sound terrible with the ashdowns 1000 watts running through it?

Patricide

Wheres doctor j when you need him

Doctor J

Here.

Man, I wouldn't buy a 1000 watt amp in a fit. I would be very reluctant to run a 1000 watt amp into a 300 watt cab. You are asking for trouble. If that amp can safely run as a 500 watt mono amp you might be ok, but you should find that out before it gets shipped to you and it's too late to change the order. There's a contact mail address on Ashdown's site, they respond to queries very quickly, very helpful folks indeed. Ideally though, you should be aiming to have a similar rated cabs and amp. That Klystron range has a couple of 500 watt cab models and that's probably what they expect the amp to run into, not the 300 watt ABM cabs.

http://www.guitarbargains.com/product.lasso?pr=050464
http://www.guitarbargains.com/product.lasso?pr=050465

Regarding 15s lacking punch and attack, I would say that I've never experienced a detrimental lack of either in any practical situation having done about 50 gigs in the last few years with a single 1x15" cab. I've always intended on buying a 2x10" to go with it but the 15" has alwyas had punch and attack to spare, and I like a lot of bite in my tone. I would rather have the 1x15" than a 2x10" if I was to be stuck with only one.

Patricide

, darnst time to go order cancelling so it looks like. damm guitarbargains and there price screw ups, why cant they go screw up the price on a 575 watt version?


Edit - - - - just thinking, any 1X15 cabs out there that are actually meant for 1000 watts that arent gonna cost a grand by themselves?

david

You're better off getting an amp of higher wattage than a cab nowadays, years ago, inefficient speakers and such blew easier. Youre in more danger of blowing an amp with a high powered cab, you wont hear it clipping as obviously as a speaker. You can always roll off the power on the amp anyway. I think the amp youre looking at is 2x500w @4ohms, most likely running no more than 300w per side @8ohms, because the cab is 8 ohms. If the output is bridgeable on the amp you could get 1x1000w @8ohms.

It's not uncommon in triamped FOH PA systems to be running an impedeance matched 500w+ into just a HF compression driver rated at no more than 150w

Patricide

Ok this ohms wattage buisness confuses 7 shades of **** out of me, so take it easy on the mumbo jumbo.

The head is 1000 watts steryo at 500 watts a side, just went to check how at many ohms on the ashdown site and its not listed.

Im looking ideally for a setup that i can use a 1x15 on its own with say if im going somewhere to jam but still has the power behind it for to power a 2x10 aswell.

david

Basically, you want equally or higher rated speakers than amp ohms wise.

Bridging = put two amp outputs together and get a single output - changes ohms/impeadeance

A 4ohm amp into 8 ohm speaker will cut the wattage output from the amp (somewhere a bit more than half the rating)

Rustar

punchdrunk wrote:

...just one other thing a 15inch speaker moves alot slower than a 10inch,so you'll be lacking in attack and punch with just a 1x15 cab

The speaker only moves slower when it's only reproducing bass frequencies. What is does is require a lot more *power* to move at the same speed, as there's much more cone to push.
And I don't think the attack or cut is any less either....in fact my favorite way to jam out at home is guitar---> Hendrix pedal---> 450w bass head---> 15" aluminum-cone cab. Has a nice "buttery" feel to the distortion, but cuts quite fine!

Doctor J

freakonaleashx wrote:

Youre in more danger of blowing an amp with a high powered cab

Are you quite sure about that? I've never heard of an amp being blown by a high powered speaker. Are you talking about ohms? Given that a speaker, no matter what wattage, has no current of its own how is it going to damage an amp? An ohm mismatch, yes, can do damage but ohms and wattage are very different things. A high powered cab basically means it has been designed to handle up to a specific wattage input, but sending 300 watts to a 500 watt cab won't blow or damage the amp, not that I've ever heard.

Patricide, ohms are basically a measure of resistance. 4 ohms means there isn't much resistance to the electrical signal coming from the amp. 8 ohms means there is more resistance, 16 ohms even more resistance. An amp is designed to output to a particular resistance, the Ashdowns are rated at 4 ohms, so the 300W model will output 300 watts if the cab is 4 ohms, ie - it is designed expecting a certain resistance to the signal it is sending to the amp. If you have a single 8 ohm cab, it just means the amp will find more resistance to what it's trying to output, resulting in less signal reaching the amp. This is fine, it won't do any damage, it's perfectly normal, you just won't get the full level of output from the amp. The danger of running a cab rated at a lower ohm rating than the amp is that the amp is expecting a certain level of resistance, isn't getting it, and can send a higher output than it is designed to, resulting in overheating and component failure. Wattage is a different thing altogether, while it does have a bearing on volume, it's not an exact gauge of volume, two different 100 watt amps can have very different volume levels but generally, the more watts, the more volume you can expect (there are exceptions though). Hope that makes sense.

Patricide

Yea thanks guys **** makes a hell of a lot more sense now. One more question is there a set rule in relation to watts and ohms? for example 300 watts at 4 ohms would be like 150 at 8 ohms(more resistance).

Anyway away from that, prob gonna get the 575 watt version now that i have the 1000 watt version cancelled. One thing that pisses me off is that its actually more expensive . Anyway into the same abm cab listed above it should be fine yea? also will have another abm 2X10 to go ontop, thatl work right?

Doctor J

TBH, chances are you'll never realistically need more than 300 watts. I've got the 300 watt ABM evo 1, running into a 8 ohm cab and through many gigs and countless rehearsals, I've never gotten close to turning the whole thing up. Don't blow a whole load of money buying extra wattage you'll never use. Spend your cash on something you'll use, don't just go for the Klystron rang because they're saying it's the flagship model. What features does it have to justify the extra cash? Will you ever use those features? Have you even heard it? TBH, were I to buy again I'd go for the Mark King head, the EQ is much more flexible and it's plenty loud, get the amp that'll suit what you're doing.

Patricide

Well its just the update of the evo, it has a new mid control which alows you to turn up how present the mid is in the actual sound, a handy feature, plus its more aesthticly pleasing to me(not a big factor really but a factor none the less).

Also what speaker set up have you been using to never use 300 watts. Atm i have an ashdown mag 300 watt which i run through a 2X10 and its barely keeping up with a 100 watt spider 2 guitar amp and drums.

Plus extra headroom is never a bad thing. Ive actually played the mark king(thats the red one yea?) and i didnt like it. Graphic eq's piss me off unless you have the option to use knobs aswell.

david

Sorry J got a bit mixed up there, i meant an underpowered amp can damage a speaker.. Have a read of this.. Synopsis: Power Amp clipping (on underpowered amp) kills tweeters.

http://sound.westhost.com/tweeters.htm

Doctor J

Patricide wrote:

Also what speaker set up have you been using to never use 300 watts. Atm i have an ashdown mag 300 watt which i run through a 2X10 and its barely keeping up with a 100 watt spider 2 guitar amp and drums.

I have the ABM 1x15 compact. Been meaning to get the 2x10 compact but, in truth, have never needed it. Still want it though

Johnny Storm

freakonaleashx wrote:

... Synopsis: Power Amp clipping (on underpowered amp) kills tweeters.

http://sound.westhost.com/tweeters.htm

I really know feck all about bass amps and so on but surely "tweeters" = home stereo speakers?

david

Johnny Storm wrote:

I really know feck all about bass amps and so on but surely "tweeters" = home stereo speakers?

Yeah but a lot of bass cabs have HF drivers too.

Johnny Storm

freakonaleashx wrote:

Yeah but a lot of bass cabs have HF drivers too.

Doh!

Rustar

Yo, Johnny, Yo......