Hi all, it's been a while, and I'm looking for power amp, and moreover preamp suggestions. Some review and updating will help here because this is sort of a continuation of something I'd posted here a while back, and the background could influence suggestions. In the archives from JAN or FEB of 2005 there is the thread I'd been running about trying to figure out what was causing bad fart type distortion with my rig (which at the time was my Orion, a Mesa/Boogie 400+ tube bass amp, and two 15 Mesa/Boogie cabs which actually were really heavy duty flight cases). Lots of suggestions rolled in, and I did a lot of troubleshooting, and a lot of conversing with the fine people at Alembic as well as those at Mesa/Boog, and I laid out a lot of money having amp tests done, exchanging speakers, and so on.
The problem had gone on for almost a year. I had bought the Boogie system used but looking great, in order to finally conquer problems I was having with my existing used combos always breaking down and being in the shop half the time. Well, then not ever finding exactly what the problem was among my Orion and the Boogie system, eventually I dropped the thread here and then soon I gave up on trying to solve the problem.
That was review. Here's the update and then my request for suggestions. I looked around for a new system, and didn't get a truly confident feeling about any of the manufactured systems that I could afford. I looked at the usuals like Ampeg, and also Demeter, Aguilar and the like; man I went through the list on Harmony Central. I also was trying to find great cabs.
I didn't want any repeat problems!
I decided to have an all custom, handbuilt system made. I called up Tim Paulsen at Ear Candy Cabs and commissioned him to build me 4 of his Bassbombs in accordance with the sound qualities and look I'm after. Now, these Bassbombs are known to be outrageously great sounding and enormously air moving. After having made a few thousand of these things, Paul had still only ever made one order larger than mine for any one bass player. The point is, I now have a lot of cabinet! Each of the Bassbombs has a 12 Kappa Pro and a 12 Delta Pro. Tim has all the sides tuned to exactly the same pitch; the cabs internal design actually instruments the unimpeded flow of air and sound unlike the sad reality concerning most manufactured cabs.
At the same time I commissioned a custom amp designer, at Red Iron Amps, to build me two power amps and one stereo preamp. The power amps would each have 6 high end 6550 tubes, totalling a full 300W. After 7 months (!) the amp system finally arrived, but sadly damaged due to rough handling but also due to inadequate packing for 75 lb amps, and at least partially dysfunctional, and workmanship-wise not measuring up to the very high price I paid. I sent them back and called off the deal at a percentage of financial loss.
So now again here I am, dealing with the same issues, looking for power amps and at least one preamp, most likely two. The difference now is that I have new cabs, so I'm not shopping for those.
So with that all said, I am asking for suggestions. And at this point, just a little more background info will do. One, my cabs can each handle a max of at least 950W. Insofar as they each have two 8ohm rated speakers, the cabs would either be 4ohm or 16ohm, and I went with 16 ohm wiring because I'm going to be using them in pairs and I didn't want to run into having to connect with 2 ohm amp outputs.
Another thing is that I am after power! I am after what will have the capacity to feed each each 950W cab with a minimum of about 1/3 more than a cab's capacity, meaning that I need at least 1250 or so bonafide, functioning watts available to each cab (not over-rated wattage, or spike wattage). Not to ever crank up amps that high, but to have plenty of headroom, filling a sizeable venue with full, intense, heart felt bass sound, while just cruising along at most at half capacity. This way all transients and spikes coming from me maybe pounding real hard on the open B string or from me stepping on my double octave splitter either up or down, or from me or my bass or my effects doing anything at all, will not even come close to overdriving any part of the system. Really, no more of the problems I'd run into for too long already!
The third bit of additional info here to help get suggestions, is that I play a full range of dynamics and pitches, and tones, and use a large variety of effects. I play Pink Floyd-ishly, and also hard driving punk style like the Stooges, and Hendrix and Who style/sound, and also straight out sound effects such as mimicking Humpback Whales.
Last, I'm after stereo. I have an Ernie Ball stereo volume panning pedal that I will use to split my mono signal from the Orion. From the Ernie Ball I will have two series of effects and whatever else eventually, going to either a stereo preamp or to two separate preamps. After the troubles that have occured in getting together a good system, I am down to a max of $4000 to work with.
I'm very strongly considering two Crown CE-4000 power amps. Forget specifically bass amps, I figure. There aren't any as powerful as I want, and tone is established at the preamp level anyway. Each amp would give me 2400W out at 8ohms (two of my 16ohm cabs linked together = 8ohms), in bridge mono mode. That's 1200W available to each 950W cab -- the doable minimum of overhead that I want. By the way, the red and black fronts of these amps would go with the hot firey color of the front panels on my otherwise black cabs. Of course, I'll have two of these mono rigs as my one stereo rig.
Anybody have any other suggestions for the power amp stage?
And now the bigger question at this point. PREAMPS. Here's some preamp news I could have used a long time ago, I finally got confirmation of something I had suspected all along regarding my Mesa/Boogie system. Someone at M/B said the other day that the 400+ might have been getting freaked out at the signal coming from my Orion, at its input (preamp) stage, and the distortion could have been the result.
Well, I do not want there to be any chance of something like that happening anymore at my system's preamp stage! And I'm looking for quick response, warm warm warm, organic tone as my home or essential tone, with powerful lows, mids and highs alike. I want unquestionable preamp capacity to handle the full impact and frequency range of every pitch all the way down to low B and all the way up to high G, and amplitude, from my Orion 5-string, no matter how hard or soft I pick or finger.
I don't like the modern solid state sounds, or even many of the modern tube sounds. But I'd take solid state if it sounded more good-tube than does a tube pre. I've looked at Alembic's F1-X, Aguilar (expensive!), Demeter, Ashdown, and others that I can find reviews about. I like what I read about the Aguilar the most I think, so far. But I have no clue how one actually sounds with respect to tone.
I'm interested in having an easily expandable system, such as one day maybe bi-amping on both sides of this two amp system.
Ok, 'nuff said. suggestions?
