So last night, our bass players combo died. It was a traditional ampeg combo type unit. A local chap came to the rescue with an Eden amps Nemesis head and a matching EX210 cab.
So I have been gigging off and on for over 20 years and my traditional thinking for bass players as far as I am aware is for big cabs, big speakers and large wattage etc.
The best bassist I ever played with had a trace Elliot head which weighed a ton and a bloody huge cab (can't remember if it was trace or other but was equally huge) and to be fair was a good sound.
This Eden amps rig was utterly brilliant. Clear, clean, powerful, deep bass, and for a gigging musician, it was tiny. The 2x10 cab was half the size of my Marshall, really light and the head was half the weight of mine.
I has got me thinking today that bass amp technology may well have moved on a touch. The cab in particular was feather weight.
While modelling offers alternatives, cab technology hasn't really moved on? Discuss. To be fair, my perception is that several folks on here have gone to 2x12's or smaller cabs and miking up. Any thoughts?
An official Foo liked guitarist since 2024
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If you must have valves then weight will be an issue, same with alnico. I have a 2x12 combo that weighs 80 pounds. Sounds awesome. I have a small 15w head and a choice of 1x12 and 2x12 cabs I also have a 4 w combo and a half w head and remap thingy.
All of the above could be replaced with a helix kemper etc.
The choice is yours Google helix and watch some videos
Cab tech has moved on, but most cab manufacturers haven't.
My little Ampeg Micro VR bass head is SMPS, Class AB, and produces 200W from under 10lb weight including a traditional plywood head box. MarkBass amps are even lighter without the head box, and their older ones are also Class AB. (They appear to have changed to Class D now.)
It's difficult to make valve amps this light, because even if you used a SMPS there would still need to be an output transformer - even though it's the smaller of the two.
Neo speakers and modern highly-braced thin wall cabinets (eg Barefaced) also make a big difference, certainly. One of the big problems with older mid-market cabs is that they tended to be MDF or particle-boad, which is much heavier than ply for the same strength - although also stiffer, so it doesn't need as complicated bracing and hence is cheaper to make. For guitar cabinets bracing is usually the opposite of what you want though - they tend to sound better when they resonate, so it should be possible to make guitar cabs much lighter.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I run my Quilter Tone Block with a 150w 1x12 cab and it sounds immense. I haven't carried a tube amp to a gig in about 2 years now.
The Fender Princeton valve amp is small, relativity light and sounds massive, that's the amp I want
And it's loud as hell with massive bass.
https://soundcertified.com/speaker-ohms-calculator/
Class D runs 85-95% real-world efficiency.
I have small guitar rigs but still find myself preferring the stacks even with the weight and bulk - old habits are hard to break I guess.
My point is that for musical instrument amps (especially guitar amps) it's not really that important, because they're relatively low-powered and there's really no need to operate that close to the edge - if it was 60% for Class AB vs 90% for Class D you would only be getting 50% more usable power output for the same input with Class D, and that's really neither here nor there for most purposes, when a cranked 50W amp is probably already too loud.
It does start to make a big difference when you're into multi-KW power amps, obviously.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Also lack of cooling fans is useful to me.
Although that was worse in the days before the smoking ban - tobacco smoke residue is not only a good thermal insulator so it tends to prevent the very cooling the fan is there for, but it's also electrically conductive. I've seen some spectacular failures caused by smoke residue build-up in things like power amps which have been run for years in pubs and other venues. I have a pic of the worst one, it's actually really unpleasant to look at...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The answer I assume is because it's badly designed with borderline-spec components, an inadequately-sized heatsink and a poor convection cooling path...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Also it's ridiculously loud for being easily carried with one hand. Not gigging-loud, but astoundingly loud for the size and weight, even with a fairly conventional cab (at a guess 12mm ply or MDF).
The little half-rack 200W-sh power amps are under £300, but I s'pose that's still a fair bit compared to what guitarists and bassists are used to paying, and you'd need a preamp of some sort.
Now a large proportion og gigging musicians seem to be .....of a certain age, the smaller size and light weight of modern engineering have a certain appeal.
Sound reinforcement and Bass players have been reaping the benefits and the improvements in driver design mean a single driver in a ported enclosure will outperform an old lower powered driver in a ported/vented horn enclosure many times it's physical size. Remember the original 4x12" cab was cut down from the 8x12" cab needed to absorb a 100w valve head because the 12" celestions of the day were really updated juke box drivers but all that was available.
Many of us are still somewhere between the heavy valve driven monoliths and the computerised matchbox tone generator. One day there will be a hand full of valve guys and everyone else will be making music on a laptop.