Filter Caps/Cans- Important ? You Bet! Pt.#2
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soundmasterg
- RRF Consultant
- Posts: 1921
- Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2002 1:06 pm
Hi Don. In your experience, are the 2000S tone controls any different than the 200S? I used to have a '69 200S and I thought it was very nice for bass with the Sunn cabinet. I was assuming I didn't like the sound of 2000S through my SVT cabinet because of the different, less effecient cabinet, but maybe the 2000S does sound significantly different than the 200S? I haven't played the 2000S enough or through the right cabinet enough to be able to compare...
The Sunn 2000S cabs and SVT cabs are very different animals, the 2000S cabs were double 15" with big giant ports if I remember correctly, they were probably more sensitive to tone control changes, the SVT are acoustic suspension cabs, totally sealed with 4 separate chambers with two tens in each, they are much tighter sounding, but need a little more power and I think tones that really have a wide range suchas an SVT does. With the SVT heads, you can go from a deep almost inaudible rumble to a sound like a tele guitar with only the treble pickup on, and just about anywhere in between. The Sunns and Marshalls Majors had about just one certain sound, they were not very versatile, an SVT on the other hand can sound good with just about anything. I use one with two modern B-15 cabs sometimes and they sound great with the head, much better than with the 100 watt SS heads that came with them.
Incidently I saw Felix Papallardi play his EB-1 with three 2000S heads and 6 2000S cabs with Mountain a couple of times and he sounded great, and was VERY audible too! This was in the good old days before soundmen ruled the stages. They worked for us then, not the other way around. No I've met some very good soundmen with open minds, just throw a mike in front of my SVT and I'm happy, that all. Get those DI's away from me.
Incidently I saw Felix Papallardi play his EB-1 with three 2000S heads and 6 2000S cabs with Mountain a couple of times and he sounded great, and was VERY audible too! This was in the good old days before soundmen ruled the stages. They worked for us then, not the other way around. No I've met some very good soundmen with open minds, just throw a mike in front of my SVT and I'm happy, that all. Get those DI's away from me.
It was probably the sheer mass of the SVT and similar monster amps that gave birth to those DI's you hate, Bob. 
Don't forget that the SVT was based on the Traynor YBA-1 that had only a single pair of output tubes. More than enough power if you play small clubs and the guitarist plays a small amp like a Fender Deluxe Reverb. It would be equal to about a 150 watt solid state head in volume capability. Oddly, a large proportion of YBA-1's were used by guitarists and they are still snapping them up on eBay. It might make a great guitar amp head to partner with an SVT bass amp in a band.
Yorkville is back in the bass amp business, but they call the bass amps Yorkville now instead of Traynor, which name they reserve specifically for the new guitar amps of Peter Traynor's design. My Traynor YCV40 is a killer guitar amp considering the price I gave (my father likes it better than anything he ever plugged his Gretsch into), and the Yorkville BassMaster XM200 and XM200T combos have really caught my eye. They look really decent and have considerable weight savings over the Peavey combos and a couple pounds lighter than the Ampeg BA-115. The Yorkville bass combos with curved metal grille look classier than either Peavey or Ampeg, and if they compare in tone and quality to the Traynor guitar amps, then the new Yorkville bass combos are the new value based bass amps on the block. HAS ANYBODY HEARD WHAT THE NEW YORKVILLE BASS AMPS SOUND LIKE? My YCV40 has a really good Canadian birch plywood cab, and I'll bet the XM200(T) is built just as well. $480 and $520 are nice prices for a 200 watt bass combo. Twice the power and 5 pounds lighter (57#) than the Ampeg BA-115 at about the same price. It might be better than toting a 2x10 cab and a separate head as it weighs no more than some 2x10 cabs alone.
To get back to the original thread topic, filter caps are very important to the sound, but the best ones are film caps. Electrolytics don't even begin to compare, but you almost never see them used as output stage power supply filters in guitar/bass amps. C-J claims that even the best electrolytics have something like 200 times the hysteresis distortion of the proprietary polystyrene signal path caps used in their amps. Conrad-Johnson banned electrolytics from their tube amp power supplies years ago, using polypropylene film caps instead, and even in that application they bypass the polypropylene caps with their proprietary polystyrene caps. The downside is that all those exotic film caps can cost you more than what you paid for your guitar or bass amp in total. If you can't afford them, don't ever listen to an amp that has totally eliminated electrolytics like I did. I ended up buying a stack of three: phono/preamp/poweramp.........and gave up my summer vacation in the process to afford them. But man, oh man!...........I vegetated in front of the stereo for weeks as I went through my record collection and heard inner detail I never knew existed, and I had already been using well regarded high end amps.
Don't forget that the SVT was based on the Traynor YBA-1 that had only a single pair of output tubes. More than enough power if you play small clubs and the guitarist plays a small amp like a Fender Deluxe Reverb. It would be equal to about a 150 watt solid state head in volume capability. Oddly, a large proportion of YBA-1's were used by guitarists and they are still snapping them up on eBay. It might make a great guitar amp head to partner with an SVT bass amp in a band. Yorkville is back in the bass amp business, but they call the bass amps Yorkville now instead of Traynor, which name they reserve specifically for the new guitar amps of Peter Traynor's design. My Traynor YCV40 is a killer guitar amp considering the price I gave (my father likes it better than anything he ever plugged his Gretsch into), and the Yorkville BassMaster XM200 and XM200T combos have really caught my eye. They look really decent and have considerable weight savings over the Peavey combos and a couple pounds lighter than the Ampeg BA-115. The Yorkville bass combos with curved metal grille look classier than either Peavey or Ampeg, and if they compare in tone and quality to the Traynor guitar amps, then the new Yorkville bass combos are the new value based bass amps on the block. HAS ANYBODY HEARD WHAT THE NEW YORKVILLE BASS AMPS SOUND LIKE? My YCV40 has a really good Canadian birch plywood cab, and I'll bet the XM200(T) is built just as well. $480 and $520 are nice prices for a 200 watt bass combo. Twice the power and 5 pounds lighter (57#) than the Ampeg BA-115 at about the same price. It might be better than toting a 2x10 cab and a separate head as it weighs no more than some 2x10 cabs alone.
To get back to the original thread topic, filter caps are very important to the sound, but the best ones are film caps. Electrolytics don't even begin to compare, but you almost never see them used as output stage power supply filters in guitar/bass amps. C-J claims that even the best electrolytics have something like 200 times the hysteresis distortion of the proprietary polystyrene signal path caps used in their amps. Conrad-Johnson banned electrolytics from their tube amp power supplies years ago, using polypropylene film caps instead, and even in that application they bypass the polypropylene caps with their proprietary polystyrene caps. The downside is that all those exotic film caps can cost you more than what you paid for your guitar or bass amp in total. If you can't afford them, don't ever listen to an amp that has totally eliminated electrolytics like I did. I ended up buying a stack of three: phono/preamp/poweramp.........and gave up my summer vacation in the process to afford them. But man, oh man!...........I vegetated in front of the stereo for weeks as I went through my record collection and heard inner detail I never knew existed, and I had already been using well regarded high end amps.