New Head: Valkyrie from Baer Amps... Thoughts?

[R Baer]

Honestly, an all tube head will be quite a ways down the road for us. We have a few other things we want to do first. Also we would have to expand our speaker line up quite a bit before we can even think of an all tube amp. I mean really, what's a tube head without an 810 cab to back it up?

 

[BassGreaser]

Honestly, an all tube head will be quite a ways down the road for us. We have a few other things we want to do first. Also we would have to expand our speaker line up quite a bit before we can even think of an all tube amp. I mean really, what's a tube head without an 810 cab to back it up?

or even with out a 2x15

 

[Anemic_SluG]

All I have to say is I haven't bought a new stage amp since I bought a 1st run Peavey Megabass... Haven't found anything that met what I was looking for in many years.. read the spec sheet and I was thinking did they suck this spec sheet out of my head... Can't wait to get one!!!

 

[matt441]

I had the privilege of meeting Roger Baer and Checking out his Valkyrie amp and cab (and Sadowsky bass!). Having played everything from Ampeg, to Markbass to Aguilar, I was extremely impressed.

It is a very clear, natural sounding amp, but still has a warm, smooth midrange presence, without sounding bloated or exaggerated. It is one of very few hybrid/solid state amps that stand up to an all tube rig.

It required very little tweeking to sound great. I was able to get a more vintage sound by boosting the upper mids. I am sure the amp has a great range of sounds. I found one that I really liked and left it at that.

Not quite sure about the technology, but I think the tube gain adds a very light overdrive, that is more present in the higher register and less in the lower. The result is that you can get a nice tube punch, without your low notes getting muddy. More of a very subtle overdrive, not like an effects pedal, and not fuzz. The tube(s?) is in the power amp stage, apparently to minimize distortion.

The sound is very full range, without the harsh high end that I hear with most boutique type amps. Roger was smart enough to not include one of those horrible piezo/horn/tweeters. The cab included a 12" and 5" driver. There was plenty of high end!

He mentioned that there will be a lighter weight casing for both the amp and cab.

You may have noticed that I don't post threads. I make my living as a bass player. This is an awesome amp. I highly recommend it, and hope to own one.

 

[kringle77]

I really want this amp and will buy one the day they are available. Enough wait already!

 

[stiles72]

I like the cosmetics of it.

+1

 

[JimmyM]

The sound is very full range, without the harsh high end that I hear with most boutique type amps. Roger was smart enough to not include one of those horrible piezo/horn/tweeters. The cab included a 12" and 5" driver. There was plenty of high end!

honest to god, i will never buy another cab that has a piezo tweeter, unless there's at least 4 of them in a vertical array. johnny april of staind once described them as crunching a potato chip bag, and i agree.

 

[mothra2]

Well, I like the term "authority". IMO, authority has more to do with the "presence" of an amp, than it does the tone of an amp. Presence is very hard to describe, as it is more of a feeling, or vibe, than it is a tonal thing. It's how the low end fills up the space around you and feels solid and supportive underneath your music. It's like your'e driving a big old bass locomotive and your band is along for the ride!

You can have two amps and EQ them to sound fairly similar, but the feel or presence can be the totally different. Your a/b test is a good example. Sure, the LMII may have "held its own" on a tone level, but I'm sure you noticed a big difference in the "presence" of the SVT, even with the Eq's and volumes set to sound similar. It's the 800lb. gorilla of bass and there is nothing really quite like the experience of playing one. Same with the DB750. It's just got this huge low end "presence" that goes a little beyond describing in a purely tonal fashion.

So glad to read a builder state that which I have always felt. It amazes me how many claim there is no difference at all between Class D and class A/B, or tubes no less.
Better/worse...subjective, but different for sure.

"Presence"... "Authority"

 

[KJung]

honest to god, i will never buy another cab that has a piezo tweeter, unless there's at least 4 of them in a vertical array. johnny april of staind once described them as crunching a potato chip bag, and i agree.

