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Hybrid amps

#41
cyclealt said:
I'm not looking to purchase anytime soon, nor am I asking for people to A/B specific brands. I
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IMO part of the confusion in this thread is that you said that you aren't asking for specifics.
That means you are - by definition - asking for generalities.

One of the most respected & prolific bass amp designers currently designing bass amps gave you input:
Namely that you can't generalize just based on type - and you rejected that input.

But @agedhorse is absolutely correct - the amp is a product of the designer's intent and skill.

For instance, I've owned 100% solid state amps by Peavey and GK, a hybrid amp by GK, and all-tube amps by Peavey.
There's probably more consistency by brand than there is by type.

But brand is hardly the full story: I've owned a hybrid Genz-Benz Shuttle 9.0 and a hybrid Genz-Benz Streamliner 900.
They are both 900 watt Class D hybrids -by Genz-Benz, designed by the same people and coming out of the same factory - yet they are VERY different amps.

The Mesa bass amp line is the same story - one designer producing a bunch of amps with different design goals, intended to speak to different players.

Let us know what kind of sound you're after and we can probably help you get there.
But don't be so quick to shoot the messenger, especially when they wrote several chapters in the book...
 
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#42
groovaholic said:
IMO part of the confusion in this thread is that you said that you aren't asking for specifics.
That means you are - by definition - asking for generalities.
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I'm starting to think everyone just read the first line of my post and decided to respond based on that.

I think people here are so use to getting "what amp should I get?" posts that they read the first line of mine and assumed the rest. I'm not shopping for an amp nor looking for a sound (at least not any time soon), I'm asking about day to day user experience and their own personal justification for the hybrid.

Anyways you answered it which I am grateful for. I'll take note of what you said.
 
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#43
Ran a Mesa D-800+ (non hybrid) for a few years. Mesa dropped the WD800 and I had to have the new shiny thing. Ran it for couple years. But I went back to D-800+ for its more immediate feel and thicker sounding low end. I had no real need to have a tube amp like sound to be honest. BUT… the WD800 is a fantastically good amp.
 
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#46
cyclealt said:
I'm curious about hybrid amps, I'm not looking to purchase anytime soon, nor am I asking for people to A/B specific brands. I've watched multiple videos on multiple hybrid amps and most times I feel like I'm watching a sales pitch rather than something informative. So I was curious about talkbass user's opinions;

What do you like about them? What do you dislike? Which ones do you own or tried? How are they for transporting to a gig how do they play at the gig vs a jam/band practice/living room practice. What tone applications are you using them for that you feel solid state doesn't provide?

While I don't have any brand in mind or G.A.S at the moment I do think that once I become more informed that further down the line I'd purchase one.

Thanks for your input!
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I have two amp heads of the same mfg, one is all solid state, and one is hybrid; tube preamp and ss power amp.

They both have very similar eq controls otherwise. I’ve recorded and played live with both pretty extensively, so I think I can comment on the differences pretty well. At least with this brand.

My experience is that they both sound great, and not incredibly different to my ears, until you start really driving the preamp.

So to me, the big difference is in the realm of how they overdrive. They sound very similar to my ears otherwise.

The ss one doesn’t really seem to create much overdrive on its own, but if I crank the tube pre, it creates a nice rich drive tone.

I also feel that that tube pre version responds a bit differently to any drive pedals that come before it. The drive pedals sound a bit warmer/less harsh and more organic to my ears when they hit the tube. I just prefer it in that case.

I see what Aged horse is talking about though. I have for example had a tube vocal preamp that was pretty crappy overall, and just seemed muddy, and another tube pre that’s magic, to my ears.

But all things being equal, in my case literally the same amp, but one is ss and one is hybrid, my opinion is the difference is pretty subtle, and only matters if you are driving it.

Just a subjective opinion of one, ymmv and all that.
 
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#47
ThinCrappyTone2 said:
I have two amp heads of the same mfg, one is all solid state, and one is hybrid; tube preamp and ss power amp.

They both have very similar eq controls otherwise. I’ve recorded and played live with both pretty extensively, so I think I can comment on the differences pretty well. At least with this brand.

My experience is that they both sound great, and not incredibly different to my ears, until you start really driving the preamp.

So to me, the big difference is in the realm of how they overdrive. They sound very similar to my ears otherwise.

The ss one doesn’t really seem to create much overdrive on its own, but if I crank the tube pre, it creates a nice rich drive tone.

I also feel that that tube pre version responds a bit differently to any drive pedals that come before it. The drive pedals sound a bit warmer/less harsh and more organic to my ears when they hit the tube. I just prefer it in that case.

I see what Aged horse is talking about though. I have for example had a tube vocal preamp that was pretty crappy overall, and just seemed muddy, and another tube pre that’s magic, to my ears.

