Walter Woods Amps History and Development

[KJung]

Kjung, I'll beg to differ with you. I've heard your clips, and appreciate your enthusiasm for the cause of the latest and greatest cutting edge bass guitar sounds. Frankly don't care for your approach to the instrument..your bag is yours, and very legit. I have noticed that you spend an awful lot of breath damning WW with faint praise...

Things have come a long way in 20 years. Again, if you dig the Walter, that is totally cool! I rarely see amps as 'better or worse' than each other. Very few 'bad amps' on the market. The competition is very tough. You are correct though, I surely don't recommend Walters at this point to anyone considering a new purchase, given the massive price (almost $1,000 more than even my Glockenklang!!!!!!), and the collapse of the service and support.

No big deal, and again, they sound like they do, and if that sound is 'the sound in your head', then there you go!

Edit: That all being said, per your request of a 'replacement amp' for the Walter, again, you won't find an amp that sounds exactly like any other amp, but my guess is, the closest thing to your tone goal on the market tpday would be the Puma900. Very clean, nice control down low, plenty of power, nice EQ (although no semi-parametric, which can be a problem for DB players). About $1,300 retail from a limited dealer network in the US (TBer Donovan at the Fretspot, and Glenn at Austin Bass Traders).

 

[MR PC]

That's really funny, because things going a long way sometimes have a way of going over the cliff sooner!

 

[pjhandlin]

..I'm not a super loud rock player as I play Blues, R&B, Jazz, Reggae and a bit of Rock on a 64 Jazz. But in no way with a Uber 210 and a Bagg 15 am I peeling paint off the walls. I play a quite a few outdoor gigs in summer and am contemplating a 410 cab to get more volume as to not damage my speakers as I have in the past with my Walter...1200 watts .....

..But my main concern is finding the right amp or pre/amp combo for a better sound and to ultimately replace WW.

I dont know the Uber 210 at all, but I do know the BagEnd 15.

I think your cabs likely have shaped your previous success with the Woods and perhaps the relative lack of success with recent trials of other competent, very powerful bass heads (GK, MarkBass, Genz).

If you are playing numerous outdoor gigs with a relatively tight sounding 115 and a decent 210, my guess is you are straining your cabs to the max. Perhaps the Woods squeezes the most out of your setup compared to other amp heads you have recently tried, and perhaps a dedicated power amp gets a bit more out of your setup, but I would have you consider that the performance capabilities of your current cabs are likely the limiting factor in your search for better sound.

...I find the output/tone of power amp sections of the GK, MarkBass, Genz Benz in the 800 watt range lacking. They are loud but not as defined as the higher wattage power amps. My WW 1200 watt Blue Light's power section is more defined than the box manufacturers 800 watt models but not as clean as a half a QSC 3402 at 1100 watts using GK F pre .
Am I missing something here?

Assuming you were optimizing preamp gains into poweramp sections with your disappointing experiences on the GK, MB and Genz amps, then I would expect that any other integrated head would not meet your expectations... with your current cabs.

IF ... you stay with your current cabs, then matching a tonehammer or sansamp pedal to a poweramp with probably make you most happy.

I have found dedicated power amps to provide additional power compared to integrated heads. Depending on the cab, power amps allow you to squeeze every last decibel of low end that your cab is capable of.. right up to the point of mechanical failure. I never need this kind of volume so my days of hauling a rack around are long gone.

My common sense based theory and approach to speakers- I never want to run a speaker or amp at 100% of operational capability all night long. Sooner or later, something will give. And given the other options for cabs, gigging with the current options of integrated amp heads just makes life easier.

I think you would notice significant, maybe night and day differences with other speaker/cab options.

I think this is what you may be 'missing' and why your experiences are different from many others.

 

[shwashwa]

I'm a bit familiar with the use of tone controls. NO amount of knob twisting can make those amps sound anything alike IMO and IME.

That doesn't mean that you can't take the edge off the top end of the Walter a bit, and at least slightly fatten it up with the semi-parametric mid, and of course, you can smooth out the mids and expand the top end a bit of the Aguialr. However, those amps are VERY different IMO and IME.

