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Ampeg V4B 70´s - Clean tone with loud volume its possible?

#26
Well, today with more time, im changin the equalizer (less deep and more mid-bass) and i get more volumen with out overdrive with the peavy cab, i need a bit of more volume, but i think that with a good cab i´ll have it.

Im speaking with the technical amp, and he is going to check the amp and the tubes, to see at wat real watage and the porcentage works the tubes.

Thanks a lot to everybody""
 
#27
I've used my V4B with alot of different cabinets over the years - everything from Kustom to Acoustic, and the best combination is... Ampeg/Ampeg. My favorite is 10s, as seen here...
Rig1.jpg
 
#29
lowend1 said:
Not exactly.
The SVT has four separate compartments in one big cab. each compartment houses a pair of 10s. The B40 is a straightforward 4x10 - same speakers, though, I think. My B40 was empty when I got it, so I'm not sure...
Click to expand...

Yeah, you may be right.

When I open up my B40, I will see if it has the internal baffles between the pairs.
 
#30
patxianton said:
The amp has got a nice sound, but if i wanna play at loud volume, i have to increase the volume, and the amp begans to overdriven more and more...
Click to expand...

What do you mean by loud? I cannot turn my V4B up past 1/2 way before it starts to distort, but it is freaking screaming by then. Loud is a hard thing to measure. Standing in front of an amp and banging on the bass is not a good way to measure loudness. You will adjust to your volume and maybe not think it is so loud. The V4B is plenty loud under most situations. Set it up with a full band and have someone else play it and stand back 20 meters and listen. If it is not loud enough, get a PA or new amp. I used to have soundmen complain to me that I was too loud in medium sized clubs. At the time, I could not even hear myself over the band, but the audience was bombarded by me.
 
#32
waitaminit! larry hartke said HE invented the 410 cab, but the b40 predates his cabs by a good 10-12 years...i guess sticking a tweeter in between them is really the same thing as inventing it....ha.
 
#33
I've played through V4s in the past and recently jumped on a clean, recently recapped & serviced VT22. My plan was for it to do double duty as a bass head and as a back-up guitar amp. For guitar, the thing could just cut your head off, mids all the way to the outer galaxies. Made a nice contrast to my Fender BF amp which is very scooped in comparison. But they can also be sweet as can be if you dial them in, they are great guitar amps.

But how do they sound on bass? For chewy/warm bass tones at fairly low levels, it sounded absolutely gorgeous. Except I wanted more clean headroom. And I wanted tighter bass too. Don't get me wrong, for levels that you might play at with a soft-ish drummer, it was just about perfect. Beyond that, it was way more distorted than I care for. Maybe for some players/genres the overdrive is to die for; I just don't care for anything more than a very slight breakup on a bass amp, so for my purposes it was an extremely heavy one-trick pony.

Again, this was recently serviced by a capable tech, had very new tubes, etc - with that kind of a tail wind, I'd consider a V4 underpowered by today's standards. I was driving two 3015-loaded cabs, fairly efficient. Now if the vintage V4B had more headroom than the V4, I might have to revisit one. No, I wouldn't; for that much weight, I'd want way, way more clean power. I was probably looking for an SVT and didn't know it.
 
#37
lowend1 said:
Not exactly.
The SVT has four separate compartments in one big cab. each compartment houses a pair of 10s. The B40 is a straightforward 4x10 - same speakers, though, I think. My B40 was empty when I got it, so I'm not sure...
Click to expand...

The speakers are different. I had a B40 and swapped out the speakers. I sold them to a friend who wanted to recondition his old 8x10 cab and replace some blown speakers, but they were different. The cabs were both late 70s. My B40 speakers were square magnet CTS.
 
#38
coreyfyfe said:
The speakers are different. I had a B40 and swapped out the speakers. I sold them to a friend who wanted to recondition his old 8x10 cab and replace some blown speakers, but they were different. The cabs were both late 70s. My B40 speakers were square magnet CTS.
Click to expand...
you got the best out of that deal, eh? ;)
 
#39
koobie said:
But how do they sound on bass? For chewy/warm bass tones at fairly low levels, it sounded absolutely gorgeous. Except I wanted more clean headroom. And I wanted tighter bass too. Don't get me wrong, for levels that you might play at with a soft-ish drummer, it was just about perfect. Beyond that, it was way more distorted than I care for. Maybe for some players/genres the overdrive is to die for; I just don't care for anything more than a very slight breakup on a bass amp, so for my purposes it was an extremely heavy one-trick pony.
Click to expand...

With the right cab it isn't an issue. I've used mine with a 4x10 and now with a vintage ampeg 8x10 and haven't had trouble. I really love the sound of this amp with the 8x10. As far as tighter bass, when I had mine recapped, the tech installed an extra set of caps in parallel with some others that were in there to tighten up the bass, honestly I didn't really notice a whole lot of difference because I couldn't A/B with and without, but it sounds fantastic since it's been recapped. I don't overdrive my amp, may a little warmth, but any drive I use comes from pedals.
 
#40
JimmyM said:
you got the best out of that deal, eh? ;)
Click to expand...

I had the new speakers around, and they sounded fuller than the originals, so that's what I went with. Opportunity popped up to off-load the originals so I said why not. Some days I wish I could put it back to stock, but whatever, now I have the 8x10 and the 4x10 is hiding behind a couch in my living room :D.
 

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