Why is the Ampeg B15 so coveted?

[Smooth_bass88]

I must be getting old. I remember before the legends.
The B-15 is a great amp BUT,
Its early history is inflated IMO, more of an East coast amp. By the time the recording industry "moved" to LA around '60, LA was a Fender town, and was so for for its heyday. Later the B-15 crept in everywhere, and I mean everywhere.
Also, pretty sure Jamerson went direct at Motown. The B-15 was his monitor.
Also, Dunn recorded with a B-15 at Stax but didn't like it.
Both used Kustom amps with 2x15's live.
At some point the B-15 became the most recorded bass amp, but I believe it was later than most people think.

yeah, most of the studios in NYC had a B15, so if you were doing sessions all the time all you had to do was show up with your P bass and you were all set.


Jamerson definitely just went direct to the console back then. That's been documented.

 

[frankie5string]

yeah, most of the studios in NYC had a B15, so if you were doing sessions all the time all you had to do was show up with your P bass and you were all set.

Except for all the guys who showed up with jazz basses... right? NYC ran a bit differently than LA and it looks like a lot of the session players favoured Jazz basses because had a wider variety of sounds and so many were hoofing it on public transit.

 

[dbase]

I once bolted my B18 and a B15 together trying to make one big bass amp .. it weighed a ton... Experiment failure. bought a Sunn200 instead.

 

[bholder]

How do we first begin to covet? We covet the things we see every day.

 

[Egg250]

I'm a nobody but I never heard of it and don't covet it.

 

[Stylee Mousse]

It’s like the blackface fender deluxe of bass amps. Do you need one? No. Do they sound great? Almost every one. Is it an iconic sound? Yes.

I think some people miss that they were intended as clean amps and of course not used that way by many. For myself, I’m mostly a clean to light grit kinda guy

 

[projectapollo]

Any opinions on the HX Stomp version of the B-15 and and cab? Compare well?

 

[JRA]

The B-15 is a great amp BUT, Its early history is inflated IMO

...today’s gear sounds better with much more detail, refinement, not to mention whole lot more tonal flexibility...

 

[Jack Butler]

The one I played was magical. Why I never bought one though is that magical tone was at a volume slightly above what would be need to keep up with a good acoustic guitar. Higher volume than that was not pleasing sounding to my ear. I had a Bassman 20 combo that was similar. There was a sweet spot with the volume between 3 and 4 that was fat and amazing. But too loud for just playing at home and not loud enough for most gigs.

 

[Stylee Mousse]

too loud for just playing at home

So funny with ALL the threads asking if 350 watts and a 215 are sufficient for home practice...

TB is a most strange place.

 

[Jefenator]

View attachment 5298731 I gig with one fairly regularly. It’s basically my cool stage monitor. I can’t remember the last time a sound man parked a mic in front of my bass amp. A DI every time, so the B-15 is for me and the drummer on stage. I do sometimes play low-Med volume gigs with it or my B-18. I have a SB-12, B-15, B-18 and an Oliver. I must say they all so similar. And I dig that sound.

I concur with the "stage monitor" concept.
I use my FrankenB-15 (Valvetrain Brandywine w/ Bag End S-15D) in my loudest rock band. I love it for the latitude it gives me. If I'm a little soft in the mix, I can still hear & feel everything I'm doing to my full satisfaction. If I'm a little louder, it doesn't seem to mess everyone else up.
The latter is usually not a problem, pushing 50 watts with 3 guitars, keys & drums. It's actually a great way to contain our stage levels. (I couldn't escalate a volume war if I wanted to.)
I like tapping my direct out after the power section; that way the FOH gets most of what I'm enjoying in my zone. Haven't had any complaints from sound crews yet. I use it with my own small PA to fill things out in larger venues.

A significant part of the Ampeg / B-15 experience IMO is the Baxandall tone circuitry. I've come to prefer it over the Fender tone stack for being more intuitive & less mid-shy. One can enjoy that in any number of modern preamps & heads without having to hunt down & restore a 55-year-old combo.

 

[Pimpernel Smith]

Getting my B-15, paired with my Hofner bass, turned me into a proper sounding bass player.
I loved the sound and so did the people I played with, recorded with, and played to.
Today, I don't think I could deal with the weight. I'm officially an old geezer, and will stick with my light weight Aguilar class D and new super light equipment.

