• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Class D and Neo cabs are the future!

I don't see many solid state or class D guitar heads, either.


That's because they don't sound good, obviously you know that. I'm 38, I'm also 6'2" and about 240lbs. To me, I already have lightweight amps, they're 2U SS jobs that come in at 30-40-50lbs when mounted in a wooden headcase. I see people with briefcases and even kids with backpacks that weigh more than that and aren't nearly as easy to carry.

Does the new light craze make sense to some people, sure. If I lived in NYC and couldn't afford a car or if I was 60 and my back hurt I'd get one. I've played your markbasses and your GK mini heads and all that but it seems to me that they're just now getting to the point where they can sound almost as good as real amps in some cases so the entire outlay of cash still means whining over a few pounds. We play the bass man, not the flute. I have a Peavey Classic400 that's been sitting here tubeless for some time just waiting for one of my other bass amps to give up the ghost. That thing tips the scales at about 97lbs. and when the time comes, I'll be putting 4 pounds of tubes in that thing instead of blowing 600 on a 4 pound pocket-rocket and it's not a financial decision either, I've played them too.


Check back with me when I'm 60, opinions may have changed by then.:D
 
What it all comes down to is, as always, the money. When manufacturers run out of sufficient customers willing to pay the ever increasing price for tubes, heavy iron and strontium they will go the way of the Hummer and the McMansion. And Basson.


True but until something happens in the guitar world to put tubes out of the picture on a mass scale, there will be tubes. I haven't seen anything that tells me that's going to happen anytime soon but someday it may.
 
True but until something happens in the guitar world to put tubes out of the picture on a mass scale, there will be tubes. I haven't seen anything that tells me that's going to happen anytime soon but someday it may.
It already happened, 20 plus years ago. 6L6GC tubes used to run about five bucks, 12AX7s two bucks. What do you think will be the result when tube costs double again in less than ten years, which is very likely?
 
I agree..my shuttle 9 is my main amp.. and i fly with it too... but some gigs i use my GBE1200 just because I like the way it feels.


there's a place for everything. for some, they will be the wave of the future. for others, nothing else will do but the big iron and big cabs with big fat magnets. me, i straddle the fence, but i'm finding it harder and harder to go without my ampegs.
 
It already happened, 20 plus years ago. 6L6GC tubes used to run about five bucks, 12AX7s two bucks. What do you think will be the result when tube costs double again in less than ten years, which is very likely?


To be more precise, there's a reason cokes used to cost a nickel and you could get a gallon of gas or a hamburger for 25 cents. The coke is still a coke, the gallon of gas is still a gallon of gas and the hamburger is still a hamburger. The difference is the dollar, it doesn't buy what it used to. Look at gold and silver prices. Whether you bought a house decades ago for 30,000 and the same house today cost you 300,000, both can be had for about the same amount of gold or silver. The dollar is the wild card here, not the product.
 
The tube is still the same tube, it's the money that's worth less, takes more of it to get the same thing but that applies to everything.
Tube prices have little to nothing to do with inflation. Their production in the West virtually ceased with the combination of reduced demand and increased costs of production related to the very toxic by-products they create. They remained in production in the former Soviet bloc because Soviet military gear used them, and there was no EPA in those countries. Those two factors are rapidly going away, and the musical instrument industry alone won't be sufficient to sustain their economical production indefinitely. And if that alone doesn't kill the tube, shipping costs of the necessarily heavy amps that use them will. It's not a matter of if, only when.
 
yeah, yeah...i have been hearing the same thing for 30 years. hasn't happened yet. in bass world, all tube amps have made a tremendous comeback in the last 10 years, and in guitar world, ss amps are virtually non-existent on pro stages except for newbs and trent reznor.

however, modelling does seem to be cutting a swath through the no amps on stage crowd, i'll give you that. and modeling's gotten a lot better over the past 3-4 years. but i think tube amps are safe until i'm gone at least, which is all i care about ;)
 
Again, all true but shipping is a cost of producing somewhere else. We produce somewhere else because it's cheaper, because they don't have any standards and we don't care.

It's absolutely true that some countries still make tubes and some don't and a lot of the reasons why but regardless, it all comes back to money. That's what this all runs on and look at how expensive everything in general has become compared to "the good ole days".

This began in 1913 with the start of the federal reserve system and everything has gotten more expensive ever since. If you want to be technical you can trace it back the the reconstruction. It's the condition of our money and what it can or can't do anymore, it's not based on anything, if whoever decides to stop giving us loans one day we're knocked back to the stone age. It's no coincedence that almost every product in the country is somehow linked to China as they are the largest holder of our debt. Second place goes to the federal reserve bank.

Class D is the wave of the future for now because that's what we can do for even cheaper because our dollar doesn't count for much anymore so maybe you are right and tubes will die eventually. They probably will, when?, who knows, hopefully it's a long way off. Trying to get back on topic here after my "rant".
 
Nothing wrong with Neo magnets or class D amplification, but it seems to me neither has been exploited to full potential. Why after all this time no 75-80 lb. 8x10 or 4x12 cabs (or 35-40 lb 2x12 cabs) boggles my mind a bit.
 
Nothing wrong with Neo magnets or class D amplification, but it seems to me neither has been exploited to full potential. Why after all this time no 75-80 lb. 8x10 or 4x12 cabs (or 35-40 lb 2x12 cabs) boggles my mind a bit.
wood. wood is still the best compromise between ridigity and price. but it's not light.
 
Tube amps and heavy speakers will always have a market. It doesn't matter if they did come out with a 5lb amp and a 20 lb speaker cabinet that exactly duplicated the sound of an SVT with an 8x10 refrigerator hooked up to it.

Because people would still claim to hear the difference. There's a reason there's a market for $1000 audiophile speaker cables.

People love to feel special, they can hear a difference that you can't.

Randy

this
 
wood. wood is still the best compromise between ridigity and price. but it's not light.

True, but if you do the math, an Eminence S2012 is 4.1 lbs. / 16.4 lbs total for a 4x12. A Deltalite II 10" is only 4.6 lbs. / 36.8 lbs total for an 8x10. 1/2 inch plywood and more strategic bracing isn't brain science/rocket surgery.