Monoprice 5w tube conversion to Bass head?

[Jared Houseman]

Would it be possible to covert a monoprice 5w tube amp into a bass head? Would getting a usable tone be as simple as just swapping a few capacitors and running it through a decent cab? If so can someone point me some resources about what to do?

I know it will never sound amazing, but I want a tinkering project and I like the idea of having a small tube head for style points

Edit: I wouldn't gig with it. I'd just use it for bedroom/acoustic group practice

 

[Stumbo]

Would it be possible to covert a monoprice 5w tube amp into a bass head? Would getting a usable tone be as simple as just swapping a few capacitors and running it through a decent cab? If so can someone point me some resources about what to do?

I know it will never sound amazing, but I want a tinkering project and I like the idea of having a small tube head for style points

Edit: I wouldn't gig with it. I'd just use it for bedroom/acoustic group practice

I say hook it up to a cab, add some eq and away you go.

Why not gig with it? A 6x10 will move a lot of 5 watt air.

 

[JimmyM]

You also have to take into consideration the output transformer. Are they built to reproduce bass decently or only guitar? With higher wattage amps, usually they're OK for bass, but with small ones under like maybe 15 or 20w, they don't always use transformers that reproduce bass all that well, and it comes out tinny and has no low end to speak of. I have an old 15w Danelectro/Airline amp from 1962 that's balls on guitar and sucks out loud on bass.

That isn't to say it's not possible for this amp to sound good on bass. Epiphone used to make one that sounded pretty decent for bass with a couple minor tweaks. But it's something to consider. And you would almost definitely need to run a different cab. I don't see that one lasting very long with bass going through it.

 

[wayshot]

What JimmyM said. I've got an Epiphone Valve Jr v2 head that sounded thin and boring on bass - until I replaced the output transformer with a Hammond 125DSE. Big change; the bottom finally came through making it sound sweet on bass.

 

[pie_man_25]

I've got a valve Junior revision 3 and I dig it just fine unmodified (aside from a reverb) for bass, but it's not a low-heavy sound, nor is it very loud on bass. You could probably fairly easily gain some low end by getting a beefier Hammond output transformer, maybe beef up the filter caps, if it's got an equal maybe switch out the caps there with higher value caps. Also, running it through a cab should help.

To be quite honest, if you want to mess around with that stuff I'd recommend doing some serious reading - you could easily hurt yourself or damage the amp if you don't know what you're doing.