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Opinions on bass heads


WoodyRATM

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Hi,

I'm considering upgrading my head soon. Currently have an Ampeg SVT 4 pro - but i'm thinking of going the full valve route.

But i'm not sure...

What heads would be worth looking at? I'm thinking about the SVT CL or VR or the SVT 2 Pro. Or perhaps even the mesa 400+

What are folks opinions on these heads?

I play dancey/rocky stuff mainly but do dabble with other stuff.

Also does anyone know any places in Scotland that would have the above amps so i could test out?

Cheers for any help/suggestions.

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Thats a nice looking head. What sorta sound do EBS have? Its lighter than my current head...hmmm

I have the TD650 with 2x4x10 neo cabs,dude by far this is the best stuff i have ever played through,so i would imagine that rocks too!

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I've got an SVT CL and it's a great all round amp. I would recommend trying EBS though, I've never heard it but Droid knows what he is talking about. I've heard good things about the Mesa too, but never heard one in action.

Cheers dude.:up:...Woody if you talk to Bernie Goodfellow at GB guitatrs,they are the EBS distributor and he'll sort you out with a good price.

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The 400+ is a great amp too. Similar controls to that of the SVT4 bass middle and treble with deafeatable 9 band graphic eq. If you like a lot of room for manoeuvre (sp?) then it's prolly the best all tube bet. It's quite dark sounding if you run your bass straight into it, but I run an MXR di with the colour switch on which brightens it up nicely.

However, this amp (like most all tube amps) is heavy as sin. It has 12 power tubes which, if you go for an overhaul, will cost a fortune (300ish i'd imagine) to replace. I don't know why it has 12 power tubes. Mesa said its so the valves run cooler prolonging their life etc, but Scotty's head used to overheat and blow fuses all the time as did mine initially. It doesn't really like sharing power sockets either as the draw is pretty big i'd imagine.

The pro of the sound totally outweigh all those cons for me though.

I tried the Orange AD200 when I was looking for an amp and thought it was rubbish. Gain on half and volume on half through an Ashdown 810 sitting right in front of it you'd expect it to blow my head off but it didn't. The sound was kind of flappy and loose. Admittedly back then I tried it out with a PJ set up bass (jazz sound is more to my taste) and I'm not sure how well the Ashdown cabs fare when compared to the likes of the Ampeg equivalent. I did notice that the eq section was pretty unresponsive though.

Like I say, not a fair test, but I can definitely say it fell well short of my expectations. A lot of pros use em though and when I saw Converge and ETID it sounded good both times.

EDIT: I've heard the old JCM800 bass series were pretty good too.

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Huw - are you able to record stuff? Eg would you be able to record some totally clean stuff for me? I'm not a "bright" person usually.

Where sells the orange heads?

Erm... it's prolly be easier just to have a shot. By the time I've recorded something that doesn't sound the way you want it and is recorded poorly you may as well have anyway.

The orange is sold in a lot of places, but you'll find nowhere actually keeps any instore (even the likes of sounds live). I found it virtually imopossible to find one and there definitely wasn't any in Scotland when I looked. :( Very very frustrating. but understandable i guess.

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