Music Man Hd-130, opinions?

Ace&Jocelyn · #1 06-19-2010, 02:09 AM

Hey everyone, been trolling the forums FOREVER but never had a reason to register hahaha until now! Anyways my dilemma is this: I'm thinking of selling my current Acoustic B450 and getting a Music Man HD130 head I just found on ebay. Anyone have any thoughts about this? Ive mainly been playing small to medium sized venues, and although its nice having that beast to lug around I absolutely love the tone I've heard from the music man. Can anyone offer any advice or thoughts on this? I'd really appreciate it.

#2 06-19-2010, 02:38 AM

I used one for bass for a while... The only amp I ever really liked with EL34s is a vintage Traynor. However, The MM HD130 is potent enough to get a fairly clean bass sound from. For the right price, it can be a great sounding bargain!

coreyfyfe · #3 06-19-2010, 04:59 AM

Decent enough head, I used to have one I used as a backup amp. Ended up trading it for a twin reverb. It wasn't bad, just never really wowed me. If you dig it then go for it.

DaveDeVille · #4 06-19-2010, 06:45 AM

no experience with the HD130 , but i still use my old HD150 at practice ...
tube power amp , with a solid state preamp .
loud enough for a medium venue , great tone .
Leo Fender's design ...

andertone · #5 06-19-2010, 08:41 AM

I've had mine since 1976 after running Showmans for many years.

Nice tube crunch, and they get surprisingly loud. Best used with a high efficient 2 x 15" cabinet (I use an EV B215M)

Best used with 6CA7 tubes, they run hot but never had a problem

Wish I had the opportunity to play mine more, but my gigs are small
so I use a Bergie HT112 and Eden WT-400, and the few times the Eden was broken the HD130 was able to drive that cab at 8 ohms fine

rumblethump · #6 06-19-2010, 10:55 AM

I've been gigging my HD 130 for the last 10 years. I run one or two 4 ohm 2-12s with it and it handles medium inside gigs and a outside no swet. Its one of those amps that no matter what bass you run through it sounds great. I think the greatest feature is the series speaker outputs. This allows the ability to run up to 4 cabs at once.

Mudfuzz · #7 06-19-2010, 11:01 AM

I started out with one. Good amp, but like a lot of old under-powered amps you have a hard time with a five through one as the lower notes make it clip. Really I'm thinking of selling mine, I never use it because it isn't loud enough for me. Funny thing is when I first started playing I thought it was loud, but 18 years and a SVT and 400+ later....

wcriley · #8 06-19-2010, 11:42 AM

I played skinny-string though an HD 130 combo for many years back in the day.
Like andertone wrote, they like 6CA7s (which they were designed around) much better than EL34s.

One VERY important thing to take note of:
The speaker outs in these critters are wired in SERIES, not PARALLEL.

Ace&Jocelyn · #9 06-20-2010, 02:49 AM

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I think I'm gonna go for it, the guy is asking for about $385 but I'm going to try for at least $320. Hopefully I'll have it by monday, thanks again!

Ace&Jocelyn · #10 06-20-2010, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rumblethump

I've been gigging my HD 130 for the last 10 years. I run one or two 4 ohm 2-12s with it and it handles medium inside gigs and a outside no swet. Its one of those amps that no matter what bass you run through it sounds great. I think the greatest feature is the series speaker outputs. This allows the ability to run up to 4 cabs at once.

also, im curious as to what kind of cabinet that is?

rumblethump · #11 06-20-2010, 10:55 AM

Thanks for asking. Its a Legion Sound (Poor mans) Aguilar

. Made of 9 ply baltic birch . I also refurbed both LS cabs with T nuts, steel 1/4 ' jack plates, cabinet damping material and one with casters. It gets pants flappin loud with both cabs. $320 would be a fair price. I replaced the 6CA7's with EH EL34s, one of the original tubes was broken when it arrived. The price for an NOS 6CA7's 4 matched set, is through the roof if you can find them. I'm very happy with the Electro Harmonix tubes I replaced them with . I have never run out of head room with this amp and with 10 years + on current tubes they are still going strong.

andertone · #12 06-20-2010, 02:45 PM

actually, EH has a wide bottle 6CA7 quartet that isn't that expensive which is the best solution I've found (used to use the famous Sylvania 6CA7s). They don't saturate as fast as Sovtek, Ruby, Tesla etc, and give a nice warm bottom at low volumes)

Just need to be sure they are properly biased. Also, if you can get a stash of LM307H op amps (I think that's the one, might be LM306H) it will be to your advantage. I live in Tucson where many old Burr Brown op amps are relatively easy to find (for the preamp section)

Mine still going strong after 35 years

lpdeluxe · #13 06-20-2010, 02:53 PM

My rehearsal hall amp for a long time was an early HD-130 (with the 12AX7 inverter tube in the preamp and EL34s) and it was a great, growly bass amp when coupled with a Hartke 410XL. It was 144 lb with the cab, which is why it stayed in the hall, but -- other than that -- it was eminently giggable.