Description
the power amp makes a very low level hum, so I think this is abnormal. The hum does NOT increases with the volume, so you only notice it at very low volume levels. Still these amps are supposed to be VERY quiet. However, this can be used as a great tube preamp (the output of the preamp is the SEND of the fx loop). The preamp is completely separated from the power amp, and they are not dependent from one another, i.e. if a power amp fails, this should not affect the preamp (unless theres a problem in the power supply, which is not the case here). I guarantee the preamp works great, and sounds great. Most hybrids have 1 x12ax7, this one has 3, it is the only hybrid I know of with such a preamp. As far as I can tell (I am a musician, not an amp tech) from the schematic, this Ashdown has a purist tube preamp, i.e. no ICs or diodes anywhere. To my ears it sounds like a modded JCM800, it is very aggressive and deep sounding. The preamp has DC heaters, which means it is super quiet. You only find DC heaters on the best tube amps, most companies use AC heaters because they are cheaper and good enough. However for high gain applications, DC heaters are recommened. When used on its own, the preamp is super quiet, so this would be ideal for home studio recording. You could pair it with an impulse response and have a killer sounding, direct injection guitar tone. Moreover, the preamp in this Ashdown is superior than tube preamps from the likes of AMT. The thing about pedals with tubes is that inevitably there are some design compromises: tube circuits require a lot of stuff. There have to be less components, or lower voltage ones. SOMETHING has to be discarded. Even a single tube needs lots of expensive stuff to work properly. But in a tube preamp of an AMP, you dont see such design compromises such as starved plates etc. Certainly theres none in this Ashdown: all the tubes are running at high voltage, inside theres more than enough space to fit whatever component needed, so the company is unlikely to save a couple of resistors if that makes the preamp sound great. And if you need to switch the channels, no problem, you can use a standard, cheap footswitch, for seamless and noiseless switching. In many multichannel tube PEDALS, the switching is almost always not seemless, i.e. theres a faint gap when you switch channels. This is not to say that a well designed tube pedal cant sound great. But theres no compromises in the Ashdown. AND if you need a power amp, you could get a cheap Harley Benton GPA 100, it will give all the power youll ever need, but for home studio recording youll only need a great impulse response, and this preamp will rock your socks off. Id gladly keep it and use it myself, but I have too much studio stuff. Will post same day.
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