Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Yesterday I visited a friend of mine who runs a backline rental company to try our a couple of amp lines he was stocking for rental. Armed with my trusty 4003, I first tested out an Ashdown ABM series head with an Ashdown 4X10 cabinet. The sound was good but didn't really blow me away. I had high hopes for the built-in sub-octaver, but like most octavers I've tried, it had a hard time handling anything below a C-D. The next amp I tried was a Mark Bass TA501 head (with on-board tube compressor), with the matching 4X10 cabinet. I have to admit that I was blown away! Describing sound is always a bit dicey, but it felt like I was hearing the full tonal spectrum of the 4003 for the first time. I also tried one of the smaller Mark Bass heads with less features - it was OK but nothing like the TA501. One thing I also need to mention about Mark Bass gear - it's light! Anyone else here have any experiences with Mark Bass amps or cabinets?

I've played through the now discontinued Ernie Ball Audiophile bass amps which were made by Mark Bass in Italy. They really did sound nice. Unfortunately the cabs they made for Ernie Ball were anything but light. Could have beem one one the reasons that they didn't sell very well.

The cabinets use neodymium speakers so there is significantly less weight to the cabinets. The 4X10 I was using is listed at 56 lbs on their web site. I picked it up easily myself and quite surprised at the the cabinet's relative lightness.

I just blew up a friend's older 450 Mark Bass head. Before it blew I was not overly impressed with the tone. While I'm sure it would really stand out in the mix, to my ears it was harsh sounding. Did not have the warmth I like.

hahaha... maybe the harshness had something to do with it being about to blow up

No, unfortunately it blowing up had everything to do with me doing something really stupid. Must say their customer service is superb. They responded immediately and are sending us the parts needed to fix the amp free of charge. Very impressive.

I nearly bought one of the small combos but someone told me that if you drive them too hard the neodymium magnets heat up and the speaker can blow.
I do play very hard and the Kevlar Impregnated cones in my Trace cabinet have never let me down.
I have now gone for the opposite extreme and ordered an Ashdown rig with 2 x 15"s and the rackmount EVO ABM head.

Derek,

The amp blowing was no fault of MarkBass. User error all the way!

My friend who runs the backline rental company has a number of Mark Bass heads and cabinets that have been out in all sorts of musical situations. So far, no problems at all.
So... what did you do to blow up that amp Tim?

turned it up to 11?

It was such a dumb thing to do I don't even want to admit it. Keep guessing...

Ran it at 2 ohms for a day?

I saw their 3x10 combo rated at 6 ohms...3 16 ohm speakers in parallel would be 5.33 I think...the 2x10 was 8 ohm. I couldn't find any price info for the brief look I made (I'm supposing they are relatively high end), nor much tech specs.

Plugged a cable from the speaker output to the instrument input?

Derek,

Let me know how you like the ABM 500RC, if it is quiet or noisy, as in electrical buzzing.

Cool. It should all be with me in a fortnight so I'll update here once I've used it.

I've tried to think of everything that you could possibly do to fry an amp
1. Edski's post - running it below the recommended impedence
2. Have the input and output at 10 on the passive setting using an active bass
3. Changed the voltage from 110v to 240v and plugged it in.

Put us out of misery. We've all done stupid stuff.

My GK 800RB head used to have something rolling around inside it and I never bothered to check it until it stopped working. It was one of the bolts that holds the transformer to the chassis that had come off and eventually made a circuit in the amp. Luckily the fuse kicked in before any damage could be caused.