Acoustic 360 amps

[Chris P.]

Hi guys,

I'm gonna write an article about Acoustic bass amps for this Dutch bass magazine. I know there are some fans and owners here and I would love to hear some info, stories, history, everything!

Thanks in advance!

Chris

[gweimer]

They were big and loud.  The pre-amp head weighed next to nothing.  There are plans online that can recreate the basic head in a foot pedal.
One thing that I didn't realize until too late - turning the volume knob down didn't stop a signal from going to the speaker.   My old band did the typical dimed out finish, and then leaned the guitars against the amps as they fed back while we left.  One night, instead of turning the amp off, they turned down the volume knob.  2 minutes later, as we were starting the encore, I looked back to find the speaker exploding into flames.  I thought someone had thrown something in my amp, until my repair tech told me what he found.

[Dave W]

(bump)

Anyone else have info for Chris?

[gweimer]

The only thing I can add is that they are an amp of legend.  If they weren't *THAT* good, we wouldn't be drooling about them still.  If you were looking to fill a big room, you pretty much had 2 choices - Ampeg SVT or Acoustic 360.  I prefered the 360.  It was also easier to run into the PA.  You just took one of the four pre-amp outs and ran your DI.

[felig]

Always wanted one, but never had one (well I had a couple of the preamp "heads").  The single 18" powered folded horn cabinet was IMO the monster part of this setup.  I played through one several times back in the early '70s & definitely recognized the famous bass wave that these things threw out.  When you stood in front of one of these, you really couldn't hear it & at the time, no one ran a feed into the PA for the bass, so if you were one of the rare bands that had monitors, you weren't getting the bass through them.  However, the folks at the back of the room were passing out from the bass & dogs 3 blocks away were crapping themselves.  What an awesome tool to bring out the sadist in a bassist.

[Bass VI]

Chris,
I own two Acoustic heads, a 370 and a 450, no 360 unfortunately. There is a wealth of information at this site:

http://acoustic.homeunix.net/twiki/bin/view/Acoustic/WebHome

They are powerful beasts, not the "hi-fi" tone of a modern bass amp, but a distinctive voice nonetheless. If it's any testament to their durability, both of mine are in excess of thirty years old and do not appear to have ever required any service. I always played Sunn gear when I was a teenager ( JAE and Geddy Lee fan ) and the Acoustic stuff was a bit out of reach then. Now I'm working on a vintage setup based around one or the other of these heads.

Thought of another site:

http://acoustic.control.free.fr/

Actually both sites have links to more info. Best wishes for your article if I can be of any help let me know.

Scott

[Chris P.]

Thanks guys!!

[MARICOPAA]

ACOUSTIC 360 Bass Amps were/are amazing bass amplifiers!

The pre-amp could support up to four powered 361 cabs with the folded 18" speaker. The early ACOUSTIC 360's had a special Cerwin-Vega 18" speaker. It was not an off-the-shelf CV 18". Along the way they went to a cheaper Eminence 18" that basically sucked. My best friend and I bought consecutive serial # 360's from Don Wehr's Music City in San Francisco. His had a Cerwin-Vega and mine had the Eminence. Mine blew within a week...his is STILL running strong.

Interesting fact...the power amp in the 360 was one half of the infamous Crown DC-300 stereo power amp.

Interesting fact...Steven W. Rabe was close to the development of the 360 while he was at ACOUSTIC...he later created and developed SWR Engineeringand the venerable SM-400 (bassed on a preamp design by Groove Tubes).

Great 360 moments...Mark Andes of SPIRIT playing the intro to 'Fresh Garbage' with a pick on a sunburst mid 60's rosewood P-Bass through one pre-amp and two 361 cabs...amazing tone and power!

[Dave W]

Great 360 moments...Mark Andes of SPIRIT playing the intro to 'Fresh Garbage' with a pick on a sunburst mid 60's rosewood P-Bass through one pre-amp and two 361 cabs...amazing tone and power!

Mark is still around: http://www.myspace.com/markandes and playing with Mac McLagan http://www.myspace.com/ianmclaganandthebumpband 

Never even heard Spirit back then, but the Andes brothers came to my attention in Jo Jo Gunne.

[Chris P.]

Thanks again, guys! You're really helpfull!

Ian 'Mac' Mclagan is one of my heroes BTW. For the guys who don't know him: He was the keyboard player of The Small Faces and The Faces. Later he worked with Dylan, Bonny Raitt and lots of others. For a while he was the first choice for The Stones too.

[felig]

"Fresh Garbage" is one of the tunes that I run through just about every day to check my tuning & when I check out a new bass.  Very cool to know that the 360 had a connection with that song.

[Chris P.]

Can anyone provide me with a high resolution picture of a Acoustic stack?

[Chris P.]

Pic anyone?

[gweimer]

I may have a couple old stage pics with mine,  but they're not going to be high res.  I also have a live recording on my BandMix site with me using it.

[Dave W]

try typing acoustic 360 into google images, I see a few usable ones.