Tube Amp Heads - Are they it?

[Stackimo]

Hello fellow bassers,

 

My rythm guitarists recently purchased a tube amp head for his marshal half stack. It sounds unbelievable. I love the tone.

 

I play in a alternative and classic rock style band and been playing the 4 string for a little over 2 years now. I own a Peavey TNT combo and play an active Ibanez SRX 400 and a Peavey P-bass knock off.

 

I have visited plenty of music stores and messed around with different sound setups, but can't really say if I have ever played through a bass tube amp head.

 

By next Christmas, I would like to upgrade my sound and have been thinking of going with a new amp head with some type of cabinet, such as a 4 x 10.

 

My questions I pose to you all:

-Are tube amp heads worth looking into?

-And if so or not, please feel free to expand your knowlege my way.

 

 

For Tube amp lovers:

-Who makes some that won't cause me to refinance my home?

-Is ebay a good place to look for vintage ones, worth my time?

 

 

I appreciate your imput.

[The Fonz]

don't worry about vintage amps. for a vintage you will need to refinance your home.

 

yube amps sound great. in my opinion there is no substitute for the tone you get from tubes. but they are extremely heavy, very expensive and retubing them is an expense that coulda bought you a new practice amp. my recommendation is to look into a hybrid like the ampeg svt pro series or a tube preamp like ampegs svps. wraub just got a bitchin swr grand prix for a rediculous price on craigs list, and he was a hard-core solid state guy.

 

definitely check out ebay or the classifieds in alternative press publishings where you are. loot is good too.

[getz out]

I've owned a tube (bass) head before; an Ampeg SVT. It's the most popular around these days.

 

It's a good head. I'm happier with my newer setup, though (Demeter preamplifier through a Stewart power amp or Kern preamplifier through a Peavey power amp).

 

Here's the cons: The Ampeg SVT needs a 4-ohm load. It's 80 lbs. Retubing it is going to run you $200 or so, and the intervals for replacement rely heavily on your ability to use a standby switch which most of the population seems to ignore.

 

Here's the pro: It is rock and roll.

 

Also note that: Mesa makes one. Trace makes one. Marshall makes one. Demeter makes one. Aguilar makes two. Phil Jones makes one that will most likely cost more than your car.

 

However, you can't go wrong with an Ampeg SVT.

[wraub]

To offer a slight correction: I was only a "hard-core solid-state guy" because of the maintenance, weight, and expense of tubes. That's all.

 

I have always preferred the tube sound-it's (generally) warmer, rounder, and more bass-like to me. However, as a struggling bass player, I could never justify dealing with all of the above, when a solid-state solution would do fine.

 

I have long been eyeing the pre-amp/power amp set-up, but have put it off for myriad reasons.

I had decided to take the plunge anyway, but the afore-mentioned sweet deal popped up, and here we are. Glad I did it.

 

I think a nice tube pre is the real answer, paired with a light, powerful amp.

Real tube tone, lots of power, under 20 pounds?

Where do I sign?

 

You may find a different answer suits you.

 

Maury, why did you choose those particular amp/pre pairings? Was it a weight thing, or was there more behind the choice?

 

Peace,

 

wraub

 

p.s. And yes, my Grand Prix is quite bitchin'.

[alexclaber]

Originally posted by getz76:

Aguilar makes two.

Correction: Aguilar made two. End of an era...

 

Regarding the original question: IMO, no. If somewhere else was going to carry my gear for me and pay for it to be maintained, then possibly. But I'd rather get a Read Purity preamp and a PA-style power amp.

 

Alex

[alexclaber]

Originally posted by wraub:

p.s. And yes, my Grand Prix is quite bitchin'.

 

Excellent...

 

Alex

[getz out]

Originally posted by wraub:

Maury, why did you choose those particular amp/pre pairings? Was it a weight thing, or was there more behind the choice?

Weight and tone, basically.

