"Bass players don't need tubes."

[Aussie Mark]

 

agreed.  most of my favorite amps lately are solid state hybrids which use a tube to warm up the ss sound.

Me too.  I have a mixture of both, and every one of my amps have at least one tube - or 15, in the case of my Traynor YBA-300 LOL

[rahock]

Hey stiles, I've got a 67 B15C too . It's in pretty good shape also. I've had it since about 68. I haven't used it for anything in years but haven't gotten around to getting rid of it. It served me well for many years I've only seen a couple of others.
Rick

[Basvarken]

For the kind of music that I play a full tube amp with plenty headroom fits best (in a live situation)
I'm not looking for a super accurate amp that delivers the tightest lows you can imagine.
I'd even say I need an amp that is forgiving. I want it to cover up my sometimes sloppy playing.

And more important I need the dynamics. I want it to respond when I want to drive it hard, and calm down when I want it to whisper.
The amp with the worst dynamics I have ever encountered is the Orange Terror Bass. No matter how hard or gently you play the strings it is always equally as loud.

And I love the harmonics you get from powertubes working their best. That is the reason why I don't like most hybrid amps with an "excuse tube" in the pre amp. That is not where the magic happens. It happens in the powertubes.
There is one hybrid that I do like and that is because it is the other way around; the pre amp is SS and the power amp is tubes: Ashdown BTA 400. But it is too heavy for my hernia 

[Spiritbass]

Tubes satisfy some inner need I have. Maybe it's just a tungsten deficiency. Yeah, that must be it. Or maybe it's just old age and the lack of decent SS amps when I was young.

Whatever gets you your sound is okay with me.

Tungsten deficiency.     

I'm firmly in the "whatever works" camp. The amp I've played through the longest is all solid - Thunderfunk. My last two purchases are hybrids - Shuttle 6.0 and Mesa Walkabout.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

"and most of them are tube"

What about all those H&H, Peaveys, Acoustics, Trace Elliots etc on the market?

I don't consider the 1980's to be "vintage." From the 80's until about ten years ago, bass amp design, especially s/s, changed very little, so there's no real they made better then factor before that time.  Vintage starts before the late 1970's in my book.

No H&H's around here; the only one I ever saw was a "KMD" combo. It sounded nice, but was nothing special. Peavey: aside from the copies of other companies' tube bass amps, put out tons of s/s that sound pretty much the same. Every vintage Acoustic amp I've ever seen has had something wrong with it, and I have three Trace Elliot heads, VA350, VR400, and V6; all of them tube amps.

[Pilgrim]

I guess I don't really care.

I first played a 1967 blackface Bassman through an old Fender 2x15 cab - sounded great to me.

Next I played through a Fender Bassman 120 SS combo with a single 15 - sounded great.

Next I played through a Behringer BH4500H SS which never let me down, using a Peavey 15" cab, and I thought that sounded great.

Next I played through a Sunn Coliseum-300 SS through Peavey 15" cab, and it sounded great.  And it was heavier than a freakin' boat anchor.

Then I got a Genz-Benz Shuttle 6.0 with tube pre-amp, and it both sounded great AND was feather light.

Now I have the blackface Bassman for a practice amp, the Hartke for a backup, the Bassman 120 combo just 'coz, and I'm using only Genz-Benz amp and cabs any time I leave the house.

[fealach]

I like whatever sounds good.  Only one 1 SS amp currently, a Genz Benz Neo-Pak, but I like it.  I've owned tube and SS, liked both, but also played through both types of amps that didn't sound so good.  That said, to date nothing has sounded as good to me as my B-15, for any bass tone I desire.  Nothing has impressed me with sheer sonic force (while still sounding pretty darn good) as my 400PS running the right 3 cabinets.  I do tend to worry more about the tube amps, I've left the Genz at the practice spot for months now but wouldn't do that to a tube head.  Not that I fear their reliability.  Also much more reluctant to sell a good tube head than a SS head.  Tube amps have souls, while solid state amps don't.

[Chris P.]

Difficult question. Four experiences:

I have a Hiwatt DR201 (before that a Vox AC50 and an Orange AD200B) and I love it. It's very heavy, though, and sometimes sound engineers want me to play with quite a low volume on stage, so I can't use it as it's supposed to be used. Of course it's very heavy, big, it needs maintenance, ..
A local rental company has a nice SVT + 8x10 which is often used at local festivals and when I know it's there, I don't bring my own amp.

Because I can't play as loud as I want, the Hiwatt stays at home often and I used a very clean SS-amp for a while. Too clean, so I used the Tech21ny VT Bass, which is great. Af course not as dynamic as a real tube amp, but I like it soundwise.

In studio I used the 30W all tube Ashdown Litte Bastard. Hiwatt sounds at low volume. It's not powerfull enough to use on stage though. I reviewed it for the magazine and I concluded that it could be nice to have a small tube amp for studio recordings and a hybrid for live use...

With that in mind I'm trying an Ashdown 550 Spyder head at the moment. It's not thát light, but I can carry it with one hand and I even walked to our rehaersal space. Bass in one hand and amp in the other. A five minute walk, but the Hiwatt is only good for a five second walk.
The 550 has two tubes in the preamp and the SS power circuit of the ABM500. I don't think it are excuse tubes, as Rob calls it. (Rob is right though, in a lot of cases!) It sounds quite good and I can dial in clean sounds and a bit of an overdriven sound and I like it a lot. It's better than the average SS-amp, not as good as an SVT, Orange or Hiwatt, but it has a normal size, it's not to heavy, reliable... I think I will buy this amp, but I won't sell the Hiwatt. I will use it when the band will get a van:)
I do not think the Ashdown is perfect, but it's a good blend of both worlds and very practical and easy in use.

