The Electra Forums

From one Tube guy to another, TUBES RULE! Cheers, Mike.

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

I use a Bugera V55 head. 2 6L6 power tubes, 3 12ax7 preamp. Very nice clean channel and the lead channel is great. This is the amp that goes with me when I play out. It just seems to suit the style best for what I play. Bugera amps have proven to be a fantastic value for the dollar for me.

Also a Bugera 6262 head. Its kind of a Peavey 6505+ clone, but its more versatile and has a usable clean channel.

These are both used with an Avatart 212 cabinet loaded witha Vintage 30 and G12H30.

Lastly a US made Fender HotRod Deluxe that I have modded the junk out of. Currently running a pair of 6V6 tubes and a Tone Tubby speaker. I love the fat, rich, warm clean channel, But I have never been happy with the overdriven tone of this amp. Thinking about selling it. But I have so many hours of work into it, I hate to let it go.

Paul

Personally, with a couple of pedals, I think it sounds pretty decent.

Dunno if anyone in here cares about bass amps, but my rig is a Hartke 3500 (350w) hooked to a 300w Hartke MX115 cabinet. Seems to work well for all of my basses, but doesn't seem to have much soul to it. I assume I need a tube amp for that though. And I know zilch about amps. I don't even understand the reason behind the amp having 50w more than the cabinet. Someone enlighten me?

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Who needs a Fender Jazz when you can get a perfectly good Spectrum bass for $50?

I care about bass amps! You don't nead tubes for soul, though it can help. My main bass amp is an Acoustic Control 122 solid state amp and it has all the soul you could want. If you are looking for soul I can not recomend the old Acoustic amps enough. They were the amp for many pro's in the late 60's through the 70's. The new ones are just Guitar Center house brand entery level souless stuff.

Here is the skinny on Watts. First unless you know that manufacturers are using the same methods to test for Watts there is not much use comparing one amp to another using watts. That said Watts come in two types peak and RMS (also called program). Peak is the most an amp can put out for a very short time ( a very loud note when the amp is cranked). RMS is, in theory, what the amp can put out continualy over a long time. Peak is usualy about twice the RMS.

Cabinets should be able to handle the peak rating, or more, of your amp head. If not you have to be carefull not to turn you amp up to high or you risk blowing your speakers. You also have to match the ohm range of your amp to that of the cabinet.

If your cabinet is a single 15" speaker (as the name would suggest) you may want to add a pair (or quad) of 10" speakers to brighten things up. As Workingman states, you don't need to have a tube amp for Bass to have great sound, and your head will definitely weigh less if its Solid State, which is a bonus. Typically Bass amps are much higher wattage, for a couple of reasons, the frequencies need to move that much air to compete with Guitar pitches (that Human ears are by nature more sensitive to) and usually a Bass tone is clean, so having a high wattage amp reduces the chance your amp will clip (or distort) before you reach the right practice or stage volume.

One thing that I've noticed is that a tube amp will typically be louder than a Transistor amp of the same wattage, way louder. This could be the sensitivity of the speakers, for sure, but I think something hinky is up with the ratings. A quality 15 Watt Class A (non push/pull) tube amp can compete with transistor amps over 100 watts.

Speaking of sensitivity, remember most speakers are rated with a ONE watt signal, that's right, when they measure the output, they're only putting a one watt sinewave through the speaker, and typically the mic is a meter away (1 watt/1 meter is the standard efficiency test), and most speakers will produce between 90 and 100 decibels with that 1 watt signal.

I'm not certain how scientific this is, but someone once told me that it basically takes ten times more wattage for a signal to be (perceived by humans as) twice as loud (is that log rhythmic?). In other words a 10 watt amp is only twice as loud as a one watt amp, and a 100 watt amp is only twice as loud as a 10 watt amp. And the older I get, the more I agree with the sentiment. I can not hear much of a difference between my 60watt Boogie and one of my Boogies running in Class A (rated at 15 watts), using basically the same EV 12" speaker.... now if I hook that 15 watt amp up to my 4x12 cabinet, the 15 watt is waaaayyyy louder than the 60 watt amp. So there are a ton of variables.

Personally, I'm more interested in (amp) tone than loudness the older I get, and I don't like the hassle of pedals and batteries and cables, etc. so more often than not, I just plug directly into an amp, crank it up, and have my own moment of Zen. Cheers, Mike.

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

Another good comparison (or Epic Irony) between guitar and bass amps is the classic Fender Blackface amps of the 60's. The Dual Showman was introduced as a guitar amp, the Bassman as, well, a Bass amp. Because of the Showmans high output, it was an instant hit with Bass players, and because the Bassman would clip when cranked up, it was (and still is) considered to be a great guitar amp. Also remember that when many of these circuits were being designed, clipping (distortion) was unwanted, oh the humanity if they had actually succeeded! But that's why I think Solid State amps sound kind of sterile to me, they're toooo clean.

