Wanting new bass rig

[tmoney61092]

so i've been saving up my money and have finally decided that i have the all the basses i need and want to get a new rig. so what i've been wanting to get is a Gallien Krueger 2001RB because of the features it has and the reviews i've read. the problem is that i have an Ampeg SVT-1540HE which only pushes 400W while the Gk 2001RB has 1000W. what i'm wondering is if i'll have to buy a new cabinet as well since there is such a difference in wattage? i'm assuming that i will and am looking at a couple of Mesa cab's that have 1200W and know would be able to handle it, thanks guys
 
~Taylor

[David Houck]

Just thought I would mention that as a generalization, you probably want the rating of the head to be equal to or somewhat greater than the rating of the cab at the same ohms.

[tmoney61092]

by why is that Dave? when i bought my cabinet and head i got them at the same time so it didn't occur to me to ask question about it. i am a dumb dumb when it comes to amps so don't know anything besides make sure they're at the same ohms. i watched this video of one of my main influences and he has the same setup(well, a little more elaborate of course) as far as amps and it works fine. just trying to get more educated  
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kat6WNUS-k
 
~Taylor

[David Houck]

Your gettin' a rig like that???!!!!

[tmoney61092]

no no no no no! haha sorry about that, i'm just looking to get 1 of those GK 2001RB heads and one of the Mesa Vintage Powerhouse cabinets. i have no need in getting anything more than that! and i have most of the pedals i need except i wouldn't mind one of those MXR bass envelope filters and/or the bass octave deluxe, sorry for all that confusion Dave!
 
~Taylor

[elwoodblue]

Taylor,
    You want to make sure your amp has alot of headroom so it can handle sudden peaks in your signal. If the amp clips it produces a square wave that can damage the speakers.  
 (Especially if your power amp is solid state)
   
   So you should be fine with the cab you have , you probably won't be giving it full power from the amp.
 
  ...and the additional mesa cabs couldn't hurt  

[tmoney61092]

elwoodblue, so should the head or the cabinet have more watts? just wanting to make sure i'm getting all of this right. and so as long as i don't turn the head up full power my cab should be ok? not expecting to have to use that head past 9 o'clock if even that since i use my GK 1001RB at 8 o'clock for practice and jamming but not compeltely sure because i haven't gigged out in a while but should be joining a gigging band real soon
 
that Mesa cab sure is tempting also, i haven't been able to find a price list anywhere for the vintage powerhouse cabinets that i'm thinking about, can't decide between 8x10, 4x10 and 1x15, or 4x12, can anyone describe the difference between each of those speaker combinations? and i'm assuming that it will cost almost as much as the head itself so i'll have to wait on that :/  
 
~Taylor

[2400wattman]

The practice of having your amp be two times greater than your cabinets power handling stems mostly from p.a. applications (especially for the subs). I used to use an Ampeg SVT 2 Pro(all tube 300 watts) into an SVT (8x10-800watts) and pissed off everybody. It's simply THE loudest system you'll play through and there is nothing like it-especially for rock and roll!  
Ultimately you want your amp to have as much power as you can get your hands on. When you don't have enough power you run the chance of blowing speakers more than if you have more than enough. Sounds strange but true. Without ample headroom you end up pushing the limits of your amp into distortion and subsequently blowing SH!* up. If you notice most guys here use a preamp power amp combination myself included. Reason being is that most bass amps-though not bad sounding- don't provide the power, fidelity, and the ability to bi-amp that is available on the market. I know the 2001 RB can bi-amp but it's generally not enough for heavy rock situations and you'll end up running the thing mono to get the most power out of it. All this being said if you want to go the bi-amp route which is pretty damn cool.  
As far as the Mesa cabs go, they're great but like most great things they are very very pricey when new. Source out used cabs as there is always somebody selling something for a song. I bought used Bag End cabs and saved more than a grand and they're all in great shape and work perfectly.  
All the cabs speaker combo's you mentioned above are great in their own right you just have to go try things out and see what catches your ear.  
8x10's are monsters and require more volume than what most people want to hear. It's just a matter of getting that sweet spot. If you want 8 tens I would go with two 4x10 cabs as you'll get similar results but it's not one whole cab resonating the stage and your band mates.
Tens clustered together are tight, punchy and can give great low end response.  
Twelve's are more akin to produce mid range better but your cab is going to be bigger. Remember YOU gotta carry this thing and your band mates may not be around to help out at times.  
Fifteens are better suited in pairs IMHO. One is not enough when paired with a 4x10, it just gets diminished. A 2x15 can create great punchy subs and is ideal to me, there's just not many companies making them.  
  You may be better off jamming with your band with what you've got and add components later when you figure out what you would like. One benefit of buying something from Guitar Center is they offer a 30 day return policy (if you buy new) so, whatever you buy can be returned if it's not your cup of tea.  
Good luck to you!