[lowend1]

Gonna weigh in here - I've been playing through tube amps since day one. I still have a bunch of 'em - mainly Ampeg and Orange units from the 70s. Nothing has ever sounded as good to me as my '71 V4B through a squareback SVT bottom. This past week in a rehearsal studio, I played through a new Traynor DynaBass 800 and accompanying Traynor 8x10 bottom, and I was amazed at how GOOD this rig sounded. Very much like the aforementioned V4B/SVT. While I do tend to prefer tube amps over SS units, I have found over the years that I can adapt pretty easily to an unfamiliar SS rig as long as I carry my Peavey Alpha tube preamp with me. With that, I can at least get some of the tube grind that I have come to rely on. I am of the opinion that with bass amps, the tube pre is more important than to have glass in the power section - most of your tone shaping happens in the preamp anyway - but not all tube preamps are created equal. These days the clubs around here (really glorified corner bars) are smaller than in the glory days, and most of the time you're dealing with a "vocals only" PA system (although there are exceptions). My current rig for these situations is a pair of Ampeg B100R combos, stacked and run together with a Radial Big Shot ABY and Yamaha NE-1 parametric in front (thinking about getting a Tech 21 VT Bass to play around with). The two amps are EQ'd differently, with the bottom amp's Ultra Low switched on. In essence, I am bi-amping, but there is no crossover network. The B100R is a very vintage, tubey sounding amp, voiced to emulate a B15, and gives me the warmth I like without the tube pre. If the room is a little larger, I use a Crate BT-350 that I recently acquired, through a 4x10 or 1x15 - depending on how much power I need.

[Chris P.]

I played one of those Ampeg combos a couple of weeks ago and it sure sounds nice. And I like the VT Bass. I know some VT Bass users and they all like it. It's not a substitute for a tube amp, in terms of headroom and dynamics, but you can dial in some nice sounds. I use it with a very clean amp and I get some really 'low+ high and not much mid' Ampeg sounds out of it, but of course I can dial in more mids.

I'm going to think out loud now, without knowing the conclusion.


I also think/thought the preamp produces most of the 'sound' and the power amp just amplifies it. But two experiences tell me something different:

1 - I use an Warwick Hellborg, which is not mine. It has no tubes, but it sounds tube-y because of the big transformers in the power amp. It's a heavy bastard. It could mean big transformers have more (or at least a big) influence on the sound than the power tubes? Of course this is a chicken/egg story, cos for some big power tubes you need some bad ass transformers.

2 - In my eyes Rob/Basvarken is an authority on the topic of good sounds. He loves the big Ashdown with an SS pre and a tube power amp. Rob needs headroom and dynamics and the big transformers and tubes give it to him. That also means Ashdown can make a very good sounding preamp.

If this is all right, one can conclude you can have a great amp without tubes. Or maybe a tube preamp and an SS poweramp with big transformers? In all cases a bass amp needs to be quite big.

One last thing about transformers. I have this small back up amp. The ugliest amp ever: The Ashdown Little Giant. The green one. I used to have the MAG300 as back up, but all basses sound the same on that amp. Nice for beginners... This Litte Giant is small and has small transformers. It's nice, but if you crank it up you lose a lot of low end.

I hope I'm not too chaotic in this post:)

[godofthunder]

 I agree with Rob the magic happens in the power tubes. Pre amp tubes sound weak and grainy to me.

For the kind of music that I play a full tube amp with plenty headroom fits best (in a live situation)
I'm not looking for a super accurate amp that delivers the tightest lows you can imagine.
I'd even say I need an amp that is forgiving. I want it to cover up my sometimes sloppy playing.

And more important I need the dynamics. I want it to respond when I want to drive it hard, and calm down when I want it to whisper.
The amp with the worst dynamics I have ever encountered is the Orange Terror Bass. No matter how hard or gently you play the strings it is always equally as loud.

And I love the harmonics you get from powertubes working their best. That is the reason why I don't like most hybrid amps with an "excuse tube" in the pre amp. That is not where the magic happens. It happens in the powertubes.
There is one hybrid that I do like and that is because it is the other way around; the pre amp is SS and the power amp is tubes: Ashdown BTA 400. But it is too heavy for my hernia 

[drbassman]

I know it's an emotional attachment to the past, but my hybrid, tube pre-amp rigs (Mesa Walkabout and Fender TV) sound so sweet to me.  There are great SS amps I'm sure, but when I test drive them at the shop, I always gravitate to the tubed amps.

I do have to say, I had an Ampeg Rocket BR-100 and it was one of the best at modeling the old tube sounds of the 60's and 70's.  Wish I still had it.  I sold it for more volume to play with the band.  Might try to grab one used some day just for grins.  They should still be making those amps!

[leftybass]

Ampeg Rocket 100 has been my main amp for years now. I have no problem playing any size venue with it.

[Basvarken]

2 - In my eyes Rob/Basvarken is an authority on the topic of good sounds.

Haha, when did that happen? 

[stiles72]

Good to see some love for the B100R!   A gig shot from my oldies project: tubes and SS working side by side...