 

[Hasty]

So funny with ALL the threads asking if 350 watts and a 215 are sufficient for home practice...

TB is a most strange place.

For me it's more like 3.5W for home pratice...

 

[shadven]

I concur with the "stage monitor" concept.
I use my FrankenB-15 (Valvetrain Brandywine w/ Bag End S-15D) in my loudest rock band. I love it for the latitude it gives me. If I'm a little soft in the mix, I can still hear & feel everything I'm doing to my full satisfaction. If I'm a little louder, it doesn't seem to mess everyone else up.
The latter is usually not a problem, pushing 50 watts with 3 guitars, keys & drums. It's actually a great way to contain our stage levels. (I couldn't escalate a volume war if I wanted to.)
I like tapping my direct out after the power section; that way the FOH gets most of what I'm enjoying in my zone. Haven't had any complaints from sound crews yet. I use it with my own small PA to fill things out in larger venues.

A significant part of the Ampeg / B-15 experience IMO is the Baxandall tone circuitry. I've come to prefer it over the Fender tone stack for being more intuitive & less mid-shy. One can enjoy that in any number of modern preamps & heads without having to hunt down & restore a 55-year-old combo.

I agree about the Fender tone stack. I have had some blonde and black panel Fenders over the years, and they just don't sound or work in a band situation as an old Ampeg. Strong mids are what sounds good in the mix! I just sold a 1963 blonde Fender Bassman with the match 2x12 cab. It was a beautiful amp to look at, it just sucked as a bass amp. Guitar players love them so, that is who bought it... a blues guitar demon.
BTW (side-bar) - I think the HPF is the greatest invention since the wheel. Nothing is worse than getting on a stage where the bass is a whooshy low end roar. The HPF solves that problem like magic.

 

[pbass2]

The sound. You play a P-bass, with flats, through a B-15 and it sounds perfect. Can you duplicate that sound with other amps, basses, Pre-amps, absolutely. But, it just wouldn't be as cool.

I can get super close with my old B100R for clean amp sounds, and it still looks cool (most people think it's a tube amp when they hear it).

 

[LHbassist]

This was one of the B-15's I've owned. I'm almost 72. I've owned a LOT of gear, and a lot of it was Ampeg. I grew up in Woodside, Queens, and used to rehearse directly across the street from the Ampeg factory, in a storefront under the #7 IRT el at 54th. st. Ampeg was at 54-09 Roosevelt ave. Oh, yeah, we all had Ampeg tube amps.
The B-15, WAS state of the art at one time. In the bands of the day, late 50's through the mid sixties, it was adequate, and in my session days- almost all the studios had some really awful sounding surplus B-15's soldiering on. I really hated those things. I recapped my '64 and put in a new speaker I got from Fliptops. It was a nice sounding amp- and had a very musical 'tube sag' at a certain point. That point, was like a VNE speed on an aircraft- once you exceed it, it's not good. The B-15, on most gigs, ended up being a bass kazoo. It's coveted now, because of the massive, really kind of undeserved credit given to it as a contributor in the sound of greats like James Jamerson and others. Trust me- the crummy studio amps I've encountered- in my opinion, is why engineers started taking us direct. I remember vividly, B-15's were in the back of almost every music store for 200 bucks. Now- 3K? I just don't see it. Just my .02.

 

[RodneyM]

View attachment 5298934

"Better" is subjective.
My opinion and experience that the early days were dominated by Fenders of all types. Later, the B-15 and SVT dominate what gets mic'd in a studio.
There are exceptions. But the combination of all the "better" amps (SWR, Eden, Mesa, Aguilar, et al) don't come close to what was done then or now.

 

[Jefenator]

"Bass kazoo" - LOL.

 

[JRA]

"Better" is subjective.

agreed, no question.

...the combination of all the "better" amps (SWR, Eden, Mesa, Aguilar, et al) don't come close to what was done then or now.

i don't understand what you're saying there, but it doesn't matter: we like what we like and there are choices for everyone.

i just happen to put myself in the 'no nostalgia for me' group. at least on this topic.

 

[shadven]

I can get super close with my old B100R for clean amp sounds, and it still looks cool (most people think it's a tube amp when they hear it).

I'll never get rid of my B100R. It was my go-to small gig amp for years. A great little work-horse that can get pretty loud too.