 

Preamplifiers

 

The Demeter sounds good. It is impossible to make it sound bad. Impossible, I say. It records so well it is like cheating.

 

The Kern is a different beast; it is very deep and burpy. It also sounds very good.

 

Neither will get the raunchy burp-heaven of an SVT pushing its power tubes to places they were not designed to go while mashing midrange through a sealed 8x10" cabinet. But, I also have Z.Vex Woolly Mammoth to push out that sort of nonsense.

 

Power Amplifiers

 

Weight and size.

 

The Stewart is 16 lbs., two rack-spaces, and it is 2,100 watts bridged. That should be illegal.

 

The Peavey is 14 lbs., one rack-space, and it is 1,400 watts bridged. That should also be illegal.

 

I was more than happy with the Stewart. The Peavey came along at a price I could not refuse (ala your SWR, wraub).

[jeremy c]

Tube amps sound great.

 

Replacing the tubes in one will cost $300 for the tubes and more to get them biased properly by a tech.

 

A 400 watt tube amp will weigh something like 85 pounds and you can get 10 times that power at a quarter of the weight with solid state.

[musicfiend]

Originally posted by C. Alexander Claber:

Originally posted by getz76:

Aguilar makes two.

Correction: Aguilar made two. End of an era...

 

Regarding the original question: IMO, no. If somewhere else was going to carry my gear for me and pay for it to be maintained, then possibly. But I'd rather get a Read Purity preamp and a PA-style power amp.

 

Alex

????????..........

[Stackimo]

The imput is wonderful. So far it is sounding as if the power/pre-amp is a nice way to go for the sound I may be looking for.

 

If someone catches this change in events, can I start to get some direction on the tube pre-amps?

 

Thank you

[musicfiend]

Man, can't beleive aguilar stopped doing tube power. I'd be interested in knowing the reason. Did the they decide ss power sounded better? Were sales goin to slow? Are they retiring the amps in favor of new tube amps? How many licks till you reach the center of a tootsie pop? Whi came first the chocken or the egg?

 

Q: How many second's are there in a year

A: 12

[The Fonz]

Originally posted by wraub:

To offer a slight correction: I was only a "hard-core solid-state guy" because of the maintenance, weight, and expense of tubes. That's all.

wow, i'm pissing everyone off today...

 

I have always preferred the tube sound-it's (generally) warmer, rounder, and more bass-like to me.

too true. that's what it feels like to me. when i stand in front of that thump coming from my ampeg i feel more confident in what i'm doing. the tone i get from peaveys and the like at rehearsal studios, while adequate, always sounds to thin, not quite bass-like enough and i tend to overplay to compensate. with that tube tone i feel like i can just lay back and hit people from the stage. i get my point across without being busy.

[getz out]

Originally posted by Ace Cracker:

wow, i'm pissing everyone off today...

[getz out]

Originally posted by Stackimo:

The imput is wonderful. So far it is sounding as if the power/pre-amp is a nice way to go for the sound I may be looking for.

OT: It's INPUT, not IMPUT.

 

Back on track, yes, there are plenty of preamplifiers and power amplifiers available.

 

Preamps: some of the notables on the forum like the Demeter VTBP-201s, the Alembic F1-X, the Read Purity, the Aguilar preamps, the Ampeg SVP-Pro, the SWR Grand Prix, the SWR Interstellar Overdrive, the offerings from Tech 21 NYC, the pair from BBE, and many others.

 

Find a shop and try them out. They're all different. I was not a huge fan of the Alembic F1-X, but plenty of people love it, so they can't all be wrong. Some think the Demeter is too sterile, but you'd have to pry it out of my cold dead hands. You get the idea.

 

Check out www.basstasters.com for a starting point.

 

For a power amp, there is a formula:

 

X = Weight

Y = Power

Z = Price.

 

If X is low and Y is high, then Z is high.

If X is high and Y is high, then Z is reasonably low.

If X is low and Y is low, then Z is low.

If X is high and Y is low, then Z is very low.