[bigredbass]

After all these years, I only have one rule of thumb for bass amps:  Buy big.  I want lots of power and turn the beast up to only 2 or 3, where it's not working very hard, runs cool, and runs very clean.  I played for years with rigs that were just enough, they were in slight distortion a lot of the time, and I hated every minute of it.  I'll never gig again, so this is really an academic subject for me (or maybe a latent rant), but if I EVER am fool enough to build a gig rig again, it's ONLY gonna be with an F2B and a serious commercial power amp, ala Crest or QSC.
 
Whatever you do, buy more head than cabinet.  Not by a massive amount, but don't sweat a 1000 watt head into 500 watt cabinets.  The reverse is where you get into problems.  The big head into smaller cabs is just cruising making nice AC down the speaker cables.  A small amp pushing hard to keep up will distort:  At it's most severe, that power becomes more and more DC, the speaker cones go out and stay out more over time, and eventually you wear them out, if not courting an outright failure.
 
Bigger really is better.  Like elwood said, you want headroom, there's where you can develop and control your tone.
 
And of course, you filter this through the usual conditions:  $$$$, and am I gonna need a van to haul this around, do I want a little prissy cigar-box digital amp and some Neos, can I cover the gig with a Redhead, do I want an SVT and TWO 810's, do I wanna fool with a rack case, will this fit in my car . . . there's always lots of blanks to be filled in.
 
And certainly the prime consideration:  Can I really hear myself over that jackwagon with his Marshall half-stack ?!?!
 
J o e y

[tmoney61092]

thanks Adam, you did a real good job on clearing things up for me. i don't really have a need for bi-amping at this point because that just gets too complicated and won't be playing anywhere big enough that will require multiple amps. another thing that's confusing me is looking at GK's website it says the 2001RB has dual 540watts at 2 ohms or 1080 bridgeable at 4, does this mean that i could run into 2 seperate cabinets at 540 watts each or just one at 4 ohms for 1080? i love the sound of some good mid-range punch because it feels like there's just so much there so i think the 4x12 would be best for helping get the mid-range punch, correct? i know that the amp itself has a lot to do with that but with the 2 heads that i've owned, i've had a lot of trouble getting a good punchy sound of them even with my 1001RB i use now. the good thing about the band i'm joing is there gaining some decent popularity in the local scene so they have roadies who help them carry everything so it shouldn't be AS big of a problem. the problem is that i live in Greensboro, NC and the best bass amps GC has in store are some Acoustic stacks and 1 GK stack but has the Backline 600 running into it. but they don't have any variation in speaker cominations, only 4x10 and 1x15 or 8x10 so it's hard to get a feeling for what each sounds like.  
 
Joey, thanks for the help. i don't have the knowledge or resources around me to experiment with different preamps and power amps to figure out what i like and what works and all that because Greensboro just doesn't have a very big music scene which is really sad. when i initially bought my cabinet and head it had a Hartke 3500 running into the SVT-1540HE. so the head had 350 watts and the cabinet has 400 or 500(can't remember which it was). the sound was good and i used them for about 3 years of playing without having any issues. then again i never turned up the amp past say 10 o'clock so i never was in a situation where i needed a ton of power. since the difference between 1080 and 1200 is so little would it have a similar effect if i didn't have to turn it up a lot? i'm not expecting to play out at any huge venues any time soon so i wouldn't be pushing the head. but this is just knowledge for the future, if i do get the 2001RB i'll just run it through my SVT-1540HE until i can scrounge up enough money to go after a cabinet.
 
and can't agree more on the jackhole with the Marshall, my old band had 2 guitarist and both shared leads but one of them thought he always had to be louder. so after the first song he'd always crank his amp up but none of us could tell. well then later when i got an audio recording that came from the mixing board you could barely hear the other guitarist so needless to say he stopped turning up after the stern talking we gave him.
 
~Taylor

[sonicus]

At the moment I have configured a 4x10  with  a 2x10 cab. Both are old  Mesa Boogie Road Ready cabs loaded with EV speakers. They are powered by an old Crest VS900  with An ALEMBIC F1X preamp and an SF-2 superfilter.  
 I am running it biamp. This is a decent sounding  mid sized rig to my ears. I can also add an Old Alembic A18  loaded with a Gauss and a PAS 2X10 also loaded with EV 's that I can add powered by a Yamaha P2200.      
 
