Ampeg Portabass

[Sheriff Morris]

Hola all,

I am new to this site and I believe this is my first post


Ok so I am an ampeg fan and I currenly use the B-410HLF and a portabass 2x10 cab.

The only thing is,,, im finding it really difficult to get myself a 2nd portabass 2x10 or 2x12.

I dont think they were all that common over here in Britain, so wondering if my brothers worldwide knows of anywhere I could pick one up.

So if anyone could help me out then that would be great.

Cheers
Steven

[RickenBoogie]

Actually, the Portabass cabs are among the very worst cabs Ampeg ever made. You'd do much better with the Classic series, or the BXT series, or even the B series, like your 410. Oh, and welcome aboard.

[Jerrold Tiers]

Originally Posted by RickenBoogie

Actually, the Portabass cabs are among the very worst cabs Ampeg ever made. You'd do much better with the Classic series, or the BXT series, or even the B series, like your 410. Oh, and welcome aboard.

I'd pretty much go with that.... the Portabass cabs SOUND good, particularly for electrified acoustic, but they are pretty much the main cause for the Portabass units disappearing..... Marketing wanted those cabs like that......but later, Sales told us that there was no way to recover from teh damage to the line that they caused.....

The original cabs were SO quiet that they turned a 300W amp into the equivalent of 60W..... we hated them, we hollered, we complained, we demonstrated the problem, but there was no action until it came time to as Sales put it, "shoot them in the head"....

Later cabinets were louder, but didn't sound as good..... but what price good sound if you can't HEAR it? Can you get the drift that all us in R&D HATED those cabs?

[Wes Whitmore]

I have used 2 different portabass 2x10 cabs, and a 1x10 cab over the past 7 years. I have taken them apart just to see what makes them tick. Decent quality lightweight plywood (no bracing, but the box is under 1ft3), good grills, fiberglass stuffing, circuit boards from SLM just like the other cabinets. The drivers are not built by eminence like much of Ampeg's OEM drivers. L-pad and tweeter mounted on a big metal plate. The 1/4" inputs aren't sealed and whistle if you use the speakons (What was R&D thinking there...).

They were one of the first neo cabs to market that I can remember. The 2x10 combo I tried years ago sounded terrible. I always blamed the amp since the cabinet sounds great to me. I have always liked the tone of the sealed 2x10 though, especially through GK amps. I just recently picked up another 2x10 portabass off the TB classifieds and it sounds just like the one I purchased brand new years ago. It provides much more bottom end energy than the new SVT210AV. The box is a lot bigger than the SVT210AV though. They weigh more. The power handling is honestly about the same though, just fuller sounding. GC was blowing the 1x10 out for $100 and the 2x10 for $175 new, which was a steal.

The 4 ohm rating has always been the bad thing with these cabs though. Most amps put out way more power than these cabs (and most 2x10s) can safely handle at 4 ohm. It doesn't give you the ability to run multiple cabs on a single amp easily. They shake the house, but they just can't take a lot of wattage, and not 400 watts.



The bottom cab is the PB 2x10. It's a lot bigger than the SVT210AV.

Wes

[Sheriff Morris]

I have had no problems with the sound of my 2x10, infact I quite like it, its obviously not as full or deep as the 4x10, but I have never really heard anything else that gives the same lovely tone as the 4x10 . I would ideally like a 2nd 2x10 to give me the optional lightweight 4x10 and the lightweight aspect is very appealing.

I am running these cabs with the ampeg B5R which is the
2ohm 500watt amp, so this would allow me to run 2 2x10's which allows me to get the full output of my amp.

I also have the portabass 250H as a backup head (just incase)

[Jerrold Tiers]

Eh... A PB250 and a cab?

You must BE that happy Portabass customer we used to hear about, but Sales could never find any more of........

It's not a bad combination if the loudness issue is OK..... With most people it wasn't, so we hated the cabs for being the #1 reason for the abject failure of the entire Portabass line.

[Wes Whitmore]

Lots of people like them. They were just too expensive. They weren't symmetrically stackable either. You can tell that they were designed for a stand along solution. The size and ohm load is the proof. They couldn't be run with any other cab since most amps were only 4 ohm stable. It was one of the first vertially skinny cabs out there in a world of 19" wide racks. People were still leary of Neo's at that time I guess. If they were released today, they would probably do much better.

[Aceonbass]

I've got a pair of PortaBass 800 heads. One was purchased brand new online for $950.00 shipped and the other (my backup) was bought used on Ebay for $375.00 shipped, and was a steal. I love the amps, but the cabs were weak at high volumes, and their reputation probably the reason for the low price on Ebay. I run mine through an Ampeg SVT HLF410 loaded with four 8 ohm Emminence DeltaLites wired in parallel at 2 ohms, which is perfect for the PB800 with it's 800 watts at 2 ohms. An engineer at Ampeg told me that the trick to running the amps without clipping (which kills the stock Aura Sound neo speakers by the way) is to run the Master wide open and set the actual volume with the Gain control.

