moosers
Published on 09/08/10 at 19:17
The Ashdown USA 115 is a bass guitar speaker cabinet which I have used in tandem with Asdown ABM 500 Evo III amplifier head. I'm primarily not a bass player, although I do play, but I was an engineer on a session where this speaker and amp combination was used. This speaker is a beast, as it can handle up to 500 watts of power, although I'm sure nobody ever gets close to that. It's got a single 15" speaker inside of it, which is really quite large and can output a serious amount of bass frequencies. It doesn't have any other features or parameters beyond a speaker cable input for hooking this up to your amp head, but does have some handles that make it a little easier to move around.
SOUNDS
The sound of the Ashdown USA 115 as heard with a matching Ashdown head is pretty awesome overall. It's hard to separate the sound of the speaker and the head, but it's safe to say that this speaker cabinet handled everything being given to it from the head, which is saying a lot considering the depth of the bass sound from the Ashdown head I previously mentioned. I'd be curious to hear this speaker with a Fender Bassman head or something like that and/or compare it to another speaker cabinet, but to date I've yet to have a chance to do so.
OVERALL OPINION
While I'm not sure I'd recommend the Ashdown USA 115 bass speaker cabinet without having an Ashdown head to go along with it, in theory this cabinet should work well with any amp head. The only time I've heard it was with an Ashdown head to match, so it's hard to say how it would match up with a head from another brand, but I think it would sound pretty good across the board. Still, it's usually best to match an amp with a cabinet, so if you've got an Ashdown head I'd say it's worth checking out, but otherwise you might want to find something to match your head.
SOUNDS
The sound of the Ashdown USA 115 as heard with a matching Ashdown head is pretty awesome overall. It's hard to separate the sound of the speaker and the head, but it's safe to say that this speaker cabinet handled everything being given to it from the head, which is saying a lot considering the depth of the bass sound from the Ashdown head I previously mentioned. I'd be curious to hear this speaker with a Fender Bassman head or something like that and/or compare it to another speaker cabinet, but to date I've yet to have a chance to do so.
OVERALL OPINION
While I'm not sure I'd recommend the Ashdown USA 115 bass speaker cabinet without having an Ashdown head to go along with it, in theory this cabinet should work well with any amp head. The only time I've heard it was with an Ashdown head to match, so it's hard to say how it would match up with a head from another brand, but I think it would sound pretty good across the board. Still, it's usually best to match an amp with a cabinet, so if you've got an Ashdown head I'd say it's worth checking out, but otherwise you might want to find something to match your head.