how's that crown amp working for you? just looked up the specs. the xls 1002 looks like it could do some damage at 1100w @ 4 ohms. plus it's less than nine pounds?
I'll take number 859285003
I don't even own a combo or a bass head.
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Preamp + power amp club?
- Thread starter boamedt
- Start date
For the longest time, my rig was an Ibanez SR1200 with a 20' red cable into an 850W QSC driving a pair of JBL 15" stage monitors. Sound men would see me plugging in and ask if I had enough "headroom". I didn't know what headroom was but I said yes. The bass had six knobs and one 9V battery which seemed like more than enough pre-.
Following a 20 year hiatus, I went on a spree so now, I can plug into a small Mackie mixer where the effects loop starts with a Lexicon MX200 like @cjj has which splits the signal into a DBX comp then a DBX EQ and returns to the mixer. On the outputs, there is a DOD 835 X-over so that lows and mids can go their separate ways into a 1100W stereo amp that drives some smaller 10" JBL studio monitors. That's the home rig.
On the road, a pair of Fender Rumbles through a small pedal board is the trick. In the studio, the old QSC and JBL stack are driven by a VT Bass so two out of three times, I'm nominally pre-amp to clean amp.
Following a 20 year hiatus, I went on a spree so now, I can plug into a small Mackie mixer where the effects loop starts with a Lexicon MX200 like @cjj has which splits the signal into a DBX comp then a DBX EQ and returns to the mixer. On the outputs, there is a DOD 835 X-over so that lows and mids can go their separate ways into a 1100W stereo amp that drives some smaller 10" JBL studio monitors. That's the home rig.
On the road, a pair of Fender Rumbles through a small pedal board is the trick. In the studio, the old QSC and JBL stack are driven by a VT Bass so two out of three times, I'm nominally pre-amp to clean amp.
I have been using a pre/power setup of one kind or another since the sixties.
Sixties was a Leak TL50 Plus tube, KT88, power amp for which I built a one tube, ECC83, pre-amp, basically the Normal channel of a Fender Bassman, to drive it and powered from it. Into a Marshall 4x12 it sounded great.
Seventies a DIY 50W/channel power amp built around a couple of Sansei SS power amp driver boards. i can’t remember what I used to drive them.
Eighties was a DIY SS 200W/channel power amp driven by a pre-amp built around a salvaged Ashly pre-amp board.
Nineties an ART Tube Channel 259 pre-amp strip driving a Mackie FR1400 power amp.
Lately it’s been a DIY tube pre-amp, 2x12AX7 + 12AT7 pushing a Carvin HD2000 Class D power amp.
Sixties was a Leak TL50 Plus tube, KT88, power amp for which I built a one tube, ECC83, pre-amp, basically the Normal channel of a Fender Bassman, to drive it and powered from it. Into a Marshall 4x12 it sounded great.
Seventies a DIY 50W/channel power amp built around a couple of Sansei SS power amp driver boards. i can’t remember what I used to drive them.
Eighties was a DIY SS 200W/channel power amp driven by a pre-amp built around a salvaged Ashly pre-amp board.
Nineties an ART Tube Channel 259 pre-amp strip driving a Mackie FR1400 power amp.
Lately it’s been a DIY tube pre-amp, 2x12AX7 + 12AT7 pushing a Carvin HD2000 Class D power amp.
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I use an Aguilar DB680 into an old Crown Power-Tech 3 and it sounds great and weighs a TON. Was leaning on using a lighter and "superior" and lighter Lab Gruppen FP3400 amp but didn't like the combined tone near as much.
father of fires
Commercial User
Eyeballing several pedal board preamps and plan on running my regular bass amp as a power amp.
Would love a Noble but there are some others that look great.
Would love a Noble but there are some others that look great.
I went to a pro audio 500 series rig for a preamp unit, added a compressor and EQ, and dropped it all on top of a pair of RAD Engineering Icepower 1000 power amps. They power Baer ML112 cabs. One amp and one cab for small gigs, two amps and two cabs for big gigs. Small, light, and loud as heck. Tone to die for. Just my opinion of course...
BTW further to my post above #64, I still have both the 50/50W and the 200W/200W power amps. The latter can be seen in the amp guts thread as can my current little tube pre-amp. 
They both still work too! LOL
They both still work too! LOL
how's that crown amp working for you? just looked up the specs. the xls 1002 looks like it could do some damage at 1100w @ 4 ohms. plus it's less than nine pounds?
I maxed it out once with that fEARful 15 sub on one channel. The Eminence 3015LF is rated 450 watts RMS @ 8 ohms, so I wasn't too worried about the supposed 375 watts from the Crown. It honestly don't know what to compare it to. You have to feel it to believe it.
Anyway, I am very happy with the power, sound quality, and the DSP capability of the Crown. I am now using the Crown to handle the crossover between the 8 and 15. I had previously used the BBE preamp to for the crossover, but the Crown is digital and has more options.
Just went this way. More details in my NAD post last week.
Aguilar Tonehammer --> Crest Prolite 2.0 --> awesome tone
As for the comment about "strong backs"... The Crest is 11 pounds. Pretty light.
It's funny how I did my research independently before asking Santa for the Crest Pro-Lite. Looks like those are indeed pretty popular, at least on this thread.
Still using old cheap cabs I got off CL. Because of the "old" and "CL" part, they don't have the same impedance, so this allows me to run both if I wanted to, each from a separate channel.
I probably will never use both cabs though (yes, strong backs needed for those), since DI into the PA. But someday I may want to try using the Crest's LPF and HPF to send the <100 Hz into the 115 and the >100 Hz into the 410, since each channel can be set separately.
Question: I wasn't planning on getting a rack case (you can see I took the rack ears off). My wife (aka Santa) says she can make me a nice padded carry bag. Anybody see any reason not to go that way other than the potential transport damage issue?
Aguilar Tonehammer --> Crest Prolite 2.0 --> awesome tone
As for the comment about "strong backs"... The Crest is 11 pounds. Pretty light.
It's funny how I did my research independently before asking Santa for the Crest Pro-Lite. Looks like those are indeed pretty popular, at least on this thread.
Still using old cheap cabs I got off CL. Because of the "old" and "CL" part, they don't have the same impedance, so this allows me to run both if I wanted to, each from a separate channel.
I probably will never use both cabs though (yes, strong backs needed for those), since DI into the PA. But someday I may want to try using the Crest's LPF and HPF to send the <100 Hz into the 115 and the >100 Hz into the 410, since each channel can be set separately.
Question: I wasn't planning on getting a rack case (you can see I took the rack ears off). My wife (aka Santa) says she can make me a nice padded carry bag. Anybody see any reason not to go that way other than the potential transport damage issue?
- Dec 21, 2007
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- Lark in the Morning Instructional Videos; Audix Microphones
I've mostly recorded with it, and love it. Live sound too. Just beautiful, beautiful, responsive tone.
- Jan 26, 2014
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- I teach lessons and perform live music in and around San Diego CA. Sometimes I even make money doing it!
Hmm, wasn't trying to be insulting or anything, lots of affordable brands make class D heads, I got my 1200 watt Genz Benz used for $300, and there's almost $10K worth of preamps and other toys in one of the rigs above, definitely no judgement intended.
