ASHDOWN MF484 2.N HEAD
Ashdown’s new 30-watt head is a powerful tool for live and studio and the latest to feature Two Notes’ integrated speaker emulation and reactive load
While best known for its bass amplification, which is practically an industry standard, Ashdown’s guitar amp range is just as tempting – perhaps even more so now as the company is one of the latest manufacturers to produce a Two Notes Torpedo-loaded amplifier.
Now, speaker cabinet emulation has come of age in the last decade, with analogue filtering replaced by digital impulse response (IR) technology, which in turn is being superseded by dynamic impulse response tools. These combine hundreds if not thousands of static IRs in apps and create real-time changes in virtual room size, cabinet type and microphone type and placement for often scarily realistic ‘amp in a room’ effects. Currently the hot name is French company Two Notes, which has seen a surge in popularity of its excellent Torpedo cabinet sim driven in part by the technology being made available to amplifier builders to embed in their own products. Which neatly brings us back to the amp we’re looking at this month: Ashdown’s new MF484 2.N head.
The good-looking MF484 2.N head has typically robust build quality behind its all-steel chassis, which supports a substantial pair of mains and output transformers and a choke. The steelwork is finished in a tough black gloss enamel that contrasts nicely with the silver control panel, while generous perforations and a small permanently-on fan help keep the electronics cool.
The amplifier components are mostly contained on one large high-quality printed circuit board, including the front-panel controls and all seven valve bases. There’s clean, bright soldering and neat wiring, and the resistors are close ‐tolerance metal film types, which helps keep hiss down to a minimum. There are smaller boards for the front- and rearpanel jack sockets, while the Two Notes wizardry lives on a separate vertical PCB behind the rear panel.
Cabinet emulation aside, the MF484 is a fairly straightforward single-channel all-valve design, with three ECC83 preamp valves and a quartet of cathode-biased EL84s producing around 30 watts of power to drive your favourite enclosure.
The front panel is neatly laid out with a pair of input jacks that are pre-EQ’d for US- or UK-inspired tones, underneath which you’ll find a handy send/return for the MF484’s series effects loop. These are followed by a level control and indicator LED f