But all things being equal, in my case literally the same amp, but one is ss and one is hybrid, my opinion is the difference is pretty subtle, and only matters if you are driving it.

Just a subjective opinion of one, ymmv and all that.
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A subjective opinion is all I ever wanted from this post, bro. Thanks.
 
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#48
cyclealt said:
The context of how something is used is more important than the design or the quality of its "designer" and its intention. The user, musician, the person it is targeted and their impressions and experience for is more important (especially in the context of my post) it's more important than anything a designer intends on making whether it be "good" OR "bad".

I came here to ask people's experiences not what is "good" or "bad" and dealing in the idea of absolutes like your response is negligent at best, ignorant at most. Making a blanket statement without elaborating like you initially did doesn't contribute to the discussion. Nothing was preventing you from making this statement earlier.
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Here's where your lack of understanding is showing through, and why you are struggling to understand what just about everybody is saying.

The designer's skill and intent is directly related to the voicing, the feel, the tone and texture that an amp can generate for the player. A good designer has the skill and experience to translate all of the above into an amp for a particular type of player. As a designer, that's my job. Then, the design must be reliable, manufacturable, safe and affordable. Good designers do this well, poor designers don't.

Over my career, I have designed maybe 30 different bass amps.. both solid state and hybrid. They are all different, targeted at different players and genres, different desires, different feature sets, different performance capabilities, etc.

Maybe you would be better served by going out and playing some different amps to see what YOU prefer, rather than arguing with the community here?
 
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#49
cyclealt said:
No one's insulting his craftmanship. Just his contribution to this discussion.
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If I start a thread that just asks "What do you think?" - I shouldn't complain when the responses range from politics to pizza to baseball to bass.

Back when they used to teach computer coding, the acronym "GIGO" was a key lesson:
If you're not getting the outputs you want, you didn't design the query correctly.

The very fact that you started this thread means that you recognized a gap in your knowledge of this topic.
Then you argue with the expert who showed up.

It's like someone who watched King Kong arguing ape behavior with Jane Goodall...
 
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#50
cyclealt said:
That's really interesting that you mention it more as a marketing gimmick than an asset. After like the fifth youtube video it really started to feel more like a buzz word than a feature.
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This is where good deigns vs bad come into play. Marketing for the sake of marketing. It all really boils down to the topology. There are so many variables. How the tube is used within the circuit makes a difference. The voltage hitting it makes a difference. I’m not going to say I know it all (I know little) but if I wanted to differentiate 30 years of internet “experts” I’d start by combing Andy’s posts. You won’t find more knowledge in one place.

Don’t take him being direct or blunt as disrespectful - imagine a thread full of opinion that doesn’t rely on fact.

The simple answer is you’re going to have to play some if you don’t want to research the topology and the different applications within.

A tube can be marketing - it can also be an integral part of a system. It’s all on how it was designed.
 
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#52
Yup - Bill was another great source of info!

Can’t remember if he got banned or “voted with his feet”.

Either way, one too many arguments with opinionated amateurs removed him from the TalkBass mix.
 

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#55
I had a hybrid once, an SWR Baby blue 2. Single tube in pre-amp section. I don't think it really sounded any different than my Rumble100 which replaced it. One thing I did not like about the hybrid aspect was the very rare need to change out the tube, which in case of that amp required pulling the chassis out and removing a very tight tube shield first. I don't like having to do things like that, so I will stick with solid state from now on.

Really, if you want a tube pre you can just get one in a pedal, hook it into your pedal board chain. Easier to maintain.
 
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#56
As folks noted, it's personal, it depends more on the design than on whether it's tube or solid state, and it depends what you are trying to achieve.

That said, my 2 cents: I spent time experimenting with different tube preamps, or hybrid amps, trying to get a "tube" sound I was looking for. While I liked some of them well enough, I wasn't finding the sound I was trying to get. Turns out that the "tube" sound in my mind, personally, is a sound created by a tube power stage, and no amount of preamp fiddling is going to produce it (at least to my satisfaction).
 
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#58
I have and continue to use a 1991 Hartke Mosfet 7000, an amp featuring the option of SS or tube ( single 12ax7 ) preamp, or one can blend the two. What my ears easily tell me is that the tube pre sounds much nicer than the ss one.

But this by no means indicates that my ears would find this to be the case with other hybrid units also having switchable pres. Not do I know if that single tube is being heated up properly in this bit of ancient hardware. But again, in this case, the sonic difference is obvious.
 
#59
The two amps I've owned the longest have been an Ampeg SVT 7Pro (hybrid) and Ampeg PF-500 (solid state). The 7Pro sounded better to me, but not by a significant margin. I've bought and returned a couple of other hybrid and solid-state amps (Mesa TT-800 and Aguilar Tone Hammer 500) that I just didn't jive with. For me I guess I prefer the Ampeg tone above all else.
 
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