I've owned three or four Bassman piggyback amps over the years, just a great, great GUITAR amp. (no disrespect to Leo or his marketing department)

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

My cabinet actually has two speakers, the 15" main and a 4" tweeter. I do want to add a 410 to the setup, but I don't presently have the space or money to (and considering the head and cabinet only ran me $200, I don't think I could find as good a deal on one). I haven't been very creative in playing with the amp's various settings, but with the exception of a couple of basses that pump out oodles of tone regardless of amp, it tends to sound a bit sterile. Perhaps a better EQ setting would do the trick? I really don't know, the thing has loads of switches and knobs.

I am quite familiar with the tube wattage vs solid state wattage differences, as well. I have a bunch of small amps gotten from various places, and my old 6w silverface Fender Champ is by far the loudest of them (as well as the easiest to distort, and of course has the best tone). Unlike the rest of my portable amps, the Champ can keep up with much more powerful rigs. On the other hand, as was mentioned, the weight is quite a bit more than the cheaper solid state ones, and besides that one of the tubes is loose and occasionally falls out.

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Who needs a Fender Jazz when you can get a perfectly good Spectrum bass for $50?

My brother and I have 3 valco and 1 gretch 12 watt amps. they sound awsome! but the 6973 tubes are getting hard to find. the electro-harmonics version sound awful. the new old stock dont come with a warinty and are very expenive. so my days with the most awsome small amp may be numered.

That is a bummer on the Sovtek 6973s sounding like poo. I had my hopes up that we finally had a 6973 being newly manufactured - but it isn't much good if it sounds awful. Those amps KICK. The guy at turretboards.com (Watts Audio?) makes a good repro kit of that amp. I wish I could help you but I don't have any NOS. I am stuck with using Sovtek too (when I do a repair). I don't have any of them. The little supro tremoverb (think of a vibro champ, but better with reverb and a 10" jensen) is great too. Heck it is WAY better than a champ and has a single 6V6 for output. I had the Oahu version, and sold it to a buddy when things got lean. He still has it. Just a killer little beast. Valco made some killer amps!

Here is hoping that sovtek improves on it. I won't hold your breath, but we can hope. I have had some bad batches of tubes really burn me. When they first introduces their new Tungsol 12AX7 I bought several of them, and I did an emergency repair for Mark Tremonti and put one of these new "premium" tubes in his amp replacing a weak tube (the main problem was power tubes and I fixed that for him). It sounded KILLER for me, and for his Roadie that tested the heck out of it too. Then when the sound check came (I was there) it crapped out right in front of me. His was the first. But the WHOLE FIRST BATCH did that. Man I was embarrassed. Since then, they have been fantastic tubes. They must have fixed their problems. We can hope.

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Thorny

There was another artical about Jimmy page using the amp on some of his stuff. So everbody will want them even more. Hopefully someone will get the tube right. Our's came from the music store we had. they were used for lessons and the tech. The store went belly up. I was told the tubes were used in alot of old jukebox amps. so I will see whats out there in that world.

I'm currently in the process of redefining my sound. I've been running a POD XT Live into the PA at church and using various amp patches, mostly AC30 and Plexi based. I've wanted to simplify things a bit, so now I'm running a modified Crate V18 and a Boss AC-2 Acoustic Simulator. With the mods on the amp, I can go from crystal clean to crunchy with a turn of the volume knob. I'd need a OD pedal to really get heavy, though.

I haven't abandoned the POD, it's just on hiatus...

-Andy

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-Andy
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1970's Electra Les Paul
'83 Electra Westone x185
'84 Electra Westone x195 with Kahler Flyer (first guitar ever)
'84 Electra Westone Dynasty
'84 Electra Westone x195
2x 1990's Crate Electra
'90 Westone Villain with Modulus Graphite Neck

I use a Blackheart Handsome Devil 7/15w combo. For the money, this amp sounds terrific (to me).

My favorite amp is this:

http://www.tubeampfactory.com/shop/arti ... aid%3D2%26

I have SN #001, it was built by a local fellow. I use it with his 12" Celestion MG cabinet.

The same guy (David Harris) also repaired my white-panel Gibson Skylark GA5T that I've had since 1982 and which I think dates to 1964 or thereabouts.

Most of the time I play my Roland VGA-5 or VGA-7 amps, they are big, loud, reliable. The VGA-7 has a built-in tuner and can also take my GK-compatible Godins.

I also have a small Roland "stack" transistor amp and a few smaller transistor amps that do not deserve to be discussed among gentlemen.

JCM2000 with a few rack units--compression, hush II and parametric eq.