Author Topic: Cheap All Tube Bass Combo ? (Read 3844 times)

Tricalibur · « **on:** October 06, 2006, 09:12:17 PM »

I have a bud who has been playing bass guitar for about a year now and is looking to upgrade his begginer setup to sumthing a lil moe fancy. He wants something that is going to be alot louder than his current amp which is around 20 - 30 watts solid state i think. He doesent know a whole lot about the mechanics of amps except that higher wattage = more volume. He has been looking at a Behringer 300 watter on musicians friend that has a built in 15" and a couple channels. He has about 300 bucks to spend so I suppose this would get him plenty o bang for his buck however I relay dont want him to get it just because I tink it will sound like cr@p. I wnat him to get a valve amp with lower wattage because that way he can get a similar amount of volume but with a much warmer tone. Ive been lookin pretty hard for some cheap combos and have only managed to find one that is even considerable and i cant even tell if its designed for bass or guitar. Its a Pignose G40V i believe. Its got basic tone controls, 40 watts from two 6L6's and a couple 12ax7's, a built in 10" speaker(weber i think?) and 8 ohm and 4 ohm speaker outs so he could hook up a larger cab if he wanted too. It all looks like a fantastic deal to me, especialy for 300 bucks but im not sure if maybe there is something else out there that might be alil better / have more options maybe? He had mentioned that he was realy turned off by the fact that it had no built in distortion. I told him that honestly hed be better of without it considering its for bass guitar plus if he realy wanted that vintage distorted bass sound he could turn it up to around three quarters volume and get actual analog tube distortion. (where as on the behringer its gonna be cheap digital tube dist emulation). Now, as i mentioned he realy doesnt kno a whole lot about amps and this is all sort of a foreign language to him so im just trying to find something that will have all the stuff HE wants in a price he can afford but still have the things i KNOW he will appreciate in the long run (ie; valve tone / option to hookup an external cab). Any amps yall can reccomend?

deg0ey · « **Reply #1 on:** October 06, 2006, 09:15:56 PM »

Valves aren't really so important with a bass amp as such - although a Behringer is likely to be fairly cheap and cheerful if they're anything like the guitar versions of their amps :lol:

Sorry I couldn't be more help, someone who actually knows what they're on about might be able to help too:P

Hell Hound · « **Reply #2 on:** October 06, 2006, 09:53:41 PM »

Well if he absolutly want that vintage overdriven bass sound he could get one of those 100w full tube Pignose combo. They are cheap and sound good, very basic too (volume, bass, medium, trebble, master)
an even better choice would be the head version with a behringer 4x10", it would be more focused in the lower mids than the 1x15" combo, better for distorted sound.

Tricalibur · « **Reply #3 on:** October 06, 2006, 10:22:30 PM »

yeh I saw those too. But thyre like 500 bucks and hes only got like 300. Idealy I would tell im to save for the 100 watter but he doesnt want to have to wait any longer for an amp.

HTH AMPS · « **Reply #4 on:** October 06, 2006, 11:38:25 PM »

my old bass player used valve bass amps but we tried quite a few before settling on a Matamp Bass200 - a 100w head is nowhere near loud enough for bass and will sound farty. We even tried an Ampeg V4B and it was way too quiet - the SVT was perfect but also far too expensive.

For the kind of budget you have I'd look for an old Acoustic 300-series head. They were very popular in the 70s with bands such as Led Zep and sound fantastic. I paid £100 for my 320 model head.

:twisted:

HTH AMPS · « **Reply #5 on:** October 07, 2006, 12:02:01 AM »

here you go, try these on for size...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Acoustic-370-Bass-Head-in-great-shape-Jaco-John-Paul_W0QQitemZ180034553190QQihZ008QQcategoryZ121159QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Acoustic-370-Amplifier_W0QQitemZ140038191684QQihZ004QQcategoryZ121159QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260038629396&indexURL=0#ebayphotohosting

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230035771617&indexURL=0#ebayphotohosting

:twisted:

Tricalibur · « **Reply #6 on:** October 07, 2006, 04:52:53 AM »

would 40 watts valve realy not be enough volume?

Skybone · « **Reply #7 on:** October 07, 2006, 09:47:51 AM »

Most modern bass amps are geared towards more modern tones, which generally depend on their cleanliness. Lets face it, fuzzed up slap funk wouldn't work as effectively as sparkly clean slap funk... (discuss...).

Rock (and Blues to a degree) tones however thrive on a bit of "push" from valves, which is why there are a lot of solid state power amps that have a valve pre-amp section (Marshall Valve-State/Ashdown/etc, etc). Ampeg's SVT's are pure solid state, with the exception of about 2 or 3 heads which are pure valve, and a couple that are hybrid's. Don't know of any Bass Valve Combo's though apart from hybrid's.

Bass Valve Amps: Ampeg SVT2 & SVT Classic, Trace Elliott V-Type V8, Marshall VBA400, Mesa Boogie 400+, Orange's new Thundaverb 200. Pick of the bunch for me would be an SVT2 or SVT Classic.

IMO FWIW: Valve Bass Amps rule, run them on full volume (of course!) for that awesome power valve distortion.

Tricalibur · « **Reply #8 on:** October 07, 2006, 04:21:11 PM »

^ so could he use a valve guitar amp in place of an amp that is more geared towards the bass player?

deg0ey · « **Reply #9 on:** October 07, 2006, 04:26:14 PM »

He wouldn't be able to use the stock guitar speaker because it's not designed for frequencies as low as those produced by a bass, and it could be damaged and probably sound shite :P

If he disconnected the internal speaker and ran it to a bass cab, then I can't see why it wouldn't work, although it probably wouldn't have enough power to get a decent volume out of it as bass frequencies must be louder before they're percieved to be the same volume (if that makes sense) - look up the fletcher munson effect for more info :drink:

To my mind a SS Bass combo would be the best way to go on his budget, but maybe a better one than the behringer...

Remember: a well built SS amp is better than a shite valve amp

Tricalibur · « **Reply #10 on:** October 07, 2006, 06:04:30 PM »

^ yeh i think hes goin for the behringer and then later on hell buy one of those DHA purist valve pedals as a preamp. I just dont kno if theres anything better than the behringer out there for that kind of money.

deg0ey · « **Reply #11 on:** October 07, 2006, 06:41:57 PM »

And the annoying thing is that it's hard to tell which amps are good just based on reviews because the people that buy and review the bad amps are usually people with no ears :lol: