Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

[everdrone]

What is the Best Tube Bass Amp head that is lightweight? The ORange AD200B MK 3 Head weighs only 57.87 pounds, but is cost prohibitive. The Ampeg tube heads weigh 80 pounds, so they are too heavy.

The Orange Terror Bass 500 WATT HYBRID AMP is intriguing at only 11 pounds, hybrid, and costs like $900 new. I have a Line 6 lowdown 400 watter head, a Gallien 212 combo, and a Peavey Tour Pro 450. I am spoiled! I am not in the market to buy another head, but maybe later on Ill sell one of mine and get this little Orange monster I am primarily a bassist and gearhead less of a guitarist

https://www.orangeamps.com/products/...rror-bass-500/



I like tube heads but ya, they are too heavy. I have a Tech 21 VT character pedal too. I might not get another bass head for awhile since I do need to liquidate heads/save, but sometimes I make a sporadic gear acquisition relief purchase that I do not plan for!

basically, it is fun to talk about tube/hybrid bass heads, and I like to gas about gear for a few years before I make big purchases (over $500).

ehdwuld kindly commented "The Carvin .BR series may fit the bill", so I will look into that

Gallien has some nice hybrid offerings; what else is out there?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

The tc electronic RH series is entirely solid state but has a good valve-like dynamic response. Pre-owned examples of the 450 Classic are very affordable.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

Is there a bass amp with a similar system as the valvetronix per/power amp tube coloring?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

Hartke LH-500. one tube in the front, ss for the heavy lifting.
Simple but effective. Dunno how heavy it is compared to some of the new ultralight gear, but its only double rackspaced and weight a ton less than any all tube amp.
it'll sound great with your VT pedal too.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/BX500

 

[blueman335]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

Seems like just about all of the the bass players I see around here use SS amps.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

An Ampeg B200R. Remove the amp from the combo cab and put it into a home-made head cabinet. It's a great sounding amp, with a tube pre-amp and a 200W solid state power amp. It's extremely small and lightweight when removed from the combo cab.

 

[threechordcharlie]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

An Ampeg B200R. Remove the amp from the combo cab and put it into a home-made head cabinet. It's a great sounding amp, with a tube pre-amp and a 200W solid state power amp. It's extremely small and lightweight when removed from the combo cab.

+1 Ampeg is pretty hard to beat.
That being said, I'm totally ss.

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

It might be more expensive that you want, but look into the Mesa Prodigy. It's an all tube bass amp that weighs in at a diminutive 29lbs.

 

[trevorus]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

Gallien Krueger MB500 Fusion. Tube pre, 500 watts, super light package.

 

[everdrone]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

It might be more expensive that you want, but look into the Mesa Prodigy. It's an all tube bass amp that weighs in at a diminutive 29lbs.

I dig mesa, that is a great suggestion! mesa gets it. I cant believe the weight/tone ratio, I did not know it existed, worthy of gassing for and saving up :beerchug: pretty flexible in styles too; I wonder if it would take pedals.

I am very unimpressed so far with the Orange terror 500 video clips on youtube in comparison to the expensive mesa and like my Line 6 way better tonewise...

mesa prodigy



Mesa Boogie Bass Strategy 8:88 -- High Gain Rock Punch, prolly similar to the prodigy:


I am gonna check out these other great suggestions too, thanks yall, cheers

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

I dig mesa, that is a great suggestion! mesa gets it. I cant believe the weight/tone ratio, I did not know it existed, worthy of gassing for and saving up :beerchug: pretty flexible in styles too; I wonder if it would take pedals.

I am very unimpressed so far with the Orange terror 500 video clips on youtube in comparison to the expensive mesa and like my Line 6 way better tonewise...

I plunked around on one when I was buying a bass. It didn't jingle my bells at all. The sound was fairly uninspired through the random 1x? I was playing through. The clean was very mushy and the drive channel is, like usual, sort of silly sounding on it's own. I think it needed to be able to breathe at higher volumes through an Orange cab to come to life a little more. I liked Acoustic and TC better for bass. There was a junker amp in there that had an octave effect built in I liked a lot too.

 

[trevorus]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

 

[everdrone]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

ya for that orange terror 500 its hard to tell at low volumes like any amp, but I cant find any clips

I really dig distorted bass so if it does not deliver in spades better than my line 6 400 lowdown head then nogo

I dig the size of the gallien, cool video, not sure about the heavy distortion though. prolly great for most other styles, I may eventually get one cause of the size and its pretty good tone for the other styles of music.

 

[BlueTalon]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

Genz Benz Streamliner 900. There is an amazing deal here. If I didn't already have one, I'd buy this one.

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

That's no tube but there is one big plus for Ampeg Portaflex. If you want the fundamentals for your style it will deliver and it's tiny. I was the producer of this album, we used the smallest Portaflex and it was phenomenal:



He is that:

http://www.ampeg.com/products/portaflex/pf-350/#

Cab was its factory matching one. I recorded both the DI and 2 mics, SM57 and B52 by Shure. DI adds oomph mics give grit.

If you drive it low considering costs it may be worth trying the EHX 44Magnum. Okay that's a mini guitar amp but we could get some quite decent results driving different 2x10" cabs, master volume style. It is quite tube-y considering response. That's a G&L L-2500 directly into the lil' soapbox.



Rec method was the very same as I did with Visioned Frailty it's just the cab that was different. This actual one is an experimental lightwheight 1x10" one built by a friend of mine. It was sweet but it was very tricky to find the right spot as it was so small. Final tracks required some phase adjustment.

Nicia's new demo was recorded with the EHX too. It is an Ibanez SDGR305 through an open-back 1x12" guitar cab with a single T75 and it's not driven hard, bass was recorded around speech volume. One B52 mic + a DI track (and a lot of synths so bass is not so obvious but never mind haha) and it worked like that:

 

[everdrone]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

lol the 44 magnum sounded great! basically it really depends on how you mix the bass... I think the portaflex sounded perfect as well for that recording. really massive bass tones, the bassist must have been happy with those mixes :beerchug: very professional

 

[Adieu]

Re: Best Tube/Hybrid Bass Amp Head that is lightweight?

An Ampeg B200R. Remove the amp from the combo cab and put it into a home-made head cabinet. It's a great sounding amp, with a tube pre-amp and a 200W solid state power amp. It's extremely small and lightweight when removed from the combo cab.

Most of em are...pulled an (ss) carvin from a monster of a 70 lb 115 combo, and the darn thing weighed like maybe 5 lbs.

Head weight in bass combos is negligible. Note that some may not be enclosed on some sides, except by the cabinet itself