All tube combo?

[JimmyM]

And you sir, have just lost any and and all credibility from my perspective. If you think that you're playing upright because of the look and not the sound how can you make any judgments on something as complex as amplifier technologies.

I know you're not saying you can't tell the sounds of the two instruments apart, but if you can't see the importance of the different sounds, then how can we take your word on the importance of different sounds of amplifiers.

exactly.

 

[seamonkey]

And you sir, have just lost any and and all credibility from my perspective. If you think that you're playing upright because of the look and not the sound how can you make any judgments on something as complex as amplifier technologies.

I know you're not saying you can't tell the sounds of the two instruments apart, but if you can't see the importance of the different sounds, then how can we take your word on the importance of different sounds of amplifiers.

The band leaders call and say the Room needs an Upright.
Or the music calls for an upright. I bet the audience or clients don't care. Unless they're taking pictures with the band.

 

[SactoBass]

I'm confused. Was this thread about providing the OP with info on all tube combos that are available?

 

[dieseldan]

Gibson Thor

 

[JimmyM]

The band leaders call and say the Room needs an Upright.
Or the music calls for an upright. I bet the audience or clients don't care. Unless they're taking pictures with the band.

i've been trying to think of some way i could say it nicely because i'm often not nice to you (though you deserve it), and i just can't. it's such a ridiculous thing to say.

 

[coreyfyfe]

Original question - are there small wattage tube bass amps available in the vein of the increasing number of low wattage tube guitar amps.

Rather than being helpful, your response:

No - there's no market for it.
People can't hear the difference between a tube amp and an amp with built in emulation, or a pedal to add compression and distortion.
But if you insist, you can plug a 10w head into a big efficient cabinet and it will sound surprisingly loud in your bedroom.

Off topic? No, maybe not. Trolling? Yes. You did not address the OPs question and instead offered your own opinion in an effort to shoot down the basic premise of the thread and ruffle the feathers of others.

And you did it again:

And then there's "Special pleading". i.e.
Psychics can never seem to produce their ESP claims when they're put under scientific scrutiny.
Special pleading lets you dump a wad load of money on some "real" amp then attempt to "Confirm" your purchase reasoning by making up some new claim about something can't be measurements, recorded and reproduced.
Maybe you have "Golden Ears" or "Golden Feel", I doubt it. You could of course, do something to prove it.
I naturally present my bias along with other listening tests, and players testing, and null testing that have confirmed modelers do the job. And they can do more. At much more affordable prices.
Check the market - much bigger market for modelers than tube combos. The major manufacturers and smart enough to archive their golden reference amps in modelers, and put their name brand on the box.

Again you push modeling when the question was about who is making low wattage bass tube amps. Given that the OP never stated a performance context, your posting is irrelevant. Not only that, but you push your own opinion and attempt to insinuate that the rest of us are some how lesser or unqualified because we can hear a difference between tube and modeling.

As far as low powered (admittedly not necessarily low cost) tube amps, check back to the first page - I posted two combos. There are other heads out there as well, but as the question was about combos and some of us like to be helpful and address the OP's question, I stuck with combos. Give it some time and I'm sure a cheaper version of the Ashdown Little Bastard (not too bad at $840) will probably come along.

 

[GregC]

Is that all you've got?

People do this when they can't think of any reasonable counterpoint.

People do this when you show up to troll tube threads. We get it, you don't care for tubes and don't understand those of us who do. Keep yourself out of tube threads and save us all the headache.

Look back - I didn't take the thread off topic.
Or
Show me the low cost low power bass heads the OP wants.

I'll continue to present alternative approaches.

Baloney.

No - there's no market for it.

People can't hear the difference between a tube amp and an amp with built in emulation, or a pedal to add compression and distortion.

But if you insist, you can plug a 10w head into a big efficient cabinet and it will sound surprisingly loud in your bedroom.

Whoops, corey beat me to it and in much better fashion.

 

[JimmyM]

Baloney.

Whoops, corey beat me to it and in much better fashion.

i don't know, greg...a simple "baloney" is pretty effective. and fitting.

 

[aledeville]

hmmm...in what part of the svt are there clipping diodes? because i've used ampeg tube amps for decades and i don't recall a single one with clipping diodes.

They're in the poweramp. They are antiparallel and make that the poweramp distorts earlier. It's actually pretty simple, but effective. The overdriven sound you hear when you push an SVT is produced by clipping diodes. You can take them out, but the distortion you are able to produce then is really (!) itchy.
In the 1978 SVT, the diodes are labelled with D1 and D2.

This fact does not degrade the SVT or something, it's just an explanation. However, it's not the overdriven sound that makes an SVT an SVT. It's much more, the compression, the dynamics etc.
That's why people still schlepp their heavy **** around

 

[GregC]

i don't know, greg...a simple "baloney" is pretty effective. and fitting.

