Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

[ksmith63]

So if my band doens't get a good bass player by the fall (or at least one that wants to show up to practice) it looks like I might be stuck with it.:smack: In this case, I will need a good bass + amp. So:

We all know tube guitar amps sound much much better than their solid state counterparts, but is this the same for bass amps? Most bass amp companies stay away from tube amps (cost to build? cost to re-tube? less glass to break?) for some reason. Anyone care to share opinions/ theories?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

Really powerful and clean solid state amps are fairly inexpensive and since most bass players want a loud but clean tone, it seems like solid state is acceptable for bass...as it is for keyboards.

It's cheaper to build a loud, clean and powerful solid state amp than it is to build a loud, clean and powerful tube amp...that's why you see more bass players using solid state.

Lew

 

[Erlend_G]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

I greatly prefer the sound of a all tube bass amp...

...but there's no way in hell i'd be paying the money, retubing, and carrying a big tube bass amp!

So, solid state for me. A tube preamp is always nice though!

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

well, i know for upright, a GK through an ampeg cab is pretty much the standard, svt's are usually just too warm for upright.

but for rock & roll svt's work out pretty well, the frequencies aren't as low on a bass guitar & yeah, a lot of stoner rock bands like them

so basically, well i'm guess you're playing bass guitar, so if you want a real warm thick tone go with an SVT, and if you want more of a defined one go with like a GK

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

I like a LOT of power for bass. When shopping for a bass rig, I made my bassist get a rig that has at least 5 times the wattage of the COMBINED guitar amps. So, if you have two guitarists pummeling 100 watt halfstacks, your bassist should get a 1,000 watt rig, IMHO.


Authority is the name of the game.

The only practical way of getting this much power is with a SS power amp. I like tube preamps combined with SS poweramps, preferrably with a nce compressor somewhere in the signal chain.

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

yeah when i get my upright i'm prolly gonna play it through the bassman

but i'm getting an EQ pedal too

 

[kmcguitars]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

Aside from your SVT disciples, You almost never see a bassist w/t a tube amp anymore. The bassist in my band used to use a SVT. ( He's permanently disabled with a back injury now,NO JOKE HE REALLY IS !) Now he has a Lil' Hartke kickback 15. Personally I like the sound of the Hartke better. It's tight and punchy where as the SVT sounded like thunder storm on stage. You felt it more than you could hear it.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

My bassist uses one of the GK Artist Series heads through Eden cabs and his tone is absolutely Godly. He's the first bassist I've ever played with where I said "damn, now that is one NICE bass tone."

Part of it might be his EBMM Stingray though. Nice bass. He uses some huge crazy dist. pedal sometimes too, called a Diezel Dog.

We play lots of kinds of music, from trad. and extreme metal, to old-school punk rock, to psychobilly, and even some indie rock-type stuff, and his rig sounds great all the time.

 

[Kommerzbassist]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

You felt it more than you could hear it.

That's actually the cool thing about basses...

 

[Jeroen]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

I don't think a tube amp sounds better, it just sounds different. Wether that's better to you all comes up to taste. If I had my way, the money and the car to fit it all in, and if my room hadn't been on the second floor of the house, I'd sure as hell be playing a Koch KB2500 or the new Sadowsky 200 watt all-tube head (that's also produced by Koch - they also build the Eden all-tube head). Or that Peavey Classic Series all-tube bass stack covered in tweed. Those are awesome too, it's a pity they're no longer made.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

The Mesa 400+ bass amps are really nice. The tubes have a different sound, that's for sure.

Bill

 

[Simon_F]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

I know two bass players who use the Ampeg SVT-3PRO, and they both have excellent bass tone. The SVT-3PRO has a tube pre-amp and Mosfet power amp. Very nice!

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Do bass amps with tubes sound better?

Better? Nah- it's all personal preference. The valve amps I've been blessed to play with are either lacking in low end (from not enough power) or break up too early (from not enough power), and even when you get to stupid amounts of power such as the Sunn/Fender 300 or the Mesa 400 and 400+ and SVT all at around 300w- there's a "sag" and lack of immediacy that I don't particularly dig.

Then there's the issue of weight- IIRC a Mesa 400+ weighs in the neighborhood of 80 pounds. That's the head fully tubed without a rack. My 900w SS rig with rack, tuner, power supply and auxilliary fan weighs in the neighborhood of 35 pounds. I remember the last time I tried hefting a '74 SVT on top of an 8x10- my old back can't take that.

There are some really great SS heads out there- when I decide to get rid of the SWR I'm going for the new 1200w Eden head or the Mesa Big Block. Another big plus of SS is that you can effectively (and safely) go down to 2 ohms- it makes a BIG difference.

My SWR rig-