In reading all these responses on how each person relates their amp head to the ‘warmth’ factor, at the moment, I don’t think I would really benefit from the specific design of one Class-D 300-500 watt head to another with regards to how the amp designer built it to have the final output product sound a certain way based on tone, texture, dynamics, voicing and harmonic structure particular to that amp head and it’s pre-amp section and front panel controls. Although I’d really like to benefit from it and that would require change on my end. Sometimes change is tough. I would not have any problems buying a new head though. That’s covered under GAS pains I think..
Because, my situation is that I only play my bass in my room here at the house, but I take it as serious as someone who does play out at a bar, church or VFW hall. For the past 4.6 years of playing each and every day, I have slowly sculptured the sound/tones that I am very happy with and I think it would be hard to change all that to reap the benefits of what some of you explain. For starters, I was violently opposed to playing with any trace of overdrive or grit or dirt. Just pure clean bass notes. Also playing at home only, I fall into the category of one f those people who like that signature sweet sound of general mid-scooping, the bedroom bass sound I guess. I am a pedal person and always have stuck to the thought of set my amp head flat, get rid of all the tone knobs on my bass (which I have done, there is just a single volume on each bass now) and make all my tone adjustments with my pedals, like parametric EQ and my Two-Notes LeBass and whatever other pedal I have that can manipulate tone. So right there I have pretty much disqualified what an amp head can really do versus another one. This is where my pre-conceived notion that if I set the amp head flat and adjust all my gear in my little room here, I can make any 300-500 watt Class-D head sound the same so what’s really the point of buying a different one.
No, change is not set in stone here though, there is hope. A while back I wanted to play around with the idea of ‘dirt’ in my sound. I bought a Darkglass Microtubes X pedal and though it sounded like marbles in coffee can. Horrible. I sold it. Then I bought the Microtubes Vintage. Sounded too much like old school ‘fuzz’, like in some Early Metallica songs. Not my thing. It was probably doing exactly what it was designed to do but I wasn’t having it, I sold it. Then I watched Rick Beato break down Megadeth/Symphony Of Destruction and he was playing the bass part though a Microtubes 900 amp and I thought the foundational (and there wasn’t much) ‘dirt’ sound was what I was searching for but the mids were too high. So I bought the B7K pedal and copied his amp settings in his video and by Golly, I found my ‘dirt’ sound I can learn to love, and my B7K pedal will handle that for me. I also have the Wampler compressor pedal and I really like the ‘color’ and change that it does to my sound so that is my comp pedal.
So see how I have all my tone and signal shaping bases covered already by pedals and not at the amp head nor at the bass guitar end, and the environment I play in, I don’t think I would benefit from a different amp head unless I made major change elsewhere here. It’s just that I got this sound in my head of a Fender Jazz bass (I used to have one) being plucked by a finger (I only play with a pick, never learned fingers) directly through a Class-D amp head and these beautiful sounding, warm ‘stubby’ (or sustaining) bass notes are coming out of the 15” speaker..and I think to myself, hmm, maybe I can buy a ‘warmer’ amp head and replicate that with what I already have. Let me ask on Talkbass what conveys the ‘warm’ sound from one 300-500 watt Class-D amp head to another. You all have pretty much told me. So what am I supposed to do, set up a completely different rig next to mine, buy an Ashdown or Tone Hammer, plug straight in and make a change. I’m certainly into the ‘buying’ part..just not maybe the ‘change’ part yet now.
