Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

mikes123 wrote:I´m looking for an English made all tube head that you can use for either guitar or bass(nastier distortion ). I´m thinking either a Marshall super bass or one of those new Orange thunderverbs 50 or 200 watts, I´m thinking 50. Has any one had experience with any of these amps and like to chip in some advice. Thanks

-Mike

How loud is your band? And are you after something clean or something that breaks up?

That's a good question.

My advice, the short version:

Please note that I'm always mic'd or DI'd in bigger venues.

50W valves: More than enough for my female fronted indie band.
100W valves: Just enough for my high volume rehearsing garage band.
200W valves: More than enough for boths, lots of headroom.

Clean? Hiwatt 200
Overdriven? Orange AD200B

http://www.laney.co.uk/show_prod.php?prod=nexus-tube

Has to be English?
Well I was going to share how much I LOVE my Trace-Elliot (new production; made in England) AH500-7 head; it has superb tone-
But not a tube to be found! The AH1000 has a pre-amp tube with a valve mix feature, pretty sweet.

So I offer the Laney link above; more juice than you're asking about, but now you've got me GAS'ing!

I also was going to recommend Cornford-They have a pretty impressive reputation, but I could not find any info
about their Bass range.

There's a low-wattage all-tube head I know of- But it's built by one of us Yanks- The Allesandro Basset Hound- Quite a product.

Me? I get along with my 100-watt V4BVH (Ampeg; superb) and a 2x10 all tube (6-6l6GC) combo !! !!
The Mesa-Boogie BUSTER--- Wow Wow.

I only got to spend (2) days in London, and it was my favorite City of all time (Well, London and Dublin are close!)

I cannot wait to go back to England and check out tube bass amps, among other doings...

Input welcome?
I would think input would be required for a new amp. I'm not aware of any that have built in wireless.








Try the veal! Tip your waitress!

So I ended up buying the thunderverb 200, couldn't be happier . It sounds AMAZING. It's so warm and distorts so well and the tone I can go on describing for days on end. I was going to get some of those folded 15's that Orange made in the 70's for it but I didn't realize they where about the size of a cooking range! So I got two of those 15's that they make for bass and they compliment the head very very well. The only problem is that the amp doesn't have a lot of low end but thats what my other amp is for, thank god for bi-amping . I thought it was curious that no one complemented on the Marshall super bass oh well I'm supper happy with the thunderverb and would recommend it to anyone.
-Mike

Good stuff Mike, hope you have many happy years with the amp, the lack of low end maybe the cabinets and not the amp, in my past use of Orange there was tons of low end.

I'd love to find a vintage Marshall SL100 or SBII100 (only one capacitor difference) but an affordable substitution is www.metroamp.com

You can get the kit for these that are basically to vintage Marshall specs for about $1300.

I'm not a big fan of Ampeg meself. I do like my Ashdown stuff a lot. For all tubes I believe I'd go for Orange, just based on what live rigs I've heard. Traynor has a good one too I believe...

Congrats on the Orange.
I've been very happy w/ mine and although mine is the ad200b,
haven't really had a problem w/ low end.

Here's a tip for all of you , Orange owners or not :
Don't let your drummer get violent, throw his/her floor tom around ,
get tangled up in your cable (in this case from my Farfisa compact which
I also use my Orange for ), or after getting tangled up, pull your Orange (or insert amp here)
off of your 4x12 Marshall cab slamming it to the floor.
It's still alive and works but now gets a distorted pop while playing notes more so on the lower register.
Let's hope it's not too bad. I think many other amps wouldn't have done so well.
Off to drydock for repairs tomorrow. Haven't spoke to my band mate since.

-Brian