Trace Elliot V-8

Made in year 2000.
The v8 is probably a bit of an enigma by todays standards as only (it is rumoured)75 were ever made ,im one of the lucky ones who saw its potential when it first rolled off the production line and actually picked it up from the guys who designed and built it,if you can call it a production line.?! so it never really built up a reputation against its closest rival (the ampeg svt 2 pro +)as there simply were not enough owners out there to rave about it let alone demonstrate the way this amp sounds.
Im not really qualified to state how versatile it is all I will say is that I have no problem getting a full bodied powerful bass tone and thats important for someone like me who uses 5 string basses with a low 'B' string.
Essentially it has 2 valve preamp channels one is clean to moderately over driven with bright switch and two is moderately over driven to pure preamp valve overdrive saturation (push/pull) with its own level control & LED indicator.
It also has the following:
8 x KT88 power valves.
7 x 12AX7 preamp valves.
1 x EM84 beam power indicator valve.
Dual active /passive inputs.
Mono FX loop.
DI XLR with pre/post EQ push switch and seperate earth lift switch.
Foot switch jack socket.
Speaker output jack/XLR sockets with 2ohm/4ohm impeadance selector and full/half power switch.
4 seperate fuses & valve biasing access holes & LED fail indicator for each pair of power valves.
Bass,Treble & push/pull Mid tone controls.
Switchable valve compressor with level control & LED indicator.
Standby toggle switch & amp status light.
This all equates to 400 Watts of valve power.
Ha Ha & yes its loud enough.
Ive been using for Metal/Death Metal/Black Metal/Goth/Doom Metal/Heavy Rock.
I use it in studio only as its too rare/valuable and prestige/boutique to take out on the road.

I use it with through neck 5 string active tone basses .
Its a very suitable amp for my style as I can always back it off to where I want it to perform ,to put a finer point on it it has been over engineered to give you over the top head room on all of its tonal fuctions . The cleans can be crystal to warm and the 2nd high gain channel will overdrive as much as you like. I cant imagine ever running channel 2 on 10...
As for how deep this amp can sound I would say that its extremely usable.....from a bassist point of view you would be looking to compliment the rest of the band with just the right amount of control over the bass frequency range and depending on which cab/ speakers you use (I use the 8X10 provided with it) theres not very much limiting how deep & heavy you would want to go.
You could probably do serious structual damage to windows and soft/old ceilings or cause nausea through improper use but for open air festivals its good to know that you have that kind of performance in reserve.

I originally purchased this amp whilst one or two of the bug bears were still being ironed out (May 2000) and I managed to melt an under rated fuse holder in addition to that the original Biasing tolerance settings were still being revised when I blew the first set of power valves .I will talk more about that in Trace Elliot's Customer Support section.
Over all a very reliable amp since these things were revised & amended.

Never had a problem with Trace Elliot's customer support team ,they always seemed to be on standby for me.
They got my V8 running at peak performance and sent me the new revised Biasing tolerances ,replaced/biased, burned in the new power valves for a few hours ,then rebiased again under warranty.
The fuse holder was also up rated to handle the higher temperatures.

Have been playing bass for 17 years and guitar for 21 years.
If it were lost or stolen it would probably be almost im possible for me to get it replace sice only a few were ever made.
The closest thing to it would probably be an ampeg svt2 pro but even that is out performed by this v8 [in my opinion] + theres the customer support to think about being hear in the U.K with Trace Elliot just up the road in Maldon.
Any body who is lucky enough to own one for less than ??2000 GBP should hang onto it as this amp will never fall in value.