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06-27-2011, 03:59 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Mass | | | What were the best vintage solid state preamps?
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I have heard of Ashley and Yamaha. Any other good ones? Anybody got experience with these? |
06-27-2011, 04:21 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: northeast Ohio | | These are rare... and cool... and supposedly sound pretty darn good... the Ampeg SBT preamp. It was Ampeg's take on the Kustom thing, a SS preamp with powered cabs. Looks like an SVT head but without the amp. From the schematic I was able to download it utilized BC 169 transistors which are one of those "magic mojo" transistors people seek out nowadays for building overdrive pedals. If you can find one, it would be pretty cool to have. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...w=1280&bih=921
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06-27-2011, 04:24 PM
| | | | Acoustic
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06-27-2011, 04:40 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: northeast Ohio | | | whatever you do, stay away from the BBE 383. I used one for a few years and it's not very good at all. It has 6 eq knobs but they suck for shaping tone. The only good thing is the BBE processor. Otherwise it sucks!
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06-27-2011, 07:00 PM
| | | | The Alembic F2b is outstanding. |
06-27-2011, 07:03 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex | | | Acoustic Control Corp. |
06-27-2011, 07:18 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Virginia Beach, VA | | Quote:
Originally Posted by grobe  I have heard of Ashley and Yamaha. Any other good ones? Anybody got experience with these? | Both are great choices. As others have mentioned, it's difficult to dial in a bad tone with the Yamaha PB-1. IIRC, the pre is based on the Fender tonestack with added benefit of a single band para EQ and biamp capability.
Riis
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06-27-2011, 07:25 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Maryland | | Quote:
Originally Posted by runmikeyrun whatever you do, stay away from the BBE 383. I used one for a few years and it's not very good at all. It has 6 eq knobs but they suck for shaping tone. The only good thing is the BBE processor. Otherwise it sucks! | Sounds like you wanted it to do something that it wasnt supposed to do in the first place. Its a solid state preamp that was designed to keep your bass sounding like your bass, its not and wasnt designed to be a Sansamp. The EQ points on that pre are actually pretty useful if you understand how the tone stack in that unit works
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06-27-2011, 07:27 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: USA | | | Try and Audio Arts parametric / preamp. |
06-27-2011, 07:46 PM
| | | | furman pq-3? |
06-27-2011, 08:05 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Somerset, New Jersey, USA | | | Acoustic, Sunn, Traynor, Yamaha
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06-27-2011, 08:06 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Metro Atlanta, Ga. | | | Agreed: Acoustic 360 is a solid state vintage pre-amp only. With the amp-powered cab =361.
Acoustic USA has "reissue" version; still pre amp?..I don't know, but they are real ; do exist.
Agreed on Furman: I love my Furman PQ-3. I own a black face re-issue. It is both Pre-Amp and Parametric EQ. Both are great. They also made PQ-4, 6 & 8, although I believe the 4 & 8 have a higher frequency; more suitable for guitar than bass. The Furman makes my 1971 CTS equiped Kustom 200-B sound from feeble to fabulous. If you don't have high quality speakers a good EQ is a more affordable way to compensate. I prefer parametrics over graphics, as there are no frequency gaps but this is all just my opinion. |
06-27-2011, 08:11 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Providence, RI | | | Oh man, I had an Acoustic 370 (which was the 360 with a power amp) and it was awesome. |
06-27-2011, 08:53 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Mar 2000 Location: Baltimore County, Md. | | | cool vintage solid state bass preamps
I agree with what's been said so far. If you like the Acoustic 360 preamp you'd probably also like the Viva Analog 360+. It's the same design in a much smaller package, and made with higher quality parts. JC the maker is great to deal with (no connection).
Acoustic made a really rare solid state rackmount preamp called the BP-10. If you can find one, check it out.
It's not vintage by most definitions, but I've always really liked the EBS rackmount preamps. I know of three different models. The first two had a grey face and the last (10'th anniversary model) was black face. I prefer the black face, because it had a certain amount of slight distortion which I thought was very musically useful. The EQ takes some getting used to. It's a boost only design with three semi-paramteric active filters (lo. mid, hi) and a fourth filter that acts like a variable level bright switch. If you can find one, try it.
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06-27-2011, 08:57 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: northeast Ohio | | Quote:
Originally Posted by parsons Sounds like you wanted it to do something that it wasnt supposed to do in the first place. Its a solid state preamp that was designed to keep your bass sounding like your bass, its not and wasnt designed to be a Sansamp. The EQ points on that pre are actually pretty useful if you understand how the tone stack in that unit works | I monkeyed with that thing for several years trying to get a good tone... I just never could figure it out. I wasn't trying to use it as a sansamp, I was just trying to get a decent sound out of it. I never could.
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06-27-2011, 09:00 PM
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Artist:TC Electronic RH450 bass system | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Fort Madison, IA | |  Quote:
Originally Posted by Codger furman pq-3? | |
06-27-2011, 09:01 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: San Diego, CA | | | Vintage...
Solid State...
Oh my. Oh my.
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06-27-2011, 09:07 PM
| | Registered User
Artist:TC Electronic RH450 bass system | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Fort Madison, IA | | Quote:
Originally Posted by BigOldHarry Vintage...
Solid State...
Oh my. Oh my. | I like new myself! |
06-27-2011, 09:09 PM
| | | | Yamaha had some great sounding preamps. I had a pb-1 (I foolishly sold it a while ago) But it was great sounding, kinda tubey and very warm. You can't get that tube breakup sounds but for anything clean, it sounded godly. I could get a great fingerstyle tone from it.The only issue i had with mine is that sometimes the power button would just refuse to work, i don't know if that's just my unit though. | | Thread Tools | Search this Thread | | | | 
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