Power tube overdrive.

I don't know of any that are pedals, but there are some rack units that use a power tube for distortion, usually an EL84. Two that spring to mind are the SWR Interstellar Overdrive and one by the Bass Master by H&K.

 

Blue Berry. It sounds like power tubes breaking up. Directly compared to several tube amps cranked to 11, the tone is there. Bjorn is a genius.

The SWR Interstellar Overdrive is the only unit that I'm aware of that actually uses power amp tubes to bring the dirt. Something more compact, cheaper, and possibly still in production would be awesome.

Didn't know about that Hughes and Kettner, sweet.

 

Dave Hall has something like this up his sleeve, in development. The units that already do this that I know of:
H&K Blues Master, Crunch Master, Bass Master, and B.A.T.T.
SWR Interstellar Overdriver
Lexicon Signature 284
Warwick Quadruplet

 

Check this out
http://www.garnetamps.com/herzog.htm

 

Zvex has Nano Head but I am not sure is it what you are looking for.
http://zvexamps.com/amp_view.html

 

That Garnet amp looks very cool, although $699 USD. Re the Zvex, it comes with this warning:

 

What about the epiphone jobbers?

 

Just a heads up. My experience with the SWR IOD, was that it sounded great if you used the 5w/8w speaker output, but it lost all its mojo and tone when you used the 1/4" preamp output. The tone was too thin for me when I used it as a rack pre, so I can't recommend it. I actually would recommend a sansamp (i.e. bddi or vt bass) over the iod for power tube breakup. I don't know of swr's circuit is something similar to what youre trying.

 

Would a Flipster be a good recommendation, seeing how it's supposed to get the B15 sound in pedal form?

 

That looks freakin' awesome and I bet it sounds even better!

 

It never helps to continue hearing that the $400 pedal is the end to my quest for this particular sound.......

 

Ooh, neato. http://www.electrosonicamplifiers.com/standards.php#parallax
Only $475 (better than the Garnet anyway) and with the dummy load already built in. They provide a soundclip of it, but (a) they used one of those tiny six-stringed instruments, and (b) they fed it into the tube power section of an amp head so it's in no way a demonstration of the Parallax by itself. Still a potentially very cool option though. A Barber Linden would feed it well.

 

You could always buy a small tube head and run it through a direct box that can accept speaker level loads (Avalon and Radial both make ones that do this). You can crank that head, then send it to the DI and use the DI through to go to your main rig.

 

Nickybass...

check out this link: http://www.soniccord.com/products.html

Go to the bottom and look at the Classic bass head. I don't know if it requires a dummy load or not...but 100watts, 6550 tubes to get your Ampeg overdrive, and 25lbs. The DI is quoted as being designed to be last in the signal chain as to provide that all power tube tone! Sounds like what you are after as long as the thing has an internal dummy load.