What's the worst tube amp you've ever heard?

[Chuck H]

OK Juan... Now we're morphing into "best tube amp" info!?!

Tell you what, I'll throw in my pick for worst tube amp just to get the "THE THREAD THAT WOULDN'T DIE (sound dissonant chord on a pipe organ)" back on track I'll vote any of the Mesa products that use a pair of EL84's. Lifeless, dead, bland, etc. Just plain boring. The .22 and Subway amps are the ones I know. I know these were lesser products marketed at those who wanted a Mesa amp for less $$$, but they're embarassingly lacking in tone and dynamics. Playing one literally "feels" like a strugle. As if the amp is working against you. Now...

I had a Subway amp that I modded extensively. And IMHO the cabinet, transformers and speaker sound very good. The finished amp sounds so much better than the stock incarnation that I have to wonder what the engineers at Mesa are thinking half the time. This is because most of the mods involved removal of the various filters and bleeders in the signal chain. I've shared the mods here in a thread long ago. But that only goes so far. I think every owner of one of these amps should perform these mods or have them done by their amp guy. You'd have to be tone deaf to think these amps are acceptible fare from a major brand as they are sold. Good parts, terribly over designed, and poorly.

[Amp Kat]

Fully agree and add: doubt that many (if any at all) #1 gold records were recorded with SVT (except, maybe, a live album); an SVT is a Recording Engineer's nightmare.
*Most* popular, by a looooong way, is some "Fliptop" Ampeg B15 variation; within these the 30W far more popular than the 60W one, for obvious reasons.
They can easily be driven to the edge of crunch, providing natural compression , punch and growl.
Try that with an 8x10" 300W monster.
Even musicians who use SVT live, turn to the B15 in studio.
One favorite trick is to put the speaker in a room corner, pointing to the wall, and a microphone in the small enclosed triangular space.
Sound is bone crushing, yet does not get into every other mic in the studio.

Agree but JM Engineers aren't paid for deciding which amp they can use that's the bands decision and back in the day the SVT was what they had. While it may have been the Engineers choice it wasn't the Bass players choice and if you truely believe there are not Thousands of #1 gold records recorded with SVT you are insane. Certainly there are live records as well but I can hear SVT's tone and they are all over the radio and have been for years however I agree that it's an Engineers nightmare from a studio perspective.

[J M Fahey]

That "SVT tone" you hear is a B15N full tilt.
And thet don't have to get one somewhere, most Sudios already have one.
Just read old Guitar Player band interviews
What you see onstage or in a video is *NOT* what's used on the Studio.
Just one example (of many): U2's "the Edge" does NOT use his iconic AC30 to record his trademark "AC30 chimey sound", go figure.
Can you imagine what he actually uses?

[Amp Kat]

That "SVT tone" you hear is a B15N full tilt.
And thet don't have to get one somewhere, most Sudios already have one.
Just read old Guitar Player band interviews
What you see onstage or in a video is *NOT* what's used on the Studio.
Just one example (of many): U2's "the Edge" does NOT use his iconic AC30 to record his trademark "AC30 chimey sound", go figure.
Can you imagine what he actually uses?

I think some may use them (B15N)but I've been around a long time JM and have seen to many Studios use SVT's religiously in their setups and I've worked for Presonus for 6 years and have seen tons of applications using our compressors,gates and limiters in SVT Bass setups. It's not hard to Mic an SVT at all and most throw them in a seperate room and use a 47 FET and a Sennheiser 421. Now don't get me wrong that with todays VSTi Technology and platforms they can get very close without a Bass rig at all and I'm sure there are Studios that use the B-15 at times but we are talking about a legend amp here that has been used on so many records it's not funny. Of course there are lots of eq and final post editing and simulations being used now and of course many still have LA1 & 2's which never hurt any mix.

[J M Fahey]

OK, fine with me

[Amp Kat]

OK, fine with me

You ain't supposed to give in that easy old timer

[Steve Conner]

Well, here's something else to argue about, why did Presonus use high-K ceramic capacitors in the filter sections of the EQ3B?

[Amp Kat]

Not sure Steve but my guess is it was a new design by maybe a newer Engineer. I know all of the Engineers from there and they are sometimes just rolling with an application from a book standpoint not from an actual user standpoint so in their terms they just make it work not realizing what the drawbacks from a user application may be. They have some really nice products and they have some not so nice products but they have recently shifted over to the recording DAW market and are currently building a brand new facility in a high class area to Engineer products so they must be doing quite well.

[imaradiostar]

Just one example (of many): U2's "the Edge" does NOT use his iconic AC30 to record his trademark "AC30 chimey sound", go figure.
Can you imagine what he actually uses?

Please enlighten us!

I had thought he was a diehard AC30 user- his main amp gets a first class ticket when he has to fly somewhere. It's certainly been modded quite a bit over the years but I'd always thought he loved the AC30 sound.

jamie

[J M Fahey]

He *is* a diehard AC30 user ... but he records with: "

a 5F10 Harvard

".
Info straight from the Tech who services all U2 equipment, who was also surprised by this.
To my question, (I thought the same as you) he answered it has not been "modded" per se, but came out of the Factory with 2 caps different from what's stated on the official schematic.
This was confirmed by Ritchie Fliegler who said thar "regularly, some batches were made that way"
Only difference (and which can account for "chimeier than usual" sound is both coupling caps are .01 instead of .022 .

[bob p]

...
I'm just wondering, because I got some big transformers from a Fender 300PS and I'm trying to design a bass amp of my own, and I have no idea how to make the preamp. I'm not sure whether to go for the simplest possible thing, like what's in the Bassman or the Alembic F2b, or to try something more fancy with a midrange control like the SVT's.

Hey Steve! How did this project turn out for you? It's five years since you wrote that, and now and I'm in the same boat. I've got a Fender 6x6L6 amp that I'm thinking about re-working into a bass rig, and I've been thinking about a Fender style front end vs. an SVT style front end. So I though I'd ask where you went with the front end for your project.

I would have guessed that the Fender circuits wouldn't be all that popular today for bass, considering how so many people complain of "fender farting." But if you look at the schematics of the F2B or the the Mesa 400, it looks like the front ends are both pretty straight forward Fender designs.

Looking at the output section of that Mesa 400 schem really has me scratching my head. I'm wondering how those guys at Mesa can consider bussing up all those tubes in parallel and leaving the grid loading Z at 3x over the max spec for a fixed-bias 6L6. Looks like a major design oversight there.

[Prairie Dawg]

You should get a look at a Mesa Bass 400+ with twelve 6L6GCs, all strung on buss bars. Try changing a tube socket. I just did but lucky it was on the end.

[mort]

I hated the Mesa Nomad 4x10. It was the most flat sounding tube amp I've ever heard. It didn't seem like anything was wrong with it, but it sounded like cardboard on steroids.

[bob p]

You should get a look at a Mesa Bass 400+ with twelve 6L6GCs, all strung on buss bars. Try changing a tube socket. I just did but lucky it was on the end.

Looking at the 400 schematic, It wouldn't surprise me if they left the grid circuit resistance at 100k on each sextet of the 400+. I wonder if anyone is paying attention over there.

[J M Fahey]

Maybe there's a reason that Ampegs outnumber Mesas and Fenders 100:1 or more on stages,all over the World (speaking of Bass amps, of course).
Even SS Galliens and Hartke are more used than them.
Same consideration.