tube head or sealed cab: which is the biggest contributing factor to 'that' tone?

Willem · #1 01-15-2011, 05:32 PM

So I have been playing a Trace Elliot Hexavalve and an Ashdown Mag810 for the past 3 years. I have loved the punch and heft of the sound they give together.

If I were to replace one of both... what would stay closer in tone to that tube/sealed combo?

All tube + ported cab?
Or SS/class D amp + sealed cab?

JimmyM · #2 01-15-2011, 05:46 PM

a couple years ago i'd have said definitely option 1. and that's still the ultimate answer imho, but i've been very impressed where solid state is going lately. it's not quite to tube level yet but it gets closer every year.

christw · #3 01-15-2011, 05:49 PM

Why do you want to replace one or both?

Willem · #4 01-15-2011, 05:55 PM

I might be selling them soon because I want a different flavour. The hexa can't do dirty, so I have always gassed for some lower power tube head... but now these lightweights are catching my eye. Markbass little rocker, TC stuff, the new Aguilar, the GK's, ... The big cabs don't bother me, they have weels...

on a side note, would the 500 watt minis be able to replace a 300 watt all tube amp in the volume/soundpressure department with the same cab? The hexa maxed out at 340...

christw · #5 01-15-2011, 06:02 PM

Gotcha. Look for one of the many hybrid heads on the market with an overdriveable tube preamp. A few of the many (that I can think of) are the Genz Benz Streamliner, GK MB Fusion, Carvin BX1500, Orange Terror Bass, among others. Some are lighter weight than others. Mesa gear has a good rep for getting dirty too.

Frankly though, a good pedal could make that rig sound like a whole different beast.

Willem · #6 01-15-2011, 06:50 PM

I've had pedals befor... they are not for me. I'm not coordinated enough to play and step. Being able to control the grind with my fingers will do plenty!

koobie · #7 01-15-2011, 08:10 PM

FWIW, my 200 watt Quatra Valve sounds significantly bigger than my 300 watt Walkabout. If you like your Hexa Valve but want to hear it with some grind, you might try it with an edgy preamp upstream. When I want to rock out with the Quatra Valve, I run a Hughes & Kettner Fortress preamp into the QV's power amp input, bypassing the solid-state input & eq altogether. Even when I'm playing with relatively cleaner tones, I still bypass the solid-state input section for something with tubes.

To directly answer your question, keep your head and try it with ported cabs.

Willem · #8 01-16-2011, 09:11 AM

The Trace is sold. I'm putting the cab up the block too.

So to get that punchy hefty tone...
GB Streamliner or TC Classic with Berg NV
or
Tube amp with ported cab?

Which will get closer to Tube amp + sealed cab?

craig.p · #9 01-16-2011, 09:26 AM

If it were me, I'd go GK with Berg NV, only because I have zero personal experience with GB or TC. But yeah, punchy+hefty pretty much lines up with "sealed cab" in my experience. I have a 1x15 sealed cab (2.6 cu ft) that bullseyes that tone with either an MB200 or a Backline 600 or even the head section of a Carvin MB15 (drive control up).

mikkejohansson · #10 01-16-2011, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willem

I've had pedals befor... they are not for me. I'm not coordinated enough to play and step. Being able to control the grind with my fingers will do plenty!

Get a VT Bass, superglue it to your amp, and just push it to "on" when you start up your amp....

naturalkinds · #11 01-16-2011, 10:35 AM

Just throwing this out there... but...

One thing that gives sealed speaker enclosures their 'sound', that often gets overlooked in these discussions, is their improved temporal impulse response. While in lacking a port, the sealed designs do suffer a low-end roll-off at a higher frequency than a comparable ported design, sealed cabinets -- and this is especially evident with studio monitors -- have a temporal accuracy that a lot of people like. We're talking milliseconds here, but it does make an audible difference, and, in studio situations, gives the low end a very natural feel.

If you're interested in the importance of temporal response in audio gear, there's a great article on the Earthworks site about it. I believe it's called 'It's all about time: Blackmer's model of hearing'.

I'd probably experiment with a sealed cab first if you're into that tone. Like Jimmy said, the SS stuff sounds so darn good these days.

ishouldbeking · #12 01-16-2011, 10:42 AM

my walkabout sounds real nice and does a pretty good job getting 'that' tone, but I played the Genz Benz Streamliner 900 yesterday at NAMM and -- bear in mind this was at a noisy trade show -- it sounded incredible, as far as I could tell. It can get very dirty and it had a powerful thump, to say the least. If I were in the amp market I'd hop on board the GB train right now.

