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Ampeg SVT 7 Pro Club

#941
JimmyM said:
Ya, me too. PF series is good at it, too, but there does seem to be a little extra zing for me with the 7 Pro. Maybe it's headroom, but I also think the tube circuit helps. It's just one but it's a real working tube and not a glory tube.
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The 7pro seems to be getting more love as a tube amp alternative than the 3pro. But the 3 pro has like 5 tubes.

I wonder why that is? Do you think the 7 comes closer to the SVT sound than the 3pro?
 
#949
VeganThump said:
It's not even close, when it comes to emulating the SVT-CL tone, the 7pro blows the 3pro out of the water.
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+1 billion
I've owned all three as well as an SVP-CL through a 1500 watt Ampeg power amp. Have kept all but the 3-Pro.

7-Pro is by far the closest at sounding like the real deal however when I A/B the two (via an Ampeg selector switch) the CL really does sound better for all applications IME/IMO.
Hence why I refer to it as the King; Ampeg can't truly emulate or better the full tube SVT at this time.

With that said, the 7-Pro goes to 90% of the bar gigs due to weight.
 
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#952
There's a quality to the sound of the 7 Pro that isn't in trad solid state amps. It reminds me of the sag you get when you turn a tube amp up to the point of breakup but not quite distortion. Trad solid state amps are generally tighter sounding to me. That said, I find myself liking the 3 and 4 Pro a lot more than I used to because sometimes I really dig the tightness.
 
#953
Jim C said:
+1 billion
I've owned all three as well as an SVP-CL through a 1500 watt Ampeg power amp. Have kept all but the 3-Pro.

7-Pro is by far the closest at sounding like the real deal however when I A/B the two (via an Ampeg selector switch) the CL really does sound better for all applications IME/IMO.
Hence why I refer to it as the King; Ampeg can't truly emulate or better the full tube SVT at this time.

With that said, the 7-Pro goes to 90% of the bar gigs due to weight.
Click to expand...

To each his own I guess as I think the 3 Pro kills the 7 Pro in SVT tube type tone, not even close IMO. I have owned an SVT II (non-pro) and the 7 Pro. In a blind sound test, I could get my 3 Pro to sound like an SVT all day long and you would not be able to tell the difference.

An SVT has more clean headroom. But the 3 Pro, like an SVT, just has that beautiful Ampeg grunt and heaviness in the bottom end. I also found the mid-selector switch more responsive with the 3 Pro than the 7 Pro for some reason? There seems to be more immediacy with the notes I am playing when certain mid-frequencies are selected.
 
#958
A friend of mine paid me a nice surprise today by dropping off his 7pro since he will be using his smaller combo for his next few gigs. He knows I have been looking for an additional lighter rig and wanted me to be able to try this head.

First impressions: pretty easy to dial in the tone I want. It is definitely NOT in the same class with my vintage SVT, but of course I was not expecting it to be. I A/Bed them back and forth for just an hour and I can get pretty close. It's still cleaner sounding to me, and the bass seems to be a bit boomier, which I remedied by backing off the bass and selecting the lowest midrange (all the way to the left).

I bet this might have been covered before, but I found it actually sounds best to my ears when the gain is either all the way up or close to it, and using the master as the volume. Otherwise it's a bit too clean to me. Will this Hurt the amp?

I am playing it through my V4 cab but I would plan on getting another smaller cab too. This thing is so high powered I've noticed that no single cab ampeg makes is a perfect match to its power. And I have no interest in using two cabs.

After practicing with a B100 for the last two months I really digging the 15 sound. Would it be safe to use, say the pf115lf even tho it's rated at 400 watts? It's 8 ohm so the amp would be pushing 600 watts.

The other cab I am considering is the 212av which is 4 ohms and handles 600 watts. In that situ the amp would push 1000 watts.

Which do you think would be more ideal if either? I kind of wish the 7pro wasn't quite as powerful. But I really do like the sound.
 
#959
whitespikebass said:
A friend of mine paid me a nice surprise today by dropping off his 7pro since he will be using his smaller combo for his next few gigs. He knows I have been looking for an additional lighter rig and wanted me to be able to try this head.

First impressions: pretty easy to dial in the tone I want. It is definitely NOT in the same class with my vintage SVT, but of course I was not expecting it to be. I A/Bed them back and forth for just an hour and I can get pretty close. It's still cleaner sounding to me, and the bass seems to be a bit boomier, which I remedied by backing off the bass and selecting the lowest midrange (all the way to the left).

I bet this might have been covered before, but I found it actually sounds best to my ears when the gain is either all the way up or close to it, and using the master as the volume. Otherwise it's a bit too clean to me. Will this Hurt the amp?

I am playing it through my V4 cab but I would plan on getting another smaller cab too. This thing is so high powered I've noticed that no single cab ampeg makes is a perfect match to its power. And I have no interest in using two cabs.

After practicing with a B100 for the last two months I really digging the 15 sound. Would it be safe to use, say the pf115lf even tho it's rated at 400 watts? It's 8 ohm so the amp would be pushing 600 watts.

The other cab I am considering is the 212av which is 4 ohms and handles 600 watts. In that situ the amp would push 1000 watts.

Which do you think would be more ideal if either? I kind of wish the 7pro wasn't quite as powerful. But I really do like the sound.
Click to expand...


You won't hurt it running the gain hot, I'm usually pretty cranked up, but my active basses don't take much to get into the fuzz.
 
#960
I've courted a few different amps in the last 6 months or so,a STR900, Aguilar TH500, Eden but have come back to the 7 pro as it's the the only head that I think brings the best out of my Warwick Thumb, to my ears at least anyway.

I managed to borrow a Berg AE112 earlier this week and for me, the combination of the three was tonal nirvana. I'm on the hunt for a pair now but there a little rare around these parts.

:cool:
 

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