I love the warm tone of the TH500 (remember, the higher midrange distortion of the TH500 does not in any way mean it can't sound reasonably clean, it is more of a warm fatness that the Walter is not capable of (again, the Electracoustic models). The fatter tone of the Aguilar helps though IMO.

Also, the semi-parametric mid on the Walter seems to have a MUCH narrower Q than on the Aguilar.... great for feedback control with a DB, less useful for significantly changing the inherent voicing of an amp.

If you have any interest, and have good phones, a good example of this is my clips of my Glockenklang Blue Soul and my TH500 with the same cab and bass. You can hear the VERY different nature of the low and hi end with those heads, and simple EQ adjustment has little impact. They both sound great, but quite different.

And yes, I lost total interest in Patitucci's EB tone when he switched from the fat, warm Ken Smith to that 'ice picky' sounding Yamaha.... yuck to my ears!

with regard to patitucci's tone, yes i agree he definately sounded warmer with the smith bass, but i also saw him many times with the yamaha and the woods amp, and it was still warmer than it is now. there are alot of things you can do to get huge bottom end out of the woods if you know how the balance knob works and really use it, as well as super fat low mids. i have no problem at all getting super fat low mid fingerstyle funk tones from the woods. that said, i use electric basses with active preamps, and i twist those knobs alot too, so im sure that makes a huge difference (one of my basses actually has and aguilar op 3, the other a pope pre). im pumping tons of low mid on the bass itself usually, and with the upright, i always use a preamp pedal of some sort first, with alot of knob twisting and some high pass filtering too, so im sure that influences the sound a great deal.

lately ive been digging the tone hammer pedal through the ww amp and thunderchild cabinet and speaker. problem solved.

 

[KJung]

with regard to patitucci's tone, yes i agree he definately sounded warmer with the smith bass, but i also saw him many times with the yamaha and the woods amp, and it was still warmer than it is now. there are alot of things you can do to get huge bottom end out of the woods if you know how the balance knob works and really use it, as well as super fat low mids. i have no problem at all getting super fat low mid fingerstyle funk tones from the woods. that said, i use electric basses with active preamps, and i twist those knobs alot too, so im sure that makes a huge difference (one of my basses actually has and aguilar op 3, the other a pope pre). im pumping tons of low mid on the bass itself usually, and with the upright, i always use a preamp pedal of some sort first, with alot of knob twisting and some high pass filtering too, so im sure that influences the sound a great deal.

lately ive been digging the tone hammer pedal through the ww amp and thunderchild cabinet and speaker. problem solved.

+1 I you are using external pre's along with the Woods, that of course changes things quite a bit. Again, if you dig it, you dig it! It is a great amp.

 

[shwashwa]

+1 I you are using external pre's along with the Woods, that of course changes things quite a bit. Again, if you dig it, you dig it! It is a great amp.

yeah, i figured that the ww has a power amp already, so if i want to experiment with different tones i dont necessarily need to purchase that part again, so i went on a preamp kick (cheaper than buying multiple amps). i do have an AI head as a backup in case the power section of the woods ever goes down, but im quite a preamp junkie.

 

[Tom Baldwin]

The power cord on my 1200w is cracked and needs replacement. Calling WW, he advised I resource a manufacturer of "iron power cords" (as that is what he uses), and I could easily replace it myself.

What is the name of the manufacturer of "iron power cords" that was recommended?

Thanks.

 

[tombowlus]

I find the output/tone of power amp sections of the GK, MarkBass, Genz Benz in the 800 watt range lacking. They are loud but not as defined as the higher wattage power amps. My WW 1200 watt Blue Light's power section is more defined than the box manufacturers 800 watt models but not as clean as a half a QSC 3402 at 1100 watts using GK F pre.
Am I missing something here?

FWIW, at least with regard to GK, when we put the MB800 through our bench tests, it was able to output 800 watts (at 4 ohms), continuously, and 1,000 watts (again into 4 ohms) in our burst power tests. So, the output power is definitely there. Tonally, we all have different preferences, but the GK output section, at least, can deliver the advertised goods.

When we tested the 800-watt Markbass MoMark output section, it passed 635 watts continuous, and 817 burst, both at 4 ohms.