I agree most piezo tweeters sound like dog. However, the poster you are quoting lumped all tweeters together, which just tells me he doesn't like a lot of mid to upper treble in his bass tone (which is totally legitimate). Dumping all tweeters and cabs with tweeters into a single category is as misleading as dumping all drivers into the same category, and doesn't make much sense.

I don't like these cabs with only mid drivers much at all, but that's just me. I really like the sound of upper mids coming from a larger driver (warm, and a little bit grindy when pushed), and I enjoy a high quality tweeter with a good attenuator, since I don't enjoy any portion of the frequency distribution of a bass cut off.

However, +1 the only thing as bad as a cheap tweeter is a cheap woofer or mid driver

 

[KJung]

So glad to read a builder state that which I have always felt. It amazes me how many claim there is no difference at all between Class D and class A/B, or tubes no less.
Better/worse...subjective, but different for sure.

"Presence"... "Authority"

I guess I'd say this another way (similar to the neo/ceramic topic)... every amp head design sounds different, and I hear just as much variance within class D and class A/B designs as I do between class D and class A/B designs. There are hugely warm and present class D amps, and thin, unimpressive class A/B amps.

I do agree though that a big tube amp is a totally different thing. I hate most of those, but totally understand how some would like them.

I do agree though that an amp with a lot more watts (not just bull**** marketing spec watts, but actually more watts) can sound quite a bit more full, many times due to the designer taking advantage of those watts by lowering the high pass filter a bit to allow the amp to breath a bit more way down low. This, however, has very little to do with amp topology from what I understand.

 

[mothra2]

I fall into the camp of rolling off quite steeply below 50 hz, but I still hear/feel a fundamental difference .
Sort of like painting a canvas with acrylic (class D) vs oil (A/B).
More depth and breath for me with the oil.
Of course, with amps/speakers/tweeters (paintings) etc....all bets are off with a below par/bad design.

 

[KJung]

I fall into the camp of rolling off quite steeply below 50 hz, but I still hear/feel a fundamental difference .
Sort of like painting a canvas with acrylic (class D) vs oil (A/B).
More depth and breath for me with the oil.
Of course, with amps/speakers/tweeters (paintings) etc....all bets are off with a below par/bad design.

I again wouldn't attribute what you are hearing to amp topology for the most part IMO. There used to be a pretty significant difference in low end performance with amps that used SMPS though, to the point where some amp designers where actually pairing class D amps with toroidal transformers (the Epi502 and the iAmp800) in order to 'fatten up' the low end response while still keeping heat, size, and weight down with class D. Those amps have some of the biggest, fattest low end I've heard (to the point that I disliked them quite a bit... I'm with you on rolling off deep bass). However, these companies have now changed their designs to SMPS since that sort of power supply has improved to the point of being 'just as fat' down low.

Again, IMO and IME, all amps do sound different, and attributing the sound or feel of an amp to amp class topology does not really seem valid to me at this point. That being said, there are many class A/B amps that I like more than class D amps, and vice versa.

 

[mothra2]

Class D has come a long way...we certainly agree there.

 

[R Baer]

I guess I'd say this another way (similar to the neo/ceramic topic)... every amp head design sounds different, and I hear just as much variance within class D and class A/B designs as I do between class D and class A/B designs. There are hugely warm and present class D amps, and thin, unimpressive class A/B amps.

+1 IMO, the tone of an amp has not so much to do with the power sections topology as it does the interaction between the preamp section and the power section. Designing an amp is a lot like cooking. It's the combination of all the ingredients that makes up the overall flavor. In the VALKYRIE's case, we designed the preamp section first and then went about trying quite a few power section topologies, including class D. In this case, the class D modules just didn't have the low end presence I was looking for. Sure, you can go back and tweak the preamp to make up for this, but after trying the class A/B that our design team came up with, I just didn't see the need. The class D's also (IMO) have this hyper fast response to them that just didn't feel right to me with this amp. In motorcycle terms, we were trying to design a Harley, not a Ninja and the class A/B gave us that.

