Hahaha thankfully have tour managers with huge vans and very strong friends
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Moving from Solid State to valve.
- Thread starter AndyMaidens
- Start date
are you keeping the same Mark 410 cab? If not what cab are you moving to?
If you are already familiar with the sound and power of the Mark why not a Tube 800 head? Any of the Ampegs is a great choice with great tone, with the Ampeg cabs for that certain sound or with other cabs for other great sounds. I'd go with the CL over the VR or V4B just because of the separate gain & volume knobs, but really with any you can't go wrong.
I very much want a Super Bassman but I don't have one so I can't give specifics on that. But the Mark Tube 800 is a surprisingly (to me, Mark doesn't have the best reputation anymore in the US) GREAT head. And with a Mark cab running VLE at noon does give a nice sound, while other cabs may not need you to use the VLE at all.
And depending on how long you want to wait, there's also the Markbass Stu Hamm head. I'm excited to see real world reviews once its released.
If you are already familiar with the sound and power of the Mark why not a Tube 800 head? Any of the Ampegs is a great choice with great tone, with the Ampeg cabs for that certain sound or with other cabs for other great sounds. I'd go with the CL over the VR or V4B just because of the separate gain & volume knobs, but really with any you can't go wrong.
I very much want a Super Bassman but I don't have one so I can't give specifics on that. But the Mark Tube 800 is a surprisingly (to me, Mark doesn't have the best reputation anymore in the US) GREAT head. And with a Mark cab running VLE at noon does give a nice sound, while other cabs may not need you to use the VLE at all.
And depending on how long you want to wait, there's also the Markbass Stu Hamm head. I'm excited to see real world reviews once its released.
Weight isn't really an issue, i just want the best tone that i can
I would be selling my whole markbass rig to fund the new rig, so i'd probably go for an matching company 810 to which head i chose.
You might want to do a price check. The Ashdowns are more expensive than comparable Ampegs. The CTM300 and CTM100 have the same preamp design, but carry 300W and 100W power ratings so compare them to the SVT and V4B.
I own a CTM300 and also a 69 and 87 SVT. I would put the CTM300 in the same tonal ballpark as the SVTs, but of course it's not exact. The CTM has a relatively high gain preamp and really quirky tone controls. You can get a lot of tones with this amp, but figuring out how to do it can be real a challenge. I recommed starting with the tone controls at 9 o'clock and then keeping them within +/- 2. Within that range the there are a lot of sounds and the controls are relatively predictable and intuitive. The CTM300 is slightly less bulky and lighter than an SVT. The CTM also produces slightly more clean power than an SVT and has some of the tightest lows of any tube amp I have ever played, but not the deepest.
The tone controls of the SVT are very predictable and intuitive. SVT VR has a low gain preamp and no-master volume. SVT CL has a master volume and you can crank up the preamp enough to get some drive.
IMHO the Ashdowns have a more baked in sound where the Ampegs are a bit more transparent. IMHO the Ashdown really seems intended for dirt and I suspect it is voiced to make a modern cabinet sound a bit like an SVT with it's matching cabinet the 810E. The SVT is actually relatively flat while the 810E is heavily voiced.
If someone had to choose between one of these amps without playing them, I would recommend going with the SVT because it's an icon that is loved by so many people...but some players will like the CTM better.
With a purchase of this magnitude perhaps some phone calls and a road trip to play some amps would be worthwhile. If you can't drive, find another way.
Yes, and Ampegs and Fenders are probably a bit less affordable in Europe.
Prices for all these heads brand new in UK:
AMPEG SVT VR £1730
AMPEG SVT CL £1737
AMPEG V4B £1029
ASHDOWN CTM100 £949
ASHDOWN CTM300 £1999
FENDER BASSMAN100T £1659
FENDER SUPERBASSMAN £2099
Here's a pretty decent demo of the CTM300. Notice that twisting the tone knobs doesn't seem to do much because the settings are already too high. The biggest difference is noticed when the various tone switches are toggled.
At 3:35 the video demos some preamp drive...I love Mark Gooday's response here
.
At 3:35 the video demos some preamp drive...I love Mark Gooday's response here
.Don’t discount a 610 cabinet, I have owned 810’s , now just 610’s, an Eden, and Ampeg, both kick xxx, and much easier to move around. IMO the 610 is the perfect cab. For many years , I hauled 2 cabs around, the typical 410/115, no néed to with the 610. Did I say it was “The Perfect Cab?”
