Uk Ant
New member
SO what's it like? I hear you all cry.
First - out of the box:
It's not a big amp, and is quite a nice weight but not like the something along lines of the hayden Mofo or orange tiny terror. But it will be much easier than the old ashdown.
Build quality seems top notch with things like the switch being a nice chunky, metal three way (off, standby, on to avoid accidentally hitting the wrong switch) and the valves seem to be actually mounted to the chassis rather than the pcb on the ashdown.
Controls feel nice and solid and it has an uncomplicated feel to the whole thing.
Having said that there is a good array of speaker outputs on the back as well as a send/return on the front.
Front panel is (from right to left) gain, boost level (with switch) bass, middle, treble, master volume.
All in all it looks and feels a step up.
Ok, lets switch it on and find out what it does... ah, this is not a great sounding amp out of the box. It's not bad, and it's most definately quite bright, but it's fizzy in that cheap tranny amp way. Not as bad as the marshall vintage modern, but not great. So I try the dodgy old Ashdown, just in case it's just my ears, and the difference is huge (this is at household levels). The Ashdown just has so much more warmth and cream to the sound. It's thick and lushes but does lack the Conford's presence.
It's time to get valve swapping.
half an hour later the cornford is starting to sing... still not as sweetly as the ashdown but it's brought a new trick to party... dynamics. back off on the pick attack and you can get to go clean even with a healthy dose of gain and boost. In comparison the ashdown is much more difficult to get to back off just with your fingers.
Now the people at ashdown claimed the fallen angel would provide 'more gain than you would ever need) and they lied. Even after gentle tweak to the gain circuit it's got enough, but not too much.
Cornford never claimed to have more gain than you'd ever need but, in my opinion, it really does. Don't expect it to sound like the ultimate metal amp, cos it's not, but it's got that level of gain.
The boost switch is very useful as (unlike the Ashdown) you can choose the level of boost rather than just switch it in and out.
Thus you can set the amp at clean and the boost really high to go from clean to pretty dirty by the flick of ya foot.
Now my old ashdown has had a few mods, mainly to get it sounding thicker and fuller so it's not a surprise that it wins in this department. Oddly it has allways been almost impossible to change the basic tone of the amp with valves swaps, you get a bit of improvement, but not much. Also it never sounded fizzy like the cornford (or the rivera quiano I once had access to).
Then again it also always sounded compressed where the Cornford is much more open and alive.
there may well be more valve swaps to go but I'm reluctant, for the moment, to mod the circuit.
Tomorrow night is gig night and we'll see how this little 30w baby deals with real life under my ownership
First - out of the box:
It's not a big amp, and is quite a nice weight but not like the something along lines of the hayden Mofo or orange tiny terror. But it will be much easier than the old ashdown.
Build quality seems top notch with things like the switch being a nice chunky, metal three way (off, standby, on to avoid accidentally hitting the wrong switch) and the valves seem to be actually mounted to the chassis rather than the pcb on the ashdown.
Controls feel nice and solid and it has an uncomplicated feel to the whole thing.
Having said that there is a good array of speaker outputs on the back as well as a send/return on the front.
Front panel is (from right to left) gain, boost level (with switch) bass, middle, treble, master volume.
All in all it looks and feels a step up.
Ok, lets switch it on and find out what it does... ah, this is not a great sounding amp out of the box. It's not bad, and it's most definately quite bright, but it's fizzy in that cheap tranny amp way. Not as bad as the marshall vintage modern, but not great. So I try the dodgy old Ashdown, just in case it's just my ears, and the difference is huge (this is at household levels). The Ashdown just has so much more warmth and cream to the sound. It's thick and lushes but does lack the Conford's presence.
It's time to get valve swapping.
half an hour later the cornford is starting to sing... still not as sweetly as the ashdown but it's brought a new trick to party... dynamics. back off on the pick attack and you can get to go clean even with a healthy dose of gain and boost. In comparison the ashdown is much more difficult to get to back off just with your fingers.
Now the people at ashdown claimed the fallen angel would provide 'more gain than you would ever need) and they lied. Even after gentle tweak to the gain circuit it's got enough, but not too much.
Cornford never claimed to have more gain than you'd ever need but, in my opinion, it really does. Don't expect it to sound like the ultimate metal amp, cos it's not, but it's got that level of gain.
The boost switch is very useful as (unlike the Ashdown) you can choose the level of boost rather than just switch it in and out.
Thus you can set the amp at clean and the boost really high to go from clean to pretty dirty by the flick of ya foot.
Now my old ashdown has had a few mods, mainly to get it sounding thicker and fuller so it's not a surprise that it wins in this department. Oddly it has allways been almost impossible to change the basic tone of the amp with valves swaps, you get a bit of improvement, but not much. Also it never sounded fizzy like the cornford (or the rivera quiano I once had access to).
Then again it also always sounded compressed where the Cornford is much more open and alive.
there may well be more valve swaps to go but I'm reluctant, for the moment, to mod the circuit.
Tomorrow night is gig night and we'll see how this little 30w baby deals with real life under my ownership
