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Tech 21 VT Bass 1969 head!

#261
JimmyM said:
lol! it's funny because it's true!
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... and just so that I can get into this brawl, at least with a black eye for my trouble ...

I've been following the GB Streamliner thread and it's like Mardi Gras over there

Everyone partying in the streets, gettin' down like James Brown (with Energy Domes on heads)

They are happy as clams and everybody's scheming on how they will break it to their wives why there's an extra $829 on the credit card bill this month for a Streamliner -- I get a whole different vibe over there. Everyone's sure excited about something and the Complaint Dept closed-up shop and hit the bar.

Jeff + Co. at Genz may actually be the ones to win that Championship Belt this time, but what do I know?

Now back to the Battle Royale, already in progress

So again, was that 300 "analog" watts? :-)

Cheers!
 
#262
JimmyM said:
most tb'ers are alternately half full of crap, half pushing an agenda where they want everyone to do as they do and can't stand it when someone else wants to do something else, and half just making up stuff.
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The note about TBers, enclosed as it was in parentheses, was definitely made with tongue firmly in cheek ;)

A few years on and I'm a fair bit wiser with these things, thankfully!

c-
 
#263
There are some things about this thread getting lost in the weeds:

-Not all amps are created equal, so the argument that 300 watts is or is not enough doesn't really apply here. As I said before, my 300 watt SVT is easily loud enough for my needs, but I do not find the Landmark 300 loud enough for my needs. Both are rated at 300 watts, so there is no right answer to the general question is 300 watts enough or not.

-Much of the talk that's morphed into a "300 watts is loud enough or not" discussion was people saying they were disappointed the amp was 300 watts not because it's only 300 watts but because it's 300 watts in a world full of higher wattage rated amps that are lighter weight. Whether that point is valid is another discussion.
 
#265
tbird36go said:
I also don't see in the pic the two 4X12 cabs & 120 watt tube amps both my guitarist use. The kind of music you play is alot different from other peoples music. The sound stage is gona be different.
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A JCM800 2x12 and a Fender Deville 410 can be plenty loud my friend. For ANY type of music. The JCM's volume was never past 2 at any show and standing next to that with a dB meter netted over 105dB. You wanna tell me why your guitarists need those cabs again? As an FYI- the current outfit Im with is a trio, the guitard uses a 120w VHT Deliverance w/ matching 412 cab, but is currently shopping for a Deville because he knows he doesn't need a half stack for playing out.

andrew said:
This is ignorant. Just because what works for you doesn't work for everyone else doesn't mean they're doing something wrong or don't know better.
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Volume is volume. I've lent my amp and cab to the other supporting acts hundreds of times to save on setup and breakdown between sets and not once has anyone ever told me they needed something louder. When they did feel they needed it to be a tad louder than where I left it, they've turned it up and it was there because I've never run it past 12 o'clock.

If you have experience playing out I'm sure you cannot deny the fact that a large percentage of all stage volumes are within a few dB of each other.

allexcosta said:
Well, I play this kind of gig:

carnaval_barra_ondina2.jpg


Around 800.000 or 1.000.000 people in the streets altogether. Been doing this for 23 years...

300W SS is NOT enough for what I do...

Guess I don't have the slightest clue, huh?
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Unless you are running a large distance away from your cab you still wouldn't need anything ridiculously loud, you're using PA support anyway which just further proves my point that the size of your head doesn't matter. Yes, I have played large outdoor gigs and used the same amp run through the provided cab which is usually a crappy SVT 810.
 
#266
parsons said:
Unless you are running a large distance away from your cab you still wouldn't need anything ridiculously loud, you're using PA support anyway which just further proves my point that the size of your head doesn't matter. Yes, I have played large outdoor gigs and used the same amp run through the provided cab which is usually a crappy SVT 810.
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I'm assuming you've never played on a stage where part of the PA is underneath the band and other parts of the PA are located in different points of the city. I'm also assuming you've never played in bands with 20-30 percussionists... Sometimes more...

As someone said, different strokes...
 
#269
parsons said:
Volume is volume. I've lent my amp and cab to the other supporting acts hundreds of times to save on setup and breakdown between sets and not once has anyone ever told me they needed something louder. When they did feel they needed it to be a tad louder than where I left it, they've turned it up and it was there because I've never run it past 12 o'clock.

If you have experience playing out I'm sure you cannot deny the fact that a large percentage of all stage volumes are within a few dB of each other.
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"Volume is volume", what does that even mean? How does it apply to the discussion here?
You're entitled to your opinion, but to suggest the reason people don't agree with your opinion is because they don't know what they're talking about is rude.

Have you played with the Landmark 300 amp?
 
