I was wondering if there was a Swiss army knife of a combo that could serve me for numerous purposes. I know it won't be "brilliant" in any singular application but what I'm after mostly is the flexibility of one amp that can do it all, so a 15" combo came to mind.
Here's what I'm musing:
- Combo small enough to sit in my small house and light enough to lug around to practices
- Works for guitar and bass (which speaker?)
- Just about loud enough to keep up with a drummer
- Has a DI/Line Out for silent home recording and hooking up to Desk when more volume is required at gigs
Does such an amp exist?
Comments
- Fender Excelsior (would need a few weeks and mods, would it be loud enough?)
- Peavey Delta Blues (would need a different speaker maybe, would it be loud enough?)
- Ampeg B-100R
- Fender Bassman 20 (would it be loud enough?)
Maybe, although probably not, for the same reasons.
Yes. That's a proper bass amp that will also work reasonably well for guitar.
No. I had one. Although it's very nice-sounding for home and recording and has a closed cabinet, it's not loud enough for gigging.
Have you tried the Linebacker?
"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
Too many compromises in a combo to do guitar and bass
Possibly not suitable for your purposes but if was to get a 15" combo I'd go for the '65 Twin Reverb.
You don't need a 15" for bass though, esp these days when there are lots of very efficient small speakers that handle bass very well.
My gut feeliing is that they might well work OK for the guitar application that would mainly interest me - i.e. playing an archtop with a clean sound.
https://youtu.be/AsgxDsx79lA
lugging that about us going to get tired quick,although I’d love to keep it. After speaking to a friend today about how much he loves his Excelsior it got me thinking. A 15” combo could be the way forewords.
That’s exactly why Leo Fender came up with the separate head and cab arrangement for the Bassman - the early ones were an open-back 1x15” combo which was pretty useless, then they were 4x10”s which were better but often blew speakers and still weren’t loud enough (although fantastic for guitar of course), then 2x12” sealed cab with a head, which finally worked well.
An Ampeg Portaflex might be another possibility - even the original low-powered ones were always better for bass than the Fender Bassman combos and are still sought-after today, at least for recording. They do make a 50W valve one now I think, although I haven’t tried it.
"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
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
"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 see the 200w Rumble has a 15" rather than a 12" plus an extension cab output. But.... it's getting a bit on the bulky side. The 12" sounds like it will do the job nicely and like you said @ICBM it's more about the cab than the speaker when it comes to bass amplification.
Plus a built in drive channel, bonus!