The VU meter looks so cool...although it's not actually very useful. Pictured here with my 4 string fretless, MM pickup 2 band EQ and flats...so Pino...

The amp is a newer Class D design. It's interesting how simular these amps can sound, I do miss the Graphic EQ...so i might invest in an MXR 10 band graphic for my pedal board. Initially, I thought the Ashdown was more darker and boomy sounding, which is true in my front room at low power levels. But open her up in a bigger venue and that familiar old sound was there...it's a mid honk that is specific to Mark Gooday's designs. Ashdown is the spiritual desendant to Trace and it's a part of my tone. After 20 years...any other amp just sounds wrong to my ears. This amp needs the preamp pushed quite a bit. About 70% is about where the preamp really starts to sing and it gives me the tones I'm after. So I tend to keep the preamp gain high and adjust the output gain low. If the preamp is pushed past 75-80% then it breaks up really well into a glorious overdrive. Add a little compression and turn up the drive knob to 70% and the grit is very very nice. The two cascade really well. Top marks for that design! The octaver is analogue and is pre blended, so if the knob is fully on, it's about a 50:50 mix. Which is what most guys need in a 'taver. It's a pity it can be dialled fully on but it's the sound most people dial in anyway...but you won;t get a trigger synth sound out of it...but it's perfect for those mid 80's Pino fretless slides. The compressor is good, a nice simple one knob comp...but curiously the manual says that it's designed specifically to not increase the gain as the compression increases...well with my copy of this amp it certainly does increase grain a LOT. The 5 band EQ is great, really easy to use and good choices of frequency spots. I do miss my 7 band graphic...after 20 years...it's hard to change. So i might look up a MXR 10 band and pop it in the send and retun loop. What more can I say...it's small and very light. It looks great and I love the VU meter. It's easy to get some great tones out of it...although it's easier to get heavy rock out of it than the trad pop / funk TE 80's tones. The mid shape EQ button does help a lot in that regard. I think there's a little bit of a baked in EQ which has been dialled at the factory. It's quite nice, but I think the 10 band graphic and a signal generator witll help me dial in a truly flat EQ tone. The manual...by the way is appalling...filled with copy and paste errors. If money was no object, I probably would have gone for the new Ashdown Retroglide 800 or the slighly harder to find ABM 1000 class D. But I'm confined to a limited budget at the moment and hence my current choice. It's a great amp and I'm hoping that it'll service my bass playing needs for a long time to come.