#273
JimmyM said:
the inordinate amount of people who have used the terms "we" and "most of us" in this thread when talking about bass player's needs. here's a particularly glaring example from pd1134:

"However, IMHO Tech 21 could easily have benefitted from a little TBer feedback as far as what most player's minimum needs are. Not 1 person here would have said 300 watts. Just wouldnt happen, no matter how you put it."

i happen to know a buttload of professional bassists of all styles who use 300w or less on a regular basis. i've been playing pro for almost 35 years (and in some very loud bands along the way), and even though i've owned a couple amps that would do more than 300w, i've never needed anywhere near that much wattage. and i do a lot of my current gigs on a b-15, which does 25w clean. so you would be quite wrong about not 1 person saying 300w would be enough.

and that is the problem some of us have with taking tech 21 to task to such a ridiculous degree for making the vt 1969 300w. there are plenty of bass players who could easily do just fine with 300w. this amp is for them. if you are not one of them, that's fine, but don't think that just because you want more wattage that you speak for everyone.
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Not to turn this into a pissing contest, but the gigs you play are not what the average bassist plays. In fact, you often have pro-grade PA support which most TB members don't have (this I've garnered from reading your posts for over 4 years now). So yeah, you easily could get away with it when you're just using your amp as an on stage monitor. Those of us who actively gig with no PA (besides a vocal one) usually need more than 300 SS watts in order to fill out a band, venue, and have enough headroom leftover so that we don't have to worry about clipping our amp nonstop. And for what it's worth, most bassists I see playing gigs without PA support are rocking at least 500w or more if they are using an SS amp. But I digress...

My point is this - Why would Tech21 make a 300w amp when they can easily make a more powerful one that would be much more inclusive for a number of bassists who need that little extra headroom? It's not like adding it would stop people who don't need it from buying the amp - but by keeping it as is they ARE possibly excluding potential customers.
 
#274
I think I somehow side-slipped out of TalkBass and into TalkBizarro. Someone mentioned earlier about the Mardi Gras vibe over on the Streamliner threads, and I think the same could be said of the Tone Hammer 500 threads (the latter seems to me to be the more direct competitor, given that it's also based on a pedal pre-amp).

It's hard to think that the differing tones between the threads doesn't have something to do with the different approaches taken by the developers/vendors of these products. The Genz Benz and Aguilar guys always seem very approachable and open about their stuff, happy to take a bit of ribbing and generally join in the general bonhomie, whereas the Tech21 representative always seems to be somewhat on the defensive, slightly condescending, and sometimes downright irritable. I'm sure he's a terrific guy in person, and their gear is highly regarded, no doubt rightly so.

Anyhoo, merely an observation; I'm not in the market for one of these and don't "have a dog in the fight", as that rather revolting phrase goes. Carry on: it's been an enjoyable if somewhat puzzling read.
 
#275
jmatt, if you need more wattage, then there are plenty of amps out there you can get. rather than complain and gnash teeth about this amp not having more than 300w, i think people's time would be better spent just moving on instead of trying so hard to wish this amp into more wattage and annoyingly and bitterly complaining in such an undignified manner. not every amp is made for everyone. seriously, time to let it go. love the vt but not interested in this amp, but i'll be damned if i'm going to cry about it all over the place. seriously, i think some folks need to go wash their va-jay-jays ;)

growler, our tech 21 rep here is normally very nice and helpful. he was put on the spot by the people who have been bitterly complaining in such an undignified manner.
 
#277
idoru said:
...I was concerned because I found I was running the master volume over half most of the time, and I'd always been told (mostly by TBers) that that's a sign your amp is underpowered...c-
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For the most part, this has very little to do with how much power the amp has, and more to do with what type of pot was used for the master volume. I hear this a lot on TB where people talk about the amp being SO loud "because I was rattling the walls with the volume on 3." More than likely, it's not the power section, it's the fact that they are using a linear pot for the master volume.

If you use a linear pot, the volume will increase dramatically in the first portion of the pots rotation, and less dramatically as the volume knob goes higher. A log (logarithmic) taper pot is just the opposite and will give you very little output in the the first half of the pot's rotation and an increasing amount as the volume knob get's closer to max. A log taper pot is supposed to more closely resemble how our ears perceive volume. It's a common practice for amps to use a linear pot to make it seem like the amp has tons of power. From your description, it sounds like your amp uses a log taper pot. It might only be putting out 10% to 20% of the amps potential volume with the master volume up 50%. What's important is the actual output volume of the amp and not the position of the volume knob.
 
#279
R Baer said:
For the most part, this has very little to do with how much power the amp has, and more to do with what type of pot was used for the master volume. I hear this a lot on TB where people talk about the amp being SO loud "because I was rattling the walls with the volume on 3." More than likely, it's not the power section, it's the fact that they are using a linear pot for the master volume.

If you use a linear pot, the volume will increase dramatically in the first portion of the pots rotation, and less dramatically as the volume knob goes higher. A log (logarithmic) taper pot is just the opposite and will give you very little output in the the first half of the pot's rotation and an increasing amount as the volume knob get's closer to max. A log taper pot is supposed to more closely resemble how our ears perceive volume. It's a common practice for amps to use a linear pot to make it seem like the amp has tons of power. From your description, it sounds like your amp uses a log taper pot. It might only be putting out 10% to 20% of the amps potential volume with the master volume up 50%. What's important is the actual output volume your ears hear and not the position of the volume knob.
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Interesting. Thanks!
 
#280
bongomania said:
For the record, I put him on the spot to call him out on his mush-mouthed half-lies and for insulting our intelligence. The wattage was just a minor point for me.
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because they called it a "rocket engine of a power section" and used the terms "digital" and "analog" to refer to smps and iron-coil transformer. now look bongo, i'm certainly no maven about the insides of amps, but even i knew there was no rocket engine inside of it. as for using "digital" and "analog" to refer to power supplies, i'll give you that it's not the best choice of words, but it's not the first i've heard of someone doing it.
 

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