Jim C · #13 01-16-2011, 10:54 AM

I too love the Walkabout as this amp gets as close as I can come to a light weight SVT.
Downside is its' 300 watt output (although there are not many tube amps that get much more pwoerful). Upside is that they are very reliable and can be found on the used market.
Awaiting the obvious comparrison between the WA and Streamliner and secretly hope that the latter isn't as good.
To answer the OP's question; IMO head is more imprtant assuming a high quality level (no junk cabinets). Based on your paramters, I'd be looking at an SVT, WA, Streamliner, and Orange or Reeves if you've got the budget.
Or, a VT pedal.

Willem · #14 01-16-2011, 11:01 AM

If I were to go with an all tube again, I'll definately get myself a Berg NV 412.
Could a 500 watt micro like the LMIII, the TC450, the new Aguilar and many others push that cab to sould levels I'm used to with a big all tube?

jastacey · #15 01-16-2011, 11:09 AM

The Berg NV cabs are pretty efficient ... I recently used a walkabout head at gig and had no issues with the volume, that head has some really nice tone ... the Berg NV cabinets will take 750 RMS watts with no problem and will get very loud ... probably louder, than you really need to be

ishouldbeking · #16 01-16-2011, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willem

If I were to go with an all tube again, I'll definately get myself a Berg NV 412.
Could a 500 watt micro like the LMIII, the TC450, the new Aguilar and many others push that cab to sould levels I'm used to with a big all tube?

honestly it could probably go a bit louder, though whether it has that magical thickness you'd expect from a tube amp is another issue. I haven't had the chance to push mine yet, but I've heard the Walkabout is comparable to an SVT in terms of volume (when running into comparably-sized cabs). I know the goal of the Streamliner was to deliver that tone in a micro package with way more power available. The 900 watt head I would expect to crush an SVT in terms of overall volume, honestly.

Whether or not it can REALLY do that sound though... yet to be seen. It sure felt like it at NAMM, but I didn't get to play with the EQ much, and with all the background noise it was hard to hear it accurately. That said: it FELT solid and thick, and what I could hear sounded exactly how I'd want it to on a gig. I just plugged in a precision and let er rip (I'm a pickstyle guy) and didn't feel the need to tweak any knobs from their flat setting... just sounded good, to me.

Randall · #17 01-16-2011, 11:20 AM

With my gear I like to run a tube head with a sealed cab and a ported cab with a S.S head.

When I run my Mesa D-180 or Ampeg V4b (thanks Jim

) with my Berg NV 412 it just feels/sounds a little bit better than my Glockenklang Soul head with that cab.

Mesa Boogie ported 4X10 sounds/feels a little bit better with the Glockenklang than my tube heads.

Now I would be happy with any of these combinations but find the tried and true combos sound best to my ears.

craig.p · #18 01-16-2011, 02:32 PM

To Naturalkinds's point: True, sealed cabs do roll off earlier, everything else being equal. But... one related upside is that you don't lose driver support way down in the rolloff region. Sealed cabs tend to EQ-up pretty gracefully and relatively safely.

My sealed 1x15's WinISD model shows a -3dB point of 65 Hz. My GK amps' bass controls' knee points happen to be at 60 Hz. (Hm. What a coincidence!

) A little goose-up down there with that control, and great things happen.

naturalkinds · #19 01-16-2011, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by craig.p

To Naturalkinds's point: True, sealed cabs do roll off earlier, everything else being equal. But... one related upside is that you don't lose driver support way down in the rolloff region. Sealed cabs tend to EQ-up pretty gracefully and relatively safely.

My sealed 1x15's WinISD model shows a -3dB point of 65 Hz. My GK amps' bass controls' knee points happen to be at 60 Hz. (Hm. What a coincidence!

) A little goose-up down there with that control, and great things happen.

Right on. I'm in total agreement.

The low Hz roll-off is much more of an issue with a studio monitor. They're, in general, specifically designed to accept no EQ, or only minimal EQ (typically, in the form of 2-band +-2dB shelving).

But for a bass amp with somewhat helpful EQ stack? Yeah. Not much of a big deal. (So long as you're not using something like the TecAmp Puma, with totally frustrating uber-deep bass EQ @ 30 Hz!)

PappaK · #20 01-18-2011, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ishouldbeking

honestly it could probably go a bit louder, though whether it has that magical thickness you'd expect from a tube amp is another issue. I haven't had the chance to push mine yet, but I've heard the Walkabout is comparable to an SVT in terms of volume (when running into comparably-sized cabs). I know the goal of the Streamliner was to deliver that tone in a micro package with way more power available. The 900 watt head I would expect to crush an SVT in terms of overall volume, honestly.

Whether or not it can REALLY do that sound though... yet to be seen. It sure felt like it at NAMM, but I didn't get to play with the EQ much, and with all the background noise it was hard to hear it accurately. That said: it FELT solid and thick, and what I could hear sounded exactly how I'd want it to on a gig. I just plugged in a precision and let er rip (I'm a pickstyle guy) and didn't feel the need to tweak any knobs from their flat setting... just sounded good, to me.

What cab was the Streamliner plugged into?