      I also have an old GK 800RB that works well with the 4x10 and 2x10 in biamp. I like the GK stuff as far as their Bass amps go. GK would be my pick if I was not using the Alembic/ Crest rig.
       Back in 1996 I was playing in a power blues fusion trio playing my USA Fender Jazz Bass and I had the same GK800RB and an AMPEG 8x10 speaker cab AND a GK400RB  powering the Mesa 4X10. The Guitar Player  was using 1 sometimes 2 Old Cream Colored Fender Bassman  4X10 amps ; he could get loud!
I was putting out at least 3 or more times the RMS WATTS that the Guitar Player was but I needed it because the mix was right, my SPL level was right .  Bottom line _____ as Bass players we sometimes need  those WATTS .
 
(Message edited by sonicus on December 29, 2010)

[mike1762]

My current rig is the best I've ever had: Alembic F1-X (set flat at around 2-10-2), ART Pro Channel with a little compression and a little boost at 200Hz and 400Hz, and a QSC PLX 3402 all running into a 800W El Whappo Jr.  Oodles of headroom.  The problem is that even though it might be blowing everyone else away, I sometimes have trouble hearing it (the cabinet is relatively small and sits way below ear level)... I probably need to stand further away from it.

[David Houck]

Here's what I've been able to determine looking at the manuals and doing other searches.
 
The SVT-1540HE can be configured as either two separate cabs, one 4x10 and one 1x15, or as one full range cab.  As separate cabs, each cab is rated at 4 ohms; as one full range cab, the rating is 8 ohms.  The owner's manual does not state the power handling capacity.  In my search, I've seen it rated at 400 watts, 8 ohms; so presumably the 400 watts applies to the full range mode.  I also saw a posting stating that in separate mode, each section was rated at 200 watts, 4 ohms; but I don't know how reliable that is.  I've seen other ratings posted as well, and have not been able to find power ratings from a reliable source.
 
Does the cabinet have power ratings stamped on the back?
 
The left and right speaker outputs of the 2001RB will each deliver 360 watts into 4 ohm loads.  The bridge and biamp modes apparently require 4-lead speakon cables,and the manual suggests that those modes are specifically designed to work with GK RBH cabs.
 
Thus, if you want to use this amp with this cab, my guess is you'll probably want to plug one channel into the 4x10 input and the the second channel into the 1x15 input.  However, personally I don't think it's a great idea to run a full range signal into a 1x15.  Although the manual is unclear on this, the specs suggest that you could just plug the left speaker out into the full range input of the 1540 and you would be providing 240 watts into an 8 ohm load.  However, as suggested above, the full range input of the 1540 is probably going to be underpowered with just 240 watts.
 
I think this head and this cab, both of which seem underpowered, are somewhat mismatched.
 
The head would probably work fine with two 4 ohm 4x10s rated at no more than 360 watts.
 
I'm no expert, so don't take the above as 100% accurate.  But that's my guess at what you are looking at.
 
[Added]  Ok; in reading through the manual further, if you use a 2-lead speakon cable, wired as shown in the manual, and you only use the left speakon speaker output (and adjusting the level outputs as described in the manual), then you can use bridged mode with non GK cabs.  So, in bridged mode, the amp will deliver 1080 watts into a 4 ohm load or 650 watts into an 8 ohm load.  Thus in bridged mode this amp should be matched up fine with the 1540 using the full range 8 ohm input.
 
Again, that's my guess.

[xlrogue6]

I replaced the 15 in a 1540 for a customer a year or so ago. The stock driver is, shall we say, not a monument to robustitude. The best cost effective replacement I found was the Eminence Kappa 15C, definitely a stronger driver than the original. Even with the Eminence, if it's lots of clean level you're looking for, the 1540 is probably not the cab for the job.

[tmoney61092]

Dave, you are my hero right now, it amazes me how you were able to find all that information.  
 
i moved my cabinet away fromt he wall and this is what i found, theres a 3 way chicken head type switch at the back that says high frequencie attenuator and has seetings of off, -6, 0 never messed with it and just left it at 0 so i'll have to mess with that more tomorrow. there are 2 inputs for the 8 ohms full range that says 400 watts each. there is also 2 inputs taht says bi-amp above it at 4 ohms for 200 watts high and 200 watts low. not completely sure what this is for but would have to say it has to do with being able to run each channel seperately, does this sound correct? being able to run each channel on the 2001RB seperately would be a dream come true if i can make that happen since i was wanting to mix the dirty and clean channels but there doesn't seem to be a blend type control on the head. so now i know that my amp has bi-amp capabilities but just how do i use it? i have never read or tried to do this before so i'm clueless. i have a GK 1001RB and a Hartke 3500, would i be able to run both heads into seperate inputs, have one running to the 4x10 and the other to the 1x15, and EQ each speaker combo seperately?  
 
all of this is so new to me and it's making me rather excited about the possibilities. sorry if what i'm sayign doesn't make sense or is just plan dumb, please don't hesitate to tell me if it is  
 
~Taylor
 
(Message edited by tmoney61092 on December 29, 2010)