Neo? speaker in old MusicMan amp?

midlifecrisis

or hire me as a roadie

Blueingreen

Problem with the trolley idea is that most of the risky stuff back-wise is lifting stuff in and out of vehicles, climbing stairs etc.  Just walking along carrying the thing on a flat surface isn't so much of a problem.  I originally did my back in trying to manoeuvre a 4 x10 bass cab into the back seat of a car.  Had about 15 months of chronic pain after that and I'm not keen to risk it again!

Blueingreen

EricTheWeary said:

Blueingreen said:

I note that MM have a new line of amps.  I've been a bit unconvinced by the marketing (for me they've picked the wrong amps to reissue) and I wonder how close they'll be to the originals.

But they are very significantly lighter, using (I think) Neo speakers.  The 212 HD 130 has DV Mark Neoclassic speakers rated 300W?  

interesting, I couldn't see any prices but perhaps they would be too scarey. They are using custom neo speakers and are relatively light weight amps.

I'm intrigued by the new ones but they look different enough from the originals that I won't be rushing to place my order until I know a lot more about them.  The models they've chosen to reissue seem wrong to me. The HD130 presumably because of the Knopfler association but how many players want 130W these days?  Especially non-rock players, and I don't imagine these are intended to be rock amps. And the RD 50 was never the most highly regarded of the old amps.  

I've seen a video clip of someone demoing the RD 50 and to be fair I thought the cleans sounded nice and quite MusicMan-y. I'm not sure what they're doing with drive, they seem to have some new new gubbins to give different levels of drive via a footswitch.  On the clip the drive sounded decent but quite generic, not MusicMan-y at all.  They may have decided the old, very smooth light MM drive isn't aggressive enough for the current market which would be a pity.

Still it's very light and if the price is reasonable it could be a solution to people looking for a light, loud combo.  Looks to be in the same ball park as the likes of the Alessandro Working Dog and it will be interesting to see how it compares for build quality, tone and price.

ICBM

Blueingreen said:

I'm intrigued by the new ones but they look different enough from the originals that I won't be rushing to place my order until I know a lot more about them.  The models they've chosen to reissue seem wrong to me. The HD130 presumably because of the Knopfler association but how many players want 130W these days?  Especially non-rock players, and I don't imagine these are intended to be rock amps.

Many who want true clean sounds do. If anything, it's the rock guys who want lower-powered amps they can thrash. It's not even about volume, the 130W amps just had a bigger, more spacious tone than the 65W ones.

Blueingreen said:

And the RD 50 was never the most highly regarded of the old amps.

I've seen a video clip of someone demoing the RD 50 and to be fair I thought the cleans sounded nice and quite MusicMan-y. I'm not sure what they're doing with drive, they seem to have some new new gubbins to give different levels of drive via a footswitch.  On the clip the drive sounded decent but quite generic, not MusicMan-y at all.  They may have decided the old, very smooth light MM drive isn't aggressive enough for the current market which would be a pity.

Agreed, and this seems to be a mistake a lot of companies make by trying to 'update' things. They miss the point of what was good about the old ones (even if they're not for everyone) and yet don't make anything 'new and good' either.

Blueingreen

Fair enough I don't know much about rock music these days. Never been much into metal or even moderately heavy stuff. I just had a loose impression that when I see a 100w head these days it's usually a specialist rock amp of one sort or another.

richardhomer

I'm surprised at the models they've chosen to reissue - though the Clapton/Knopfler connection with the higher power ones probably has something to do with it. Clapton is pictured on the front cover of 'Backless' noodling on Blackie through an RD50, so may be that's why that was chosen.

What is not a matter of conjecture is that based on the images I've seen, they actually look quite different from the originals. Which leads me to speculate how 'accurate' the guts may be.

I have not found even indicative prices yet on-line - which suggests they'll be very expensive. The rumour when the where discontinued in the '80s was that they were too expensive to produce and sell at a price that the 'market' would pay.

Genuine old ones used to be cheap for the quality on offer. I reckon the reissues are likely to be both expensive and not as good....

oktorockto

Out of interest I put a 60w Celestion Neo Creamback in my MM RD50 and it sounds great.

Blueingreen

No longer of interest to me personally as I've found other solutions to the weight problem, a Quilter that probably only sounds about 95% as good as the MM but weighs about a third as much.  Still have the MM amp, should probably sell as it's just taking up space and it's hard to imagine me ever using it.  It does have sentimental value as my main gigging amp for many years though.