Yes, and IMHO this is why actually playing the amp is sooooo important. The first amp I bought was a brand new MTI era SVT and the matching 810. The amp came in after I had paid about half the purchase price, and I hated the sound. It was special ordered after reading about the amp in various magazine articles that gave it gushing reviews, so I had to pay it off or lose what I had paid. I was working a minimum wage job at the time. Course I now know it's the 810 that I don't care for. I quite like SVTs.
I'll have to try and find one to play through as i've only ever played through 410's and 810's
I'm mainly leaning towards the V4B but i've heard quite a few stories of quality issues with them because they're made overseas?
A great compromise between the 410/810. But I wouldn’t call it a compromise, for me, it was the best solution.
<Sadly the Chinese manufaturers don't have the sense of pride shared by so many other countries such as USA. England, Germany and Japan.>
Texas Instruments, HP, Motorola, Apple Computer and an additional vast array of electronics manufacturers you undoubtedly depend on and use every day are manufactured in China, often by Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.). Foxconn is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturing company with its headquarters in Tucheng, New Taipei, Taiwan. Today, it is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and the fourth-largest information technology company by revenue. They didn't get there by making junk. It has been reported that at one Apple manufacturing site, a large banner hangs on a wall that says, "Work hard at your job today, or work hard finding a new job tomorrow." The quality of workmanship of products manufactured in China depends SOLELY on how stringent the sponsoring organization is on QC. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the nationality of the work force.
The Ampeg SVT Classic has proven itself to be a highly reliable piece of musical electronic equipment, as evidenced by the mere fact that its used by many, many touring professionals. I do not happen to be a globalist. I would prefer to purchase products manufactured here in the US, when practicable. But in this case, the product warrants the most serious consideration regardless of where it happens to be manufactured. SVT CL's do not suffer from any reliability issues at this time, and with Yamaha having acquired the brand, there is every reason to believe quality control will be even more stringent in the future. By the way, another outstanding bass head, the Fender Bassman, is manufactured in Mexico. Just saying.
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Although I agree wholeheartedly with the above, I'd still pay the extra for a Heritage model Ampeg.
With 3 Apple computers having multiple problems it's easy for me to blame the country of origin.
It sounds like maybe there's more to it but I still limit my purchases from there.
My one laptop is on its 4th power supply which I had to pay for each time except for the first one.
I think the price is like $189 each.
Almost forgot: And don't get me started on my 3 failing keyboards.
Holy cow! I thought I was having problems with my system! I know how frustrating it can be.
My printer (only a year or so old) for no discernible reason now has no driver, and all attempts to reload the printer driver have failed. Just to add insult to injury, I continue to get a dialog box that says my computer wants to load a printer driver, and do I wish to continue. Also, the screen tells me I have no printer driver! I think it has something to do with the fact that my mouse quit and the new USB mouse started acting up by activating stuff from the tool bars on top of my screen that I didn't select. I never know what that mouse is going to do! It often won't highlight stuff right anymore, either. This all started happening when my keyboard quit working and I replaced it with a USB keyboard. I am ready to believe a malevolent trans-dimensional alien being has taken control of my OS and is harvesting my emotional frustration to make an immortality elixir or alien sexual stimulant, or something. Except I'm running Windows Vista.
I almost suggested that Microsoft must have built a poison pill into their OS so at a certain point it would begin malfunctioning and die hard's like me would finally have to upgrade. But you have an Apple! Stuff like that is not supposed to happen to Apples!
If your on your forth power supply, you need to find out on a component level what's going on. A few years ago there was an epidemic of bad capacitors that totally wrecked havoc on electronic equipment. Something like that may be the cause. Do you have the defective units? Sounds pretty fishy if you didn't get the inoperable power supplies back. Have you checked your AC mains voltage and power quality with a scope? Those power supplies aren't frying for no reason. After the second one fried your tech should have begun trying to find out why. Sounds like you at least have a small claims action for honest services fraud / incompetence.
With my old OS, I'm beginning to think there may be an incompatibility glitch between the new USB keyboard and the original unit that used a five pin plug. Kind of like what happened to my marriage! Oh, well. I don't think that had too much to do with country of origin either. Then again, ......
Good luck!
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