We have not performed official bench-tests on the Genz-Benz class-D heads.

I do have a WWU, though, and we do have plans to feature it in an up-coming Vintage Gear Amp Lab, and I am really looking forward to seeing what it does on the bench.

 

[Timmy-Watts]

...I do have a WWU, though, and we do have plans to feature it in an up-coming Vintage Gear Amp Lab, and I am really looking forward to seeing what it does on the bench.

Please report back. I'm interested to hear the results.

 

[MR PC]

Yes, it will be interesting, but WW's amps are handmade boutique style, from varying batches of components only WW knows. I doubt that testing one WWU will reveal the exact and specific specs of all the Ultras out there, the way that testing an amp from a major builder like GK will.

 

[robgrow]

FWIW. I have tested my green-light WW Electracoustic amp, and it developed almost exactly its rated power into 8 and 4 ohms. In practice the amp delivers all the clean power I need, and easily equals any other amp in the same power range I've used.

On my Electracoustic, only some components on the power board are unmarked, as this is a proprietary design.

While there are lots of choices these days, I've yet to find another amp I like the sound of as well as my WW.

 

[MR PC]

While there are lots of choices these days, I've yet to find another amp I like the sound of as well as my WW.

Agreed, that is the bottom line, liking the sound. Not power ratings.

I remember there was a guy over in the DB some years ago who somehow equated his mistreatment of a piece gear to the quality of the said piece of equipment ( in, as if it would stand up to him trying his best to blow it up.) I believe he moved in doing reviews of bass gear somewhere...

 

[Timmy-Watts]

Just a heads up, my Woods is now listed in the EB amp classifieds.

 

[Roscoe East]

I've read some TB posts saying they don't hear much differance from one power amp to an other. Opinions on this?

I haven't done well-moderated A/B tests between power amps in years -- decades, actually -- but fwiw when I did, the only amp that any of the test subjects could reliably identify with any consistency were the original Carver PM-1.5s. (Their low end and mid-bass sounded conspicuously "soft" and "slow", totally lacking the kind of "slam" and "punch" one would expect from a >1kw amplifier.)

Every other amp we tested -- Crowns, Crests, QSCs, and Yamahas -- was completely undifferentiated and indistinguishable when level-matched & listening blind.

 

[Mark Sacchetti]

Does anyone know what a 2004 WW green light stereo power section rating is? Also , pardon me 4 a dumb Q, where the heck is the serial number on this amp? The one I have is in mint shape and has been a back up amp. So it has seen light duty over the years.

 

[Low Class]

Does anyone know what a 2004 WW green light stereo power section rating is? Also , pardon me 4 a dumb Q, where the heck is the serial number on this amp? The one I have is in mint shape and has been a back up amp. So it has seen light duty over the years.

If I remember correctly, 1000 watts bridged @ 4 ohms, 700 watts @ 8 ohms. In stereo mode it's 350 watts per side @ 4 ohms, 225 watts @ 8 ohms.
Serial is stamped on the heat sink, you'll have to remove the cover. The serial # is also the build date.

 

[Mark Sacchetti]

It's gets pretty dam loud running one 8 ohm cab! There was a question regarding if you could run it bridged into a 4 ohm cab. I read partially through this thread with no clear answer being apparent.

 

[Low Class]

It's gets pretty dam loud running one 8 ohm cab! There was a question regarding if you could run it bridged into a 4 ohm cab. I read partially through this thread with no clear answer being apparent.

On the one you have, yes you can run it at 4 ohms.

 

[Jeff Scott]

It's gets pretty dam loud running one 8 ohm cab! There was a question regarding if you could run it bridged into a 4 ohm cab. I read partially through this thread with no clear answer being apparent.

On the one you have, yes you can run it at 4 ohms.

Are you sure of that? If so, that would imply that in stereo each channel could handle a 2 Ohm load. I know of no Walter Woods amps that can do 2 Ohms.

 

[Low Class]

Are you sure of that? If so, that would imply that in stereo each channel could handle a 2 Ohm load. I know of no Walter Woods amps that can do 2 Ohms.

I have the manual in my hand. 4 ohms minimum in either stereo or bridge mode.