Ashdown MAG-C115-300 115 Combo

April 2004 model, bought to upgrade/replace a faulty MAG250 combo (see my other review here for that) - all other features the same except the power amp stage has been beefed up to 300W RMS/ 600W peak, and the previously noisy fan has now been moved to vent through the rear panel and is MUCH quieter.

It's still a well built (externally, at least), lightweight combo.

Oh, and a slight cosmetic change - the speaker grille is now hammered dark gray rather than matt black.

I was expecting this to sound much like the MAG250 (which has/had a sound I love), but with slightly more power due to what Ashdown claim to be a "massively improved" power stage.

So I was a bit disappointed when it came out of the box - compared to my MAG250 it sounded a bit flat and lifeless, more midragey, and for the same front panel settings was actually NOT AS LOUD!!! Odd... anyway, a few calls and mails confirmed that the speakers need a damn good burning in to really open up, so the jury's still out, but I've rated it as it came out of the box.

The VU meter certainly doesn't seem to move as much on the 300 as it did on the 250, and I needed to push the EQ more to get similar tone to my older Ashdown, but they claim the pre-amp section is unchanged...

Oh, and this one's very hard to make it distort, even at high volume, with a Stingray being pounded into the high input.

Certainly, using my Ashdown Mini48 as an extension cab really opened the sound up, so I was hoping to get that speaker burnt in quick... but see below...

Here we go again. This was bought as replacement for my MAG250 combo which apparently has a faulty power supply.

The second time I turned this on, there was (surprise surprise) the most awful BBBBZZZZZZT followed by an enormous, floor shaking speaker thump through internal speaker and extension speaker. We're talking full-on Dolby Digital earth quaking THUMP here, not pleasant at all.

Playing around for awhile, the BBBZT-THUMP only occurs on start up when BOTH internal speaker and extension are plugged in at the same time when it starts up. A quick call to Ashdown, and one of their technical guys admits he's had the problem before, it's the power supply capacitors overloading as it draws too much current on start up in 4 ohm configuration - as I'll be using it in 4 ohm config live (hopefully), that doesn't give me much faith that it'll survive at volume during a 2 hour set!

So, suffice to say I've now had two Ashdown MAG combos go down due to power supply faults, possibly (tho yet to be confirmed) with the smoothing capacitors.

So, reliability rating based on the fact that the replacement I bought for a faulty older amp has a very similar fault, and that I had about 30 mins use with it.

To be fair, Ashdown were good to deal with, fast to respond and patient/apologetic with an extremely irate user (me) - they spoke directly to the shop from where I'd bought it and agreed to get a replacement out more or less immediately. Apparently reps and sales managers were involved, questions were asked, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth... I'll wait to see how the replacement MAG300 performs, but I can't knock them really.

What can I say? I finally find a good sounding, loud, portable, reasonably priced amp, then two more-or-less similar Ashdown amps go haywire on me in the space of two weeks. I bought this cos I loved the sound of the MAG250, and thought surely, lightning can't strike twice, can it?

When the MAG combo first came out, it retailed around the #600 mark - these days, they have a street price of around #350, and I wonder how much of that is down to high-volume manufacturing techniques that have allowed them to cut costs with this range.

Certainly for two amps, a year apart in manufacture, only slightly differently spec'd, to suffer similar faults is pretty serious and needs some looking at if I'm to regain my faith in their reliability.

Good customer service, great sounding amps... now if only the things would work for more than five minutes.

(And yes, I promise to submit another review if the replacement MAG300 survives... or alternatively, if it doesn't...)