Ashdown AA-50-R Professional 50W Acoustic Combo Overview
Ashdown AA-50 Acoustic Amplifier ComboAshdown Engineering have a long standing reputation and heritage for building great sounding acoustic amplification, with company founder Mark Gooday being responsible for bringing the world’s first acoustic amplification line to market.
“As a tribute to Fred Friedlein and the remarkable work we carried out as a team in the mid-80s, I felt a strong need to honour him in some small way,” said company founder, Mark Gooday.
“Our acoustic amps could be seen on MTV Unplugged and were a total revolution in Acoustic Guitar ampli cation technology. We have taken those great products and improved them, whilst retaining the classic format and style we achieved in that era.
Fast forward to the current day, and this new era of acoustic guitar amps can be seen on MTV Unplugged once again in the new series of MTV Unplugged with Biffy Clyro.”
Going back to their roots, Ashdown’s AA acoustic ampli er range follows in the footsteps of some of the greatest acoustic amps ever made.
The Ashdown AA-50 and AA-100 combos (50 and 100 watts respectively) echo the sound and look of the late 80’s/ early 90’s, but with some nifty up-to-date features, ready to take on the modern-day acous- tic performance.
Bluetooth connectivity allows players to wireless stream audio from their personal devices – perfect for playing with backing tracks. Furthermore, A handy headphone output also allows to silent practice.
From the top, Ashdown’s AA combos are constructed using high quality plywood, covered in Tolex vinyl and loaded with UK made 5-inch Celestion Speakers. The AA-50 features two 5” speakers and the AA- 100 doubles-up with four 5” speakers, with a tilted cabinet design for better on-stage monitoring.
From left to right, the front panel on the AA range encompasses a magnitude of well-organized and well-considered qualities. Channel 1 is the instrument channel and features Passive and Active inputs with Gain, Bass and Treble rotary controls. Channel 2, reserved for microphones, features a single XLR input with phantom power switch and gain control.
The Belton Digital Reverb division allows for reverb to be switched on/off for each channel independent- ly, whilst the sensitivity of the reverb is controlled with a single rotary switch for both channels at once.
A master 5-band graphic EQ and adjustable notch lter makes it possible to ne tune your tone depend- ing on your preference and room size, whist a 16 position rotary control lets the player choose from a host of pre-set reverbs from room to hall to delay settings, designed to thicken your natural sound when required.
On the rear, post and pre-EQ XLR DI outputs allow the player to connect into a PA for larger gigs. There’s also an effects loop to allow the player to use external effects in series with the signal chain, line input and output feeds, and lastly a balanced line input and built in Bluetooth for connecting audio devices and playing along with.
Just as you’d expect from any Ashdown design, there isn’t much they haven’t considered when planning their new AA acoustic range. The AA range is exactly what acoustic players been waiting for... for over 20 years!
