Hybrid vs Tube

[Wicked G]

I got a Fender Bassman 500 recently and love it. It’s a Class D hybrid, so it’s light as a feather, and to my ears it sounds full and classic.

The Orange Terror Bass sounds great in demos, too, but I have never tried one myself.

I really liked the videos I had seen on the Terror Bass, but now that I actually own one I am really impressed.

Others can argue whether it is tube like or not, but to me it is big time. Beautiful tone, very touch sensitive, a weight to the notes that you can feel and it slams.

 

[D.A.R.K.]

Gotta agree with John on this one, and here's why...

Coloration of tone---some amps do it, some don't, and topology is completely unrelated to it. SVT's and B-15's have a little coloration with knobs at noon, V4B and PF-50T don't, while Fender, Marshall, and Hiwatt can be pretty extreme with the coloration in their tube amps. But so can Fender, Hartke, and GK SS amps. You can also move knobs to get a more flat-response sound if that's your thing, too. So it's not a given that all you can get out of tube amps is a colorized tone, nor is it a given that SS amps will give you uncolored tone.

Compression---I don't like it and try to avoid it. Yes, when you start to crank tube amps into the red, compression will start, and it's lovely if you like that sort of thing. But I don't, at least on a gig, and if I'm cranking a tube amp, I'm doing it to get distortion, which I do like to do when I record but no other time because people will complain that I'm too loud. But to my ears, the sound of a tube amp not being pushed is very uncompressed. Not to say that I haven't got good tones with little or no compression out of SS amps, but I just don't hear compression in tube amps running clean. And again, topology is unrelated, and SS amps can compress just as easily as tube amps. I once AB'd my SVT and Little Mark II that I used to have on a gig, and the LMII was noticeably compressing my sound while the SVT wasn't. So my belief is that if a tube amp is compressing, it's a user choice, or a design choice and not law.

Distortion---THD is rated at the top of their RMS wattage, and traditionally, tube amps have been given a lot more leeway over it because they usually have a more graceful easing into it than SS, so at their top clean volume, you can have more distortion and still sound clean. But what if you back off the volume a little? Or a lot, as what happens when I use an SVT or V4B? That THD level goes down accordingly. How far down, I don't know, but it sounds as clean to me as the cleanest of SS amps.

So while tube amps do lend themselves to these characteristics, it's not necessarily what we want out of them or why we like them.

Right, but I'm responding directly to the to the statements of "an SVT cracked outdoors" and "Tube amps evening things out" statements in this case. Every pre has coloration, but I just find it a lot more prevalent with tubes, which is why I use them for pre-amp stages in my rig.

 

[Jim C]

I can't read anymore than the first page.

The terms used here like "heft, slam, punch", etc. are much more a function of the power amp than the pre amp IMO.

I've had this experience with GK RB's vs the MB's as well as Ampeg Class AB vs. Class D.
I believe the pre's are pretty similar but the overall heftpunchslam was different.

This would be easy to document if the effects retrun jacks on bass amps could all react to individual preamps the same way.
I just spent some time with an SVTII preamp through and Ashdown, SWR, GK RB1001, and a GK MGF800.
These power amps should sound pretty similar but it is clear that there is some sort of mismatch going on based on the bass and treble response.

Tubes on the front end of a preamp usually sound different to me but not always that much.
My old GB 9.2 Shuttle and Ashdown, when set clean, have a slightly different tonality which I assume "enriches harmonic content"; in other words distortion.

The output stages of a tube amp not in distortion sounds pretty close to Class AB to me; all things being equal.
All IMO/IME.

 

[Arthur U. Poon]

Only my opinion, but I haven't played through a hybrid head that duplicated 100% what a good all tube amp does. And vice versa when it comes to a good solid state amp. IMO they're different animals, and I like both. I also like hybrid amps.

What I really like about my lead sled Crest CA9 when I'm playing my Demeter HBP-1 through it is how "tight" and clean the low end sounds. The Demeter HBP-1 also "feels" very quick to me. I got the same quick response and tight low end from GK's RB Series heads.

I once owned an SLM-era SVT-CL and an SVT-2 Pro. I loved the "clean" tone of these heads when played at a low to medium volume, and I especially enjoyed how both heads sounded so smooth in the high end, with my preferred eq settings of course.

If I could find an amp with the tight, relatively clean low end of a cranked up GK Series head, combined with the thick, smooth sounding high end of the SVTs that I once owned, I'd definitely buy one. And it wouldn't matter to me one bit whether the amp contained tubes or not.

And in looking back, the SVT-4 Pro did very much what I just described.

Just my two cents.

 

[Leo was right]

Amplification is only a link in the tone chain composed of: Strings, intrument, amp, cab(s), and most important : your fingers. My mistake for long time was: I putted my volume too low and play too hard, now I start high and then back off to be comfortable and it change my sound completely. Other thing, I stack small cabs in order too have thems close to my ears and monitor all the low end attack clearly