Today I drove two hours one-way to pick up a recently recovered SVT cab I found on Craigslist. It was a neat experience, because the gentleman I bought it from is a radio engineer who used to double on bass and keys and quit playing bass because he found more demand as a keyboard player and was tired of hauling around big bass gear. He also had the coolest home studio setup I've ever seen in person, with an Allen & Heath GS3000 console and tons of outboard gear. Anyway... the cab is beautiful and seemingly twice as heavy as my four other old Ampeg 8x10's, but it sounds the same, maybe better. I'm guessing this one has the slightly later ceramic magnet Eminence speakers instead of the alnico CTS's of my others; I won't be able to tell until I pull one and check the driver.
...by this point, I'm betting some of you are wondering what in the world this little tale has to do with the title of the thread; well, here it is: to try out the cab, he hauled out a very pretty natural finished Ric 4001. He told me that it was supposedly a payment for a drug debt that Glenn had made to a dealer in LA years ago and he got it from the guy the drug dealer sold it to. I'll be blunt; I love the Ric sound, but before today, in all my time playing bass, I have only played two Ric's that made me want one of my own, and that includes a '72 with checkerboard binding I maintain for a co-worker of my wife that he bought brand new in 1972 and is in near mint condition. It's gorgeous, but plays like a football bat, even with a good setup. The one I played today would have been the best player by far, but it had low pick-player/chording setup. Of course, the Glenn Hughes connection is just a third-hand musician tale, but man did that Ric sound and play killer!
I got a laugh when he powered up the Mesa head, and I dug into the strings the way I'm used to playing. As I said before, the action was very low, and my technique is anything BUT finesse and light, so there was lots of popping and crackling from the strings bouncing off the polepieces. He got a very concerned look and began checking the cables and the amp until I looked up and smiled and said, "Don't worry about it; that's me." In less than five seconds, I knew the cab was fine, but the difference between my playing style and his was so pronounced, the racket I was making scared his young daughter! I might add, it was a pretty low volume demo by my standards.
BTW, if any of you are local to Bristol, TN or will be by there, he is also selling a Mesa Impulse 600 and a matching 6x10. PM me for his contact info.