[NickfromSOS]

I have a portabass 1x12 cab that I love. The original speaker was changed out and now it's running 250 watts at 8ohms. I'm running my markbass LM2 through it and it rocks. For practice and small gigs its fantastic. For bigger shows I add a Brickhouse 1x12. The portabass cab is very light, but it is what it is. You're not going to get a great thump out of the cab, but in the mid and upper range on my jazz bass, it sings.

[Sheriff Morris]

Well my main aim is to run my current 2x10cab with another 2x10 or 2x12 if I can get one. Using my B5R head will give me 500watts out of the cabs. It will also allow me to run just 1 cab at 350watts for smaller gigs, or when im just being lazy I guess haha.

[Sheriff Morris]

Originally Posted by Jerrold Tiers

Eh... A PB250 and a cab?

You must BE that happy Portabass customer we used to hear about, but Sales could never find any more of........

It's not a bad combination if the loudness issue is OK..... With most people it wasn't, so we hated the cabs for being the #1 reason for the abject failure of the entire Portabass line.

I cnt believe they are that bad. Surely there must be more portabass users on here that can add there experience with these cabs. Oh and the PB250 is purely a backup head, my AMPEG B5R is the main amp I use.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Morris

I cnt believe they are that bad. Surely there must be more portabass users on here that can add there experience with these cabs. Oh and the PB250 is purely a backup head, my AMPEG B5R is the main amp I use.

jerrold was the chief engineer at ampeg at that time, so if he says it, i would give it a lot of weight before expanding on your current pb 210.

[Edward G.]

FWIW, I have a PB210 cabinet that I use alternately with a Markbass LMII and an A.M.P BH420, and the rig gets plenty loud. I'm never anywhere near full-throttle on it. On top of that, the quality of the sound is solid, not thin or tinny, especially for such a small, light box. Mine cleans house on a small to mid-size gig. If I ever start to think it sucks, or if it ever lets me down, I'll be sure to report it. I tend to agree with the viewpoint that they were perceived as too expensive.

[Jerrold Tiers]

The porta-bass cabs are not "BAD".......... they sound pretty good.

Problem with them was VOLUME, or total lack of it.

You just have a basic problem selling a 250W amp that the speakers make sound like 60W....... or an 800W amp that the speakers make sound like 200W..... people liked the units, but they couldn't use the "system". For the few who just bought a PB250 or PB 800 and used it with other cabs, there wasn't much problem. But it was hawked as a "system", and as a "system" it was ALMOST a great "New York Taxi amp", if only it would have got louder.

if you like the sound, and the volume thing is no issue, go for it.......

And, the problem there was the speakers..... terribly inefficient... about 92-94 dB/1W..... If you have swapped out the speaker, that problem is history.

[ShirazBop]

Originally Posted by Jerrold Tiers

The porta-bass cabs are not "BAD".......... they sound pretty good.

Problem with them was VOLUME, or total lack of it.

You just have a basic problem selling a 250W amp that the speakers make sound like 60W....... or an 800W amp that the speakers make sound like 200W..... people liked the units, but they couldn't use the "system". For the few who just bought a PB250 or PB 800 and used it with other cabs, there wasn't much problem. But it was hawked as a "system", and as a "system" it was ALMOST a great "New York Taxi amp", if only it would have got louder.

if you like the sound, and the volume thing is no issue, go for it.......

And, the problem there was the speakers..... terribly inefficient... about 92-94 dB/1W..... If you have swapped out the speaker, that problem is history.

What speakers would you recommend for the PB112H and the PB212H????

[Wes Whitmore]

You would happen to have a copy of the T/S specs of the 10's, would you

[Edward G.]

Originally Posted by Jerrold Tiers

The porta-bass cabs are not "BAD".......... they sound pretty good.

Problem with them was VOLUME, or total lack of it.

You just have a basic problem selling a 250W amp that the speakers make sound like 60W....... or an 800W amp that the speakers make sound like 200W..... people liked the units, but they couldn't use the "system". For the few who just bought a PB250 or PB 800 and used it with other cabs, there wasn't much problem. But it was hawked as a "system", and as a "system" it was ALMOST a great "New York Taxi amp", if only it would have got louder.

if you like the sound, and the volume thing is no issue, go for it.......

And, the problem there was the speakers..... terribly inefficient... about 92-94 dB/1W..... If you have swapped out the speaker, that problem is history.

The question is obvious and two-fold: How could such a deficiency get designed in the first place? and How could it proceed to market unchanged after it was discovered?

Is there a preferred replacement speaker, should the need arise?

I love my PB210; however, if a speaker ever fails, it would be an opportunity to upgrade them both. The package is perfect for me.

[Aceonbass]

The stock Aura Sound speakers are the problem I think. Even though they are neos, the magnet is small and the basket is stamped and not cast....and they DON'T like square waves. I would replace them with Emminence DeltaLites. They're rated at 250 watts program and 500 peak at 8 ohms. They have a cast frame and the magnet has cooling fins on it to help dissapate heat.

[Edward G.]

Do you know how they would impact the overall weight?

[Aceonbass]

Although they are a much heavier duty construction, they are aluminum framed neodymium speakers, so they should be close enough not to impact your 33 lb cab too much. They sure made my SVT 410HLF lighter.