Thanks, Jimmy.

On topic, that new Ashdown combo looks intriguing (and very sharp). I'm curious to see what the dimensions of the 200-watt head turn out to be, too.

Had Ashdown ever made an all-tube head before the Little Bastard?

 

[JimmyM]

They're in the poweramp. They are antiparallel and make that the poweramp distorts earlier. It's actually pretty simple, but effective. The overdriven sound you hear when you push an SVT is produced by clipping diodes. You can take them out, but the distortion you are able to produce then is really (!) itchy.
In the 1978 SVT, the diodes are labelled with D1 and D2.

i so don't understand this. the idea of the svt was to produce 300w of clean tube tone. what's the point of installing diodes to make them clip earlier? that's their only purpose? seems very counter-intuitive to me. of course, i'm no expert on it, but for a company to produce a tube amp based on its clean capabilities then install diodes to make it clip earlier just doesn't compute.

 

[JimmyM]

Thanks, Jimmy.

On topic, that new Ashdown combo looks intriguing (and very sharp). I'm curious to see what the dimensions of the 200-watt head turn out to be, too.

Had Ashdown ever made an all-tube head before the Little Bastard?

ashdown came out with a line of tube amps last year and they were all announced at the same time.

i can't imagine flipping a 200w tube head is fun, btw

 

[aledeville]

@JimmyM
I never said, that the SVT concept was to make an amplifier with as much clean headroom as possible. Compared to a Hiwatt the SVT starts much earlier to grumble/distort etc.

 

[JimmyM]

@JimmyM
I never said, that the SVT concept was to make an amplifier with as much clean headroom as possible. Compared to a Hiwatt the SVT starts much earlier to grumble/distort etc.

i know YOU didn't say it, aldeville. ampeg said it back in 1969. the entire reason for the svt to have been built was to give musicians a tube amp with inordinately high headroom that could compete with the higher power solid state heads that were starting to cut into their market share. the idea that they were built to distort is a relatively recent idea started by young folks spoiled by solid state heads with 4 figures of wattage.

 

[greenboy]

ampeg said it back in 1969. the entire reason for the svt to have been built was to give musicians a tube amp with inordinately high headroom that could compete with the higher power solid state heads that were starting to cut into their market share. the idea that they were built to distort is a relatively recent idea started by young folks spoiled by solid state heads with 4 figures of wattage.

They probably got that idea listening to live and studio recordings from that exact same time period - 1969, 1970... seems I recall hearing a lot of nice grunt from back then that was almost definitely done with an SVT. Later today I'll make sure I'm not off by a couple years, diggin' thru the collection.

 

[JimmyM]

the grunt bass was almost always done on a low power amp in the studio, especially back in that time frame. b-15's, b-12's, fender, marshall, sunn, west...even live, more often they used 100w amps for bass if they were into that sound. most of the svt guys from the 70's that i can remember actually played pretty clean. there were some brave enough to dime it, but nothing like now where you see a guy with an svt and you expect him to dime it.

 

[greenboy]

I'm going from live albums, and live film/video, not just studio stuff, J. It was a fact that PA was not in a great state back then so I don't think it's that hard to imagine bassists, who have always been the instruments with the greatest loudness disadvantage, cranking what they brung just to be heard, let alone once they discovered that it sounded pretty good for the type of music the bands they were in did.

 

[D.M.N.]

Look back - I didn't take the thread off topic.
Or
Show me the low cost low power bass heads the OP wants.

I'll continue to present alternative approaches.

Let me show you that low cost/low power head then.

Soultone 2061x (Marshall 20w Lead&Bass) No, it's not a combo as the OP originally asked for, but it's small and low powered. Here's Mark Olson's original thread about it, including soundclips:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=648358&highlight=soultone

As he mentions there, the Soultone kit is $850, but you could also get a fully built version from Ceriatone for $610. Low cost, Low Power, but awesome.

 

[tombowlus]

WHAT!!! There's something you don't own Tom????

LOL! Yeah, I am slackin', I know.

 

[JimmyM]

I'm going from live albums, and live film/video, not just studio stuff, J. It was a fact that PA was not in a great state back then so I don't think it's that hard to imagine bassists, who have always been the instruments with the greatest loudness disadvantage, cranking what they brung just to be heard, let alone once they discovered that it sounded pretty good for the type of music the bands they were in did.

oh i'm not saying nobody cranked svt's. hey, gene simmons...there you go. i'm just saying that more folks back then used lower wattage amps if they needed to crank, and it wasn't too long after the svt was invented that pa systems caught up with the demands. they did it poorly, but they did catch up. all i can tell you is that by the time i got out playing and noticed who was using what, i saw more bass players with clean tones using svt's than dirty. certainly not an official survey of ampeg users back then, but that's how i saw it.