jellodog
Rock Star
- Messages
- 4,498
So I had the Bella head on consignment for 3 months because I didn't want to ship such a large heavy item or deal with buyers. I'm convinced that there are grains of neutron star material in the Bella's transformers.
It was priced attractively but nobody was interested in it. I get it, it's kinda niche and in terms of dialing in, it should be simple but people trying it out might be confused by the boost switch (it's not really a boost but "Hi / Lo" input), the 3-way bright switch and possibly the presence knob (which is there in case a drive pedal doesn't gel with the bright switch).
Moreover, I suspect that nobody really wants to pay a hefty chunk of sales tax on a used item like this; that's Canada for ya.
But for whatever reason, it didn't sell; so I went and picked it up. Usually, I would just accept that the "market has spoken" and start to drop my price until sold; but this time I decided that if I was going to lose half my money anyway (shipping and importing from the US was expensive), then I might as well keep it around for the rest of the year and get some enjoyment out of it. I've never taken an item back from consignment before.
I decided that I would try a fresh start with the Bella and approach using it differently to how I did in the past. Having thought about it a great deal, I concluded that I probably never used the right speaker combination with it. I tried some different speakers yesterday, and also experimented with various drives and effects from the FM9, which I didn't own at the time I took the Bella to the consignment store. I was pleasantly surprised!
The odd thing about the Bella is the perceived wisdom on various forums that it's just a modded BF-style amp and that the amp's voice is BF. People seem to repeat that as if it is a fact again and again, and I believed it myself. But the Bella really isn't that - and that's what confused me for such a long time, especially with speaker choices.
The Bella isn't scooped at all and has plenty of mids. It's an Ultra Bassman / Ultra Phonix style conversion of a Bandmaster with massive custom transformers (which drop the grid voltage for half power); but really, there's almost nothing of the Bandmaster left in there, so it helps to stop treating it as one and let it be its own thing.
I struggled dialling it in to my satisfaction for some time last night (with a new Creamback speaker combination), and I was thinking for 90% of the time "Oh yes, this is one of the reasons I decided to get rid of it"... and then suddenly I cracked the combination and it was GLORIOUS.
The FM9 is fantastic in front of an amp too. More so than the FM3.
So... new beginnings. I wonder how long it will last - I really don't need another tube amp!
It was priced attractively but nobody was interested in it. I get it, it's kinda niche and in terms of dialing in, it should be simple but people trying it out might be confused by the boost switch (it's not really a boost but "Hi / Lo" input), the 3-way bright switch and possibly the presence knob (which is there in case a drive pedal doesn't gel with the bright switch).
Moreover, I suspect that nobody really wants to pay a hefty chunk of sales tax on a used item like this; that's Canada for ya.
But for whatever reason, it didn't sell; so I went and picked it up. Usually, I would just accept that the "market has spoken" and start to drop my price until sold; but this time I decided that if I was going to lose half my money anyway (shipping and importing from the US was expensive), then I might as well keep it around for the rest of the year and get some enjoyment out of it. I've never taken an item back from consignment before.
I decided that I would try a fresh start with the Bella and approach using it differently to how I did in the past. Having thought about it a great deal, I concluded that I probably never used the right speaker combination with it. I tried some different speakers yesterday, and also experimented with various drives and effects from the FM9, which I didn't own at the time I took the Bella to the consignment store. I was pleasantly surprised!
The odd thing about the Bella is the perceived wisdom on various forums that it's just a modded BF-style amp and that the amp's voice is BF. People seem to repeat that as if it is a fact again and again, and I believed it myself. But the Bella really isn't that - and that's what confused me for such a long time, especially with speaker choices.
The Bella isn't scooped at all and has plenty of mids. It's an Ultra Bassman / Ultra Phonix style conversion of a Bandmaster with massive custom transformers (which drop the grid voltage for half power); but really, there's almost nothing of the Bandmaster left in there, so it helps to stop treating it as one and let it be its own thing.
I struggled dialling it in to my satisfaction for some time last night (with a new Creamback speaker combination), and I was thinking for 90% of the time "Oh yes, this is one of the reasons I decided to get rid of it"... and then suddenly I cracked the combination and it was GLORIOUS.
The FM9 is fantastic in front of an amp too. More so than the FM3.
So... new beginnings. I wonder how long it will last - I really don't need another tube amp!
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