Opinions on bass cabs from Ric players

rickenbrother · Post by **rickenbrother** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:16 pm

...ROFL

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 9:57 am

Ampeg SVT's are the Rolls Royce of bass amps, play your Ric through one you'll never go back to SS.

rickenbrother · Post by **rickenbrother** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 10:02 am

...except the Ampeg SVT 350. There is really nothing SVT about it. It is completely solid state and sounds no where as good as the other Ampeg true SVT heads.

highway_star · Post by **highway_star** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 11:09 am

I'll agree with the SVT 350 comment. I thought it sounded sterile. I use an SVT-3 Pro with an SVT410HLF cabinet.

incubus2432 · Post by **incubus2432** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 11:46 am

Just to throw in my rig.....
Ashly FET-2000M power amp (500x2)
Ampeg SVP-Pro preamp
1-Mesa Diesel 2x10
2-Mesa Diesel 1x15....
I love the tubey goodness of the preamp with 1000 watts backing it up. Power equals clarity and strong lowend....that's why I like a preamp/power amp arrangement. The Mesa cabinets are articulate with plenty of ooomphhh!. I was pretty happy tone wise and then added the second 1x15 and that brought everything alive. Very satisfied nowadays, yes indeed

rickenbrother · Post by **rickenbrother** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 2:01 pm

My SWR rig - SM400 head, Goliath II 4 x 10, Goliath Junior II 2 x 10. So far, I've gotten 15 years of dependable use at countless gigs and band rehearsals on the east and west coast USA. My Ricks sound killer through this rig, as do the rest of my basses. Though, I'm not sure if the new SWR products are capable of this reliability.

The only thing about this rig is, as I get older my back does not love the 4 x 10 cab as much as my ears still do!!

henry5 · Post by **henry5** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:16 am

I've never really got on with Ampeg(too muddy for me), but have always found Trace to really suit my Ricks. However it depends what sort of sound you're going for. If you're after a real zingy piano tone (like me!) then Trace are great. If you're after something warmer (Macca?) then maybe you'd be better off elsewhere; possibly Mesa would provide the best of both worlds. Must admit I'm intrigued by Mesa myself so I'd be interested to hear your findings, although I'm looking at possibly downsizing to a Walkabout; I never get my Trace 300SMX volume past 3 and I play in a rock band. Luckily our drummer has a pretty light touch. I HATE being really loud onstage; at the gigs we play (bars/clubs) being stuck in front of an SVT would be my worst nightmare. And Joey, I'm with you on the back thing!

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:02 pm

If you get a muddy sound out of an Ampeg you aren't trying the right ones or are setting them wrong. My SVT's are as clear as a bell and have volume controls that go loud and soft like all other amps. In fact they ushered in the new age of clear punchy bass amps.
That is why they are still the standard by which all new bass amps are measured against. I use them in bars and night clubs all the time and get many compliments on the sound even from sound men. But each to his own.

thx1955 · Post by **thx1955** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:09 pm

I'd have to agree with Bob, getting clear tones out of my Ampeg is easy, and althtough I've only 60w to play with, it does fine for onstage. I mic into our PA for the house.

I'm running mine into a sealed Avatar 4x12 fitted out with Eminance Kappa Pro's.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:37 pm

Yeah, when I say Ampeg SVT I mean the 70's ones, when there was only one made, a tube 300 watt head and and one or two 8X10 cabs. They're similar to the SVT classics made today except have two channels and different preamp tubes and most people say the old ones sound better, I haven't had enough experience with one to know (they sound good in the store). Ampeg calls everything SVT nowadays. 25 years ago when you said SVT everyone knew what you meant.

thx1955 · Post by **thx1955** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:48 pm

My B-25 is 1969 with the original Blue face intact. It has two seperate channels, each with a normal and brite input, works great with my Ric-O-Sound on my 4003.

It also has the cut outs to retro fit another set of Power tubes to raise it to 100w.

Volume, Bass and Treble for each channel and that's it.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 7:19 pm

Those are nice heads, I never owned one but did own a V4-B, is that a B-25B or a B-25? I had a blue faced SVT at one time, was probably a 1970, i have two late 70's and one 87 reissue head now. I also have a 1959 Ampeg Bassamp 835, 35 big watts, was made before the B-15, really cool looking amp and sounds good too.

thx1955 · Post by **thx1955** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:23 pm

It's a B-25, been using it for Bass now for about 4 years, got it from Ebay for $230.

As far as I know the same pre-amp design was used in the "B" models. I've tried a fliptop B-15 from about the same time and the tone is very close. I would think your 70's V4B would also have a similar feel.

I found another case for it which is being restored in St Loius, and once I can find a decent tube tech in my area I want to get the caps redone. While I'm having this work done I'm also going to swap round the standby and polarity switches and have a three prong IEC socket installed.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:52 pm

The MTI made SVT's from about '81 to '85 are very close to the 70's era Magnavox ones in sound. The earlier MTI ones like mine still use the same transformers and the 12DW7 preamp tubes, so except for the quality of the caps, they are the same as the Magnavox ones. Now that I have mine repaired (had to replace a couple caps) it sounds GREAT.

The old Sunn tube amp stuff is pretty good too...especially with a couple mods. They aren't too expensive either. Up the filter cap values to 110uf and 50uf for the first two filter stages in the power supply, and up the cathode bypass cap on the first preamp stage to 300uf instead of 250uf, and use a Weber Copper Cap WZ34 rectifier instead of the tube one and you get a great small to medium gig bass amp with plenty of punch, power, and bass response. You don't get quite as much bottom as you can out of an SVT, but thats because the SVT has an active tone section, and it has POWER.

Jim, nice amp you have there. You may consider isolating the grounds from the chassis and using individual caps instead of can caps when you get the work done on it. It may be a little more expensive due to the time involved, but it will hum a lot less. Going to a 3 prong IEC plug is a must these days.

thx1955 · Post by **thx1955** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:17 pm

Thanks Greg,
The B-25 was made b y Ampeg themselves prior to the Magavox sale.

One of the reasons I'm looking for a good tech is to have some of the work you mention done. For sure I want all the current chassis routed grounds isloated away from the chassis itself.

As for the caps, I agree with the individual cap route, within reason I'm not that worried about a little additional expense to have this great sounding amp given an extended lease of life.

I'm in Southern California the problem so far is locating a good tech to do the work.