Diming an amp

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:06 pm

Hmm...acoustic 360?...Yah I guess I can see that....John Paul Jones from Led Zep was reputed to use those too, and the sound is similar.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 2:55 pm

I tried one of those once years ago and with a Ric too, it had absolutely no top end and no bottom end unless you were at least 10-15 feet out of front, it was like playing through a folded horn sub woofer. some people liked them though, they were the big thing until Ampeg SVT's came along.
Mccartney used them on one of his Wings tours too.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 9:26 pm

Yeah, I heard that the SVT killed those in a music store because they were a lot louder right near the cabinet, which is where the prospective buyer would be sitting or standing. A lot of people seemed to use those Acoustics in recordings though, and on tour, and I like the tone of what I have heard.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:18 pm

Yeah they were the big boy on the block as far as volume went for a year or two until SVT's came along, then everyone sold them, bought SVT's and they were practically extinct within a few years. Sunn Coliseums made a run for it too around the same time, none of them could touch the SVT's, SVT's totally revolutionized bass amps. SVT's killed them everywhere, not only in stores. You'll see Acoustics in early 70's videos sometimes, they projected the sound pretty well. I'd like to get one just to own it. Jaco Pastorious liked them, toned his rotosound'd jazz basses down a little I think.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:37 pm

I read that the SVT particularly killed the Acoustic due to the cabinet design, and all the kids in the store would think the SVT was louder because the Acoustic cabinet took so long (distance) to develop the sound. Not to mention that with all the tubes in the SVT the sound was a lot more 3D.

I don't really care to own an Acoustic amp....I have the SVT and a couple Sunns and will probably get a smaller solid state amp eventually for practice. An Ashdown or something probably....although if I had the money I'd be getting a Portaflex.

I really like the Sunns for distorted bass sounds. It does that instant Rush tone thing on the top end. If I can get my stereo wiring fixed in my bass, I'll be trying it out Rush style to see what sounds I can come up with!

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:44 pm

We must have read the same Terry Budingh story in Vacuum Tube valley, or aleast that's where I read about them blowing away 360's in stores. I still think it was much more than that, they also sounded much better onstage, actually everywhere, they have definition and punch, Acoustics were very muffled and anemic sounding, the 18" is mounted somewhere inside the cab and the highs get lost in the folds of the horn and they don't develop bottom as you say until at least 10-15 ft in front of them. SVT's ushered in modern bass sound, THE bass set up back then was a Ric 4001 and an SVT with two bottoms.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:32 pm

I think it must have been the same article. I'll tell ya, its really hard to make anything else come close to my SVT, although I really like the tone of the old tube Sunns when distorted for bridge pickup excursions.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 4:03 am

I had a 2000S at one time, I liked it but the tone controls didn't do much, had two cabs also but at a different time unfortunately, the cabs were huge with JBL D-140's in them. Incidently the Ampeg tone controls and switches were a big selling point when the Ampegs switched to the SVT configuration. I remember them with paper cut outs over the knobs and switches with pointers to imitate different amps like Fenders, Marshalls etc. This was from the factory BTW.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:01 am

Yah the Ampeg on channel 1 is using semi-active tone controls, which is the main reason why they adjust so much.

The Sunns true voice is with the original cabinets with original D140 JBL's, and its one of those amps that really needs those cabinet and speaker combinations to really sound nice. My 200S or 2000S sound ok through my SVT cabinet, but they sound light years better through a real Sunn cabinet. One of these days I plan to make myself a 2x15 JBL equipped Sunn cabinet. I have the speakers, and I'm good friends with Conrad Sundholm, the founder of Sunn, so I can get the specs/dimensions from him easily enough.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 4:53 pm

I used a Marshall Major 200 watt head with mine, the air would hit you right in the stomach at about 15'-20' in front of them (I had two) with my old flatwounded P bass, that is not exaggeration either. One place used to call us The Big Wind, haha! They were also horn loaded speakers and sounded weak up close, not as bad as the Acoustics though. I saw Mountain a few times and Pappalardi certainly made Sunn 2000S systems sound good, he had several heads and cabs, a small mountain of them if I remember right.