 

At no time will X be low, Y be high, and Z be low.

 

Simplified, you get two out of the three variables above to be favorable.

 

Any standard sound reinforcement power amp will do. I favor the Stewart World 2.1 and the Peavey DPC 1400-X. Neither is cheap. Some like the QSC PLX series, which occupies a nice middle ground in price, weight, and performance. Others like the Mackie 1400i, which is nicknamed the "Lead Sled" which describes its weight.

 

You get the idea, eh?

[erikmag]

Traynor makes one, the YBA200, that im kind of looking into. Its 200 watts, can be bought for around 600, and weighs around half as much as an SVT. The people on Harmony Central have given it strait 10's with 4 reviews.

[Father Gino]

I am a fan of the Alembic F1x, though I lack the GAS related experience of many people here. Set it flat and it sounds great. It's a little mushy sounding, but it fills a small room nicely as well as punch through in a larger venue. I played Jack Read's Purity pre-amp and liked it, but I've never had one out in the real world.

 

To me the Stewart 2.1 is overkill. I have a Stewart 1.2 and have never approached full volume with it. Stereo/bridgable amps offer great flexability of speaker loads too. I've got 4 8-ohm cabs and can run any one, two or four of them.

[getz out]

Originally posted by snyprmg:

The people on Harmony Central have given it strait 10's with 4 reviews.

Meaning?

[alexclaber]

Originally posted by Stackimo:

My rythm guitarists recently purchased a tube amp head for his marshal half stack. It sounds unbelievable. I love the tone.

I should have picked up on this earlier - guitar and bass are VERY different instruments, despite superficial similarities, and have even more different amplification requirements. Furthermore, most guitarists' wisdom regarding bass amps is either wrong or totally outdated and thus very narrow-minded. YMMV.

 

To put it another way - how many guitarists can get great recorded tone by plugging the guitar straight into the desk? The guitar and amp are almost equally important to the tone of the whole instrument. On the other hand, hordes of great bassists have achieved their big fat recorded tones without an amp in sight, just their bass guitar and a lead (and maybe a DI box to match the impedance) plugged straight into the desk. So it's perfectly valid and effective to get a rig that just makes the pure sound from the bass louder but without any tonal change.

 

If you're not so keen on the sound of your bass on its own and want that tubey wooliness, you can easily add that with a tube preamp, an amp simulator or go the whole hog with an all-tube rig. But it will be big, heavy and expensive. Personally I really like the warmth and colour that tubes can bring to your sound - but I really don't like the looser, less controlled bottom that is inevitable with tube power stages.

 

Alex

[SteveC]

Originally posted by Father Gino:

To me the Stewart 2.1 is overkill. I have a Stewart 1.2 and have never approached full volume with it. Stereo/bridgable amps offer great flexability of speaker loads too. I've got 4 8-ohm cabs and can run any one, two or four of them.

I used to have a Stewart 1.2 and although it never shut down, I always worried about how hot it got at gigs when I was pushing it fairly hard. Maybe now at my litte coffee house and restaurant gigs it would be OK.

[WCunha]

Originally posted by C. Alexander Claber:

I really don't like the looser, less controlled bottom that is inevitable with tube power stages.

 

Alex

Agreed

[Gruuve]

I think the most common combination you see for bass is tube preamp + solid-state power amp. I agree that tube power amps for bass add an interesting flavor, but it doesn't always work for all kinds of music.

 

Just a thought here that might be of interest to you. The SWR Interstellar Overdrive preamp has essentially a tube preamp section plus a tube mini-power amp section. I can't say from personal experience (I've never found one locally to try out), but all the commentary I've ever found on the 'Stella says that you can actually "play" the preamp/mini-power amp just like you "play" a full tube power amp. (By "play", I mean you actually PLAY your amp rather than just playing through it...kind of how guitarists actually play their tube amps as well as playing their guitars...don't know if this makes sense). Anyway, the point is that you get tone that is the equivalent of a full tube rig, but you run the output into a solid state power amp (in a nutshell, tube preamp -> tube power amp -> solid state power amp, with the first two gain stages completely contained in the preamp). Size and weight problem fixed, but you still sound like a full tube rig. If you can find a 'Stella locally, go check it out. I'm sure there are other preamps that you can "play" in a similar manner, but I'm not aware of any others that have essentially a mini-power amp as part of the preamp circuitry.

