Appropriate rigs for 5 string w/ active electronics

[turk713]

I have a little Ampeg B2 15 combo. Increasingly it makes a farting, distorted sound when I hit the strings any harder than just slightly. I read in an Ampeg forum that this can happen with lower freq's and with active electronics. I have a 5 string Orion, so of course I have the B string and active electronics. What can I do with my current little rig to make it stop distorting, and what pro rigs should I look at when buying a new setup?

[xlrogue6]

Your B2 only delivers 200 watts to the 15.  Add an 8 ohm extension cabinet and you'll get 350 watts, which should help.  (More cone area won't hurt either!)  If you're getting this breakup when the peak light only comes on when you really dig in and your master volume is a 12 o'clock or less, your amp is sick.  Could be your 15 is going south.  I've seen B2's with a couple of bad MOSFETs in the power amp act this way too--you might want to have a tech take a look at it.
 
Kent

[adriaan]

Could the battery in your Orion be going flat? That will also cause distortion in the signal.
 
Before doing anything drastic, plug in another bass and see if the problem goes away - before blaming it on the poor little amp.

[turk713]

Thank you for the feedback on this.  After all --on a light note -- as Pink Floyd's David Gilmour said what's rock and roll without a little feedback.  Thank God it turns out that my amp is fine; as Adriaan suggested it was the damn battery in my bass!  It had been so long since a battery went dry that I forgot what a fading battery sounded like.

[xlrogue6]

Well, call me Mr. Overlook the Obvious!  (Just this once, though, please...)  I've got a B2 in my shop right now that's doing something similar, but it's the amp.  Still think an extension cab is a good idea, especially if you're going to be playing with an enthusiastic drummer.
 
Kent

[811952]

Steinberger L2A basses sound absolutely awesome (think Tim Bogert or Prakash John) about 5 minutes before the battery dies, especially in a big room in front of a lot of people...  More cone area and all the power you can muster will change your life for the better.  The amount of power is less of a concern if you're limiting and compressing because the transients won't be very big, but headroom, headroom and headroom are the keys to a clean deep bass sound, and cone area is essentially the key to volume for a given timbre.
John the getting much quieter one...