Which Bass Amp? ~£500 budget

Mosfed

Here is another vote for the Genz Benz stuff.  I have a Shuttle 6.2 with the matching neo cab.  Sounds great.  A bit light to play with a loud drummer, but great stuff.  Personally I think they sound nicer than most other Class D amps like G&K or MarkBass etc.

A great option would be the Ampeg micro-cl or micro vr.  Those sound AMAZING and have lots of the Ampeg mojo.

I am a much bigger fan of 10s for bass than I am 15s.  I don't get any definition with 15s and if you have enough 10s you get easily as deep as you get with 15s.  It may not be immediately intuitive but that is my experience.

For me the ultimate cab is the Ampeg 8x10.  But I can't deal with the size and weight.  So I have just ordered a Barefaced 6x10 69er.

Dave_Mc

No post today )

@ThePrettyDamned: Will do, thanks

@ICBM: Thanks. Yeah I have a bunch of spare normal guitar speaker cables, but they're all normal jack connectors. I've never had a bass amp before so I didn't have any spare speakon connectors or cables with them as they never come up on guitar stuff (any guitar stuff I have, anyway). I also read several places that speakons are safer for high voltage/current/wattage stuff like in high wattage bass amps (but that might be BS). I agree with you, ideally it'd have both, but most of the higher wattage bass amps I was looking at only seemed to have speakon sockets. Ironically enough the cabinet also has jack sockets, but not the amp.

If I ever do any gigs (on bass) I'll get a bunch of spares, don't worry

@Mosfed: Thanks Yeah the reason I picked the Genz Benz was I thought the clips sounded better. Obviously that's not an ideal test, but it's all I had. )

I'll keep an eye out for those ampegs- I won't be buying anything more any time soon, but the advantage of the separate head/cab setup is you can always add another head or two pretty easily

Yeah I went with the 10s for that reason, too, I was scared of 15s being too deep. Also the GB 15" cab didn't technically have enough wattage handling, anyway.

And yeah I've seen the weight of those 8x10s. I can just about lift the GB 410 (and it's a pretty light example, I think). And I'm not happy about even lifting that. )

ICBM

Dave_Mc said:

I also read several places that speakons are safer for high voltage/current/wattage stuff like in high wattage bass amps

Yes, that's why they're better - and because they more positively lock into place. It's actually possible for a 1/4" plug to be blown out of a sealed cab by the air pressure inside!

In fact 1/4" jacks are only rated for 6A, so in theory any amp of more than 144W into 4 ohms should use something heavier-duty, although I've never seen one fail even at 300-500W which is about as high as bass amps with them tend to go.

Really, *all* amps should now use Speakons if only to differentiate the cables, but good luck trying to change 60 years of history where guitar players are concerned .

Dave_Mc

Yeah the Streamliner is 600W at 4 ohms, so I'm guessing that's why it only has the speakon sockets. I think it said in the manual, though, that running it without a load wasn't an issue, so :-?

And yeah lol at the guitar thing. )

ICBM

Dave_Mc said:

Yeah the Streamliner is 600W at 4 ohms, so I'm guessing that's why it only has the speakon sockets. I think it said in the manual, though, that running it without a load wasn't an issue, so :-?

But running it into a dead short - which is what is almost certain to happen if you overload an instrument cable enough to cook it, the plastic insulation will melt long before the copper core or the jack tips - definitely will be...

There are plenty of amps which break that rule though - like my Peavey, which is 500W into 2 ohms (max current ~16A), and only has 1/4" jacks.

Dave_Mc

Yeah I didn't chance running it without a load ) Supposedly you have to do that if you want to use headphones as the speaker output isn't automatically muted, but I didn't chance it...

ICBM

If it's designed to be run like that - if there's a headphone socket and no other means of muting the speaker - it will be safe.

*Most* solid-state amps are safe running with no load. Not quite all, so be careful…

Dave_Mc

Thanks

Paul_C

ICBM said:

When you can get around to it, get a spare cable. Nothing worse than having "non standard" (yes, I know Speakons are standard for *proper* speaker cables these days) connectors for gigging gear. If you lose or damage it the show can't go on.

For this reason I still prefer to have 1/4" jacks on bass gear, at least in addition to the Speakon - it's easier to find a 1/4" speaker cable in an emergency at the average small gig. In a dire emergency where you can't find one of those you can even risk an instrument cable. (Or better, if the guitar amp has a proper speaker cable, nick that for the bass amp and use the instrument cable for the guitar amp.)

http://www.maplin.co.uk/neutrik-na4ljx-speakon-to-6.35mm-mono-jack-adapter-33066

handy for an emergency . . .

ICBM

Paul_C said:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/neutrik-na4ljx-speakon-to-6.35mm-mono-jack-adapter-33066

handy for an emergency . . .

lol - "we noticed that there's actually enough room in a Speakon plug to fit a 1/4" socket, so we did" .

I'd never thought of that! I'll have to make one. I already have a speaker cable with a Speakon on one end and a 1/4" on the other, but that's much neater...

Dave_Mc

Paul_C said:

ICBM said:

When you can get around to it, get a spare cable. Nothing worse than having "non standard" (yes, I know Speakons are standard for *proper* speaker cables these days) connectors for gigging gear. If you lose or damage it the show can't go on.

For this reason I still prefer to have 1/4" jacks on bass gear, at least in addition to the Speakon - it's easier to find a 1/4" speaker cable in an emergency at the average small gig. In a dire emergency where you can't find one of those you can even risk an instrument cable. (Or better, if the guitar amp has a proper speaker cable, nick that for the bass amp and use the instrument cable for the guitar amp.)

http://www.maplin.co.uk/neutrik-na4ljx-speakon-to-6.35mm-mono-jack-adapter-33066

handy for an emergency . . .

That's pretty handy, thanks. I'll keep those in mind for later.

Dave_Mc

Yay cable turned up. Boo some people in the house are still asleep )

Might as well take this opportunity to ask a probably silly question- the locking mechanism of the speakon connector only works on the cabinet, right? I assume that's because of what ICBM said earlier about high sound pressure levels knocking a jack lead out of a speaker cabinet.

The mechanism worked fine on the cabinet but doesn't seem to work on the amp head so I don't want to use brute force and maybe break the thing ) There doesn't look to be anything for the locking mechanism to catch onto on the amp head socket, so I'm guessing it's meant to be like that...

Thanks

ICBM

That's surprising, I'd expect both to be locking. You do know you have to turn the plug before it locks?

Dave_Mc

Yeah. As I said, the one in the cabinet locked just fine, like clockwork. Easier than I was expecting (this is me we're talking about ) ). EDIT: No worries, I've got it sorted ) It hit me I should try with the plugs the other way round (i.e. plugging the end I'd been plugging into the cab into the head and vice-versa). Sure enough, the one I'd been plugging into the head was a little tight, but as I knew the cab worked with the locking mechanism I was willing to try a little more force, and it worked fine.

Thanks for your help

Dave_Mc

Well, it seems to be working, so that's good. Sounds pretty good (not that I have anything to compare it to). Still getting that hiss I was getting when i tried it through my pathfinder practice amp, though (but I'm guessing that's the bass, not the amp). I'll try new batteries tomorrow when I get some (forgot to pick them up before now), hopefully that might sort it. The manual advises against touching the adjustable hum reduction circuit, but if the batteries don't fix it I'll give Vigier a shout to see if it'd be worth a shot.

Thanks to everyone for all your help