 

You see these used occasionally...they generally go for around $500 used.

 

HTH,

Dave

[Father Gino]

Originally posted by SteveC:

Originally posted by Father Gino:

To me the Stewart 2.1 is overkill. I have a Stewart 1.2 and have never approached full volume with it. Stereo/bridgable amps offer great flexability of speaker loads too. I've got 4 8-ohm cabs and can run any one, two or four of them.

I used to have a Stewart 1.2 and although it never shut down, I always worried about how hot it got at gigs when I was pushing it fairly hard. Maybe now at my litte coffee house and restaurant gigs it would be OK.

I worried about that before I bought it too. But my old SWR (no fan) got much hotter. Unlike the Stewart, the SWR did get kinda crunchy sounding when it got too hot. I've had the Stewart 1.2 for 2 years now and it has been fine driven fairly hard even outside in 90 degree weather against two, typically over-zealous guitars players. It took me ten years to figure out that pointing a table fan (a rack mount fan would probably work too) at the SWR solved its overheating problems.

 

I really don't like the looser, less controlled bottom that is inevitable with tube power stages.

I wonder if this is simply that most tube amps lack the raw power for the really low stuff. I agree totally with that statement, though my only experience with a tube power amp is my old MM HD 130. It's only 130 watts and it's a backwards design by today's standards (solid state pre & tube power). I would think that an audiofile, very powerful tube amp might not have such looseness. But it might weigh 150 lbs.

 

The Alembic F1X is supposedly a modernized copy of a Fender Showman guitar pre-amp section. It has wonderfull wooliness, IMHO. It does have odd and not terribly versatile, passive tone controls, but I never do anything but set it flat. Having an active bass helps here too.

[anyday_paul]

I think that there is misunderstanding comparing tube amp power and solid state amp power. If any of you guys have actually heard a 70's svt all tube 100 watter in action you know what im sayin. tube wattage is way different, 100 watts all tube is a TON of power, even more so than my 600 watt mesa. in my opinion it completely depends on your playing style. If you are a jazz cat then you have no need for an all tube svt, you simply dont need the volume and something with a tube pre will do just fine. If you are a rock bass player playing big shows and you want the power to cut through the guitar and drums, an all tube bass amp has a distinct sound that bites (anyone who has heard one knows this, it is a kinda of low mid thats sits at a different frequency than everything else). and is amazing for rock.

[musicfiend]

Originally posted by Dave Sisk:

I think the most common combination you see for bass is tube preamp + solid-state power amp. I agree that tube power amps for bass add an interesting flavor, but it doesn't always work for all kinds of music.

 

Just a thought here that might be of interest to you. The SWR Interstellar Overdrive preamp has essentially a tube preamp section plus a tube mini-power amp section. I can't say from personal experience (I've never found one locally to try out), but all the commentary I've ever found on the 'Stella says that you can actually "play" the preamp/mini-power amp just like you "play" a full tube power amp. (By "play", I mean you actually PLAY your amp rather than just playing through it...kind of how guitarists actually play their tube amps as well as playing their guitars...don't know if this makes sense). Anyway, the point is that you get tone that is the equivalent of a full tube rig, but you run the output into a solid state power amp (in a nutshell, tube preamp -> tube power amp -> solid state power amp, with the first two gain stages completely contained in the preamp). Size and weight problem fixed, but you still sound like a full tube rig. If you can find a 'Stella locally, go check it out. I'm sure there are other preamps that you can "play" in a similar manner, but I'm not aware of any others that have essentially a mini-power amp as part of the preamp circuitry.

