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Tubey Goodness

#84
thathatman said:
I've seen about half a dozen working V4's go for $400-450 in the past few months. I'm always afraid to bid on them because I don't know how much work these can take! How much does a retube/recap cost for one of these amps?
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Wait...

Which V4's are people talking about here Ampeg V4's (which I assume) or Trace Elliot V4's?
 
#89
rllefebv said:
Since you're listing '70s amplifiers, you may wanna toss a Sunn 200S in that list...

FWIW, I have a '71 V-4, (guitar amp that works extremely well for bass), and it is chocked full of tubey goodness! Driving a 2X15 cabinet in a roots/rock group, I get just the right amount of fur to bring things to life...

I also have a mid/late '70s, heavily modded Fender Bandmaster, which, despite it's lower wattage rating, gets surprisingly loud through the same cabinet... It gets a wonderful bass tone through the 'clean/reverb' channel...

The Traynor has been on my G.A.S. list for some time now, and eventually I will have one...

-robert
Click to expand...

+1...on the Sunn 200S! Not super loud but..Amazing tone.

George
 
#90
I just had a chance to fire up my D-180 over lunch, and oh my, am I in love! :hyper: The ebay listing did not mention this, but it came with apparently brand new JJ tubes all the way around. :cool: The overdrive out of this baby is by far my absolute favorite! Very, very impressive, IMHO. It took me a while to find a way to get good clean tone at higher volumes, but that's in there, too. But the D-180's forte is the massive, yet clear, overdriven tone. Man, I just can't get over how much I like this! It also gets a lot louder than I expected from six 6L6's! :bassist::bassist::bassist:

Tom.
 
#91
SeaMonkey. I recognize that you are right. If you are going to go gigging, get something modern or take two of the old things.

Having said that, I have a server GAS attack for a Kustom Tuck and Roll 200 b or 100. I simply must have it. Now after what I said above, I would probably take it on a gig anyway, because I am kind of stupid. If it blows up, I will go thru the board. I have searched the web, and without ponying up money, I cannot find out what I could safely plug one into if I got one. Does it like to push 4 ohms or 8? I would guess 4, just because the 2 x 15 kustom t&r cabinets weigh 104 lbs.

Now, Seamonkey and Psycho, PLEASE talk me out of it. Tell me why the old Kustoms aren't that hot. My desire for them is purely emotional.

Having said THAT, I do need a little bass amp head for little places, that I play at occasionally with upright, so I do not have to take my whole rack. I have a Schroeder 1210 4ohms) and a Hartke 2.5xl 2 x10 (8 ohms). Its hard to find a little inexpensive head. I saw the Electric Blue Ashdown for $220 new, but I wonder if it is any good.

Does anyone know what a kustom 200b weighs?
 
#93
joe skinner said:
SeaMonkey. I recognize that you are right. If you are going to go gigging, get something modern or take two of the old things.
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BS. I've gigged my '73 and '74 SVT's all over the country and have only ever had one failure due to an old fuse that broke from fatigue due to vibration. Did I mention that these amps both have had the same ancient GE6550's in them for AT LEAST (and very likely longer than) the last eight years?

A properly maintained well-designed vintage tube amp should rarely, if ever, fail you.
 
#95
 
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#97
Eric Cioe said:
I think that the Buster Wedge was about the dumbest idea Mesa ever had. Why ruin a great amp like that by relagating it to wedge only? It would've been far, far better if they had made it a "kickback" cabinet.
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+1

...or they should have ditched the whole wedge shape entirely.
 
#98
joe skinner said:
SeaMonkey. I recognize that you are right. If you are going to go gigging, get something modern or take two of the old things.
Click to expand...

Nay, sir.... not so.... tube stuff is no more likely to go bad than SS.

That idea seems to be propaganda from some folks with an agenda, a crusade for personal reasons.

In fact, there are fewer parts, fewer solder joints, etc, etc, in a typical tube amp as opposed to an SS amp.

Failure rates tend to be proportional to the number of parts (at least,.... actually its more like parts squared). A simpler tube amp may have a longer time to failure than an SS amp with a lot more parts.

Tubes themselves can take more electrical abuse than most SS parts, if your roadie hooks up stuff wrong.

SS equipment has a habit of failing fast if overheated. Tubes are already hot, and fail reasonably slowly even if hotter than that.

Mechanically, there may be some point, as there are more plug-in connections etc, in a tube amp. Tubes are typically glass (not always).

But, your instrument has to be handled reasonably carefully also.... If you habitually toss your equipment downstairs, you get what you deserve.

hey, don't listen to us.... listen to the gear.

There are enough old Fender, Ampeg etc amps out there gigging with the covering worn off and the case fixed three times but the amp still going, to put the lie to the idea of tubes being inherently unreliable.

We make both tube and SS. I don't care which you buy, so I have no agenda here...
 

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