FOund a Trace Elliot AH600SMX with the GP12SMX EQ. It's covered in the green fuzzy carpet.

How do these amps rate? Do they have the power supply problems I've read about on the net?

Any input would be helpful.

I've got a 250 and never let me down... sound superb

OK, here's the question:

How do you tell if it's pre-Gibson? I thought the green fuzzy carpet was Gibson, and the green tolex was pre. The back says Made in England.

Not Gibson; the SMX series was Kaman-era (early/mid 1990's) so will be built like a brick sh*thouse.

Gibson did loads of cut backs so moved from carpet to "buffalo" (vinyl); stopped having the red and green knob caps (changed em to black), went for cheaper valve bases, cheaper components all round. There is no hard and fast way to tell Gibson era other than the model and serial number. The "12-band" and "7-band" series (not SMX, SM, SMC...), with Electroluminescent panels, were introduced before the Gibson buyout and then became cheap when Gibson took over and got control of the buying! They are the only Trace heads/combos from the Gibson era, plus the V8 but that was a different kettle of fish...

Excellent! Thanks Merton, that's just what I needed.

Looks like there's an new amp in my future!

OK, I picked up the amp, and I'm just now getting off the floor and tucking my tongue back in my mouth.

Geez! I thought my Alembic setup sounded good. This thing is mind-blowing! In the few short hours I've had with it, I've replicated the sounds of my Alembic F-1X/SF-2 setup, my Ampegs, and my Walter Woods. I'm just blown away on how many USEFULL sounds I can get from this amp. :D

TE = the dog's danglies :D

I think a lot of people forgot how good these amps are.... I have two and even though they are a bit old now..... I'd be hard pressed to find anything thats anywhere near what these can do from whats available today.....

A mate of mine wanted to try some cheapish 100W combos so the other week I went along to a shop to help. We tried a Fender (Rumble 100/115) and a Hartke (A100 I think) and what surprised me was how quickly they ran out of steam compared to my Trace. You shouldn't compare them directly, but for a 150W setup mine is so much better (and louder!) it reminded me just how good it is. (He's now borrowed it for the weekend to see what it's like.) The only combo I quite liked was the Roland CB100, which was at least as loud as the other two despite being considerably smaller.

Just to pick the brains of those in the know:

The store I picked up this amp also had an AH500SMX with the 12 band eq. However, it was in a grey plastic case with "Series 6" on the top.

Are the Series 6 amps pre-Kaman? Just trying to get my TE history down;)

Series 6 was early Kaman era I think. There was a great article online a while back with an interview with Mark Gooday (Ashdown MD, used to be Production Manager at Trace) and that was really informative of the years Trace was owned by X Y and Z! I'll go try to find it for you!

http://www.globalbass.com/archives/de...gooday.htm

Not as informative as one other that I've seen I'm sure.... I'll keep looking.

Another place to look is www.clivebutton.com coz he designed a lot of earlier Trace gear