 

You see these used occasionally...they generally go for around $500 used.

 

HTH,

Dave

Warwick had designed an amp that had a full, very weak tube power amp with a ful tube pre, the tube power amp sent its signal into a solid state power amp. I think you're describing the same thing.

[J. Robert Rennix]

Originally posted by anyday_paul:

I think that there is misunderstanding comparing tube amp power and solid state amp power. If any of you guys have actually heard a 70's svt all tube 100 watter in action you know what im sayin. tube wattage is way different, 100 watts all tube is a TON of power, even more so than my 600 watt mesa. in my opinion it completely depends on your playing style. If you are a jazz cat then you have no need for an all tube svt, you simply dont need the volume and something with a tube pre will do just fine. If you are a rock bass player playing big shows and you want the power to cut through the guitar and drums, an all tube bass amp has a distinct sound that bites (anyone who has heard one knows this, it is a kinda of low mid thats sits at a different frequency than everything else). and is amazing for rock.

That's a pretty common myth that I'm sure has been covered 100 times on this forum. For the most part, watts are watts whether they are SS or tube. Tube watts often seem louder because #1. tube clipping is pleasant to the ear while SS clipping is not, #2. tube amplication tends to emphasize low mids even more than SS, and #3. musicians often "hear" with their eyes. Speaker surface area and speaker efficiancy also have big effects on actual volume, so tube watts or SS watts or wattage in general aren't the only important factors limiting volume (e.g. a 300 tube SVT driving an 8 ohm ACME B2 will probably not be as loud as an old Gallien Kreuger 400RB pushing a measly 240 watts SS into a 4 ohm Ampeg 8 x 10" cab). BTW, I believe the "classic" 70's SVT is the 300 watt model with six 6550 tubes. I believe other models do exist, though, and there may be a 100 watt SVT.

[musicfiend]

100 svt=v4

[nhcomp45aol.com]

The Guild Maverick works great in my classic rock band. 25 watts and a single 15 with a Fender 1-15 cab plugged into the other speaker output. People never stop commenting on how great it sounds. many clubs and many bands. Pa, NH and NY. Here's a pic

http://www.ggjaguar.com/mavbass.jpg

[LizzyD]

I prefer a tube preamp and lightweight power amp myself, because I like to be able to lift my gear without asking for help.

 

I saw a big honkin' Fender all tube head recently in a store...looked like part of their latest line of amps. So maybe there's another to look out for if you're trying any heads out.

 

If you want super clean tube sound in a preamp, you might like the Demeter VTBP-201s. If you're looking for tube distortion for bass without losing low end, you might enjoy the SWR Interstellar Overdrive (and it has a nice clean sound too). Me? I have both.

[The Fonz]

Originally posted by C. Alexander Claber:

how many guitarists can get great recorded tone by plugging the guitar straight into the desk?... hordes of great bassists have achieved their big fat recorded tones without an amp in sight, just their bass guitar and a lead (and maybe a DI box to match the impedance) plugged straight into the desk.

recording direct requires a d.i. box. most of those boxes are designed to emulate amp tone. so basically you're recording amped (or pre-amped).

[getz out]

Originally posted by Ace Cracker:

recording direct requires a d.i. box. most of those boxes are designed to emulate amp tone. so basically you're recording amped (or pre-amped).

E, I'm going to have to disagree with you here.

 

While a DI is usually preferable, it's not necessary on modern boards. A DI (separate box or amp) takes the signal of an instrument output and matches it to that of a microphone; that's why you don't need a DI box for a microphone.

 

Take a look at the Mackie 1604VLZ-Pro; it has a 1/4" input. You can easily plug a bass into this input and adjust the gain to match a microphone. However, this can introduce noise. A quality DI is preferable.

 

Most general purpose DI boxes (Radial, Countryman) are designed to be relatively flat. Something like a SansAmp is a different beast and designed to give an output similar to a mic'd cabinet.