 

[KJung]

+1 IMO, the tone of an amp has not so much to do with the power sections topology as it does the interaction between the preamp section and the power section. Designing an amp is a lot like cooking. It's the combination of all the ingredients that makes up the overall flavor. In the VALKYRIE's case, we designed the preamp section first and then went about trying quite a few power section topologies, including class D. In this case, the class D modules just didn't have the low end presence I was looking for. Sure, you can go back and tweak the preamp to make up for this, but after trying the class A/B that our design team came up with, I just didn't see the need. The class D's also (IMO) have this hyper fast response to them that just didn't feel right to me with this amp. In motorcycle terms, we were trying to design a Harley, not a Ninja and the class A/B gave us that.

+1 all the way! It's all about the execution!

 

[mothra2]

+1 IMO, the tone of an amp has not so much to do with the power sections topology as it does the interaction between the preamp section and the power section. Designing an amp is a lot like cooking. It's the combination of all the ingredients that makes up the overall flavor. In the VALKYRIE's case, we designed the preamp section first and then went about trying quite a few power section topologies, including class D. In this case, the class D modules just didn't have the low end presence I was looking for. Sure, you can go back and tweak the preamp to make up for this, but after trying the class A/B that our design team came up with, I just didn't see the need. The class D's also (IMO) have this hyper fast response to them that just didn't feel right to me with this amp. In motorcycle terms, we were trying to design a Harley, not a Ninja and the class A/B gave us that.

Interesting...'making up' for it. Can this actually be done, or just approximated?
I've never heard it really done in class D, myself (this is why Ken thinks I'm crazy :>). I really like the hyper fast thing about them, but have never quite gotten that low/low-mid presence thing beyond approximated or emulated, which to my ears is just not the same. I've also perceived a lack of harmonic overtone content in general that I find hard to give up when I hear it from good class A/B (let alone tubes, but then you've got the low end thing to deal with there).

 

[R Baer]

Interesting...'making up' for it. Can this actually be done, or just approximated? I've never heard it really done in class D, myself.

IMO, the class D modules tend to have a very fast, "in your face" upper mid and high end response, which translated to the perceived feeling that the amp was a little bass shy. It certainly could have been possible to go back into the preamp and re design it in a way that would then give a perceived overall warmer feel to power section. The bottom line was that I really wanted a warmer and more organic sound from the amp than we were able to get out of a class D. That's not to say that other companies can't pull it off.

 

[mothra2]

IMO, the class D modules tend to have a very fast, "in your face" upper mid and high end response, which translated to the perceived feeling that the amp was a little bass shy. It certainly could have been possible to go back into the preamp and re design it in a way that would then give a perceived overall warmer feel to power section. The bottom line was that I really wanted a warmer and more organic sound from the amp than we were able to get out of a class D. That's not to say that other companies can't pull it off.

I look forward to checking out the result of your efforts there.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

I have to agree with Roger. And this is an area I have had some heated debates with other TB-ers. There is a lot to bass amplification beyond the eq response and sheer decibels of output. Thats why SVTs still sell well. It is also why tubes havent yet faded away 50 years after the dawn of the transistor.
When I first got my Boogie Bass 400 it sounded too fast to my ears. Compared to Fender, ampeg and traynor amps I have owned it sounded almost solidstate! After a while I got the hang of the EQ and the gain structure. Now it sounds pretty tubey.
there have been other amps I have used that were solidstate that pulled off a tube tone pretty well at low-medium volumes. At high volume they didnt have the...presence that Roger mentions. It seems that tube emulations are often just a lowpass and a bit of distortion. They dont "glue" for lack of a better word.

 

[mothra2]

I read on the BAER website ... "Deliver all the dynamics, harmonic overtones and growl that only genuine tubes can bring to your sound, while preserving maximum clarity and focus in the low end."

Does this mean that the tube section works with a high pass, thus allowing the lowest notes at some chosen freq and below to be amplified solely by or blended into the SS circuit, or am I reading too much into this?