Adding a bit more ooomph to your underpowered tube rig

[Colonel Monk]

Adding a bit more ooomph to your underpowered tube rig

So I've been digging this V4BH that I picked up from Kranahan here on TalkBass, but at one of our rehearsal spaces I just found that 100W of tube wasn't quite enough.

Drummers being how they are, that sets the required volume. It's not ear bleeding loud but it's pretty loud.

It certainly had enough "volume" but for some tunes just not enough clean volume.

I had it hooked to an eden 410 and 115, and so I disconnected the 115, then slaved the poweramp of my walkabout off the V4BH and powered the 15 with it.

It worked. The 410 still had some nice growly mojo and the 115 enough clean lowend for the songs that required it.

Powering only one cab the V4BH seemed louder. That seems opposite of what I expected. Others have said here that 100W tube is loud enough to gig with if you plug in more speaker cabs (like 2 810s). It seemed to me that I could turn it down, and it had more headroom with just the one cab. YMMV.

Sure, the walkabout can power both LOUD and I love it's tone - but I'm enjoying the ampeg. It's a great sound.

Too bad Ampeg doesn't do a 200W tube head. I love the tone, need more punch, but don't want to go deaf trying to coax the mojo out of 300W.

[RickenBoogie]

I sold my V4Bh in favor of a Walkabout several years ago for this very reason. I did love the V4BH tone, but you need to run an 810 or similar to get the volume. Make sure you set the impedance switch to match the load.

[acubass]

I have had good success just using a boss eq set flat with the output slider boosted a little.

I also choose the bass I'm using depending on how loud the gig is. Passive for quite gigs and active when I may need more perceived volume.

I rarely need more volume when using my v4Bh though.

[babebambi]

Originally Posted by Colonel Monk

Adding a bit more ooomph to your underpowered tube rig

So I've been digging this V4BH that I picked up from Kranahan here on TalkBass, but at one of our rehearsal spaces I just found that 100W of tube wasn't quite enough.

Drummers being how they are, that sets the required volume. It's not ear bleeding loud but it's pretty loud.

It certainly had enough "volume" but for some tunes just not enough clean volume.

I had it hooked to an eden 410 and 115, and so I disconnected the 115, then slaved the poweramp of my walkabout off the V4BH and powered the 15 with it.

It worked. The 410 still had some nice growly mojo and the 115 enough clean lowend for the songs that required it.

Powering only one cab the V4BH seemed louder. That seems opposite of what I expected. Others have said here that 100W tube is loud enough to gig with if you plug in more speaker cabs (like 2 810s). It seemed to me that I could turn it down, and it had more headroom with just the one cab. YMMV.

Sure, the walkabout can power both LOUD and I love it's tone - but I'm enjoying the ampeg. It's a great sound.

Too bad Ampeg doesn't do a 200W tube head. I love the tone, need more punch, but don't want to go deaf trying to coax the mojo out of 300W.

That just means your 410 is not playing nice with the 115 - aka phase (note not polarity) issue. If they were the same cab (as in 2x the same 410), that rig would definitely be louder.

As to why the 410 and 115 match better when powered by separate amps is beyond me. Perhaps because of different voicing of the two amp help alleviate the phasing issue. Maybe you lucked out, either way, enjoy.

Just for fun if you have the chance, try the 115 with the V4 and the 410 with the WA. Let us know if this is another sound you like too.