After looking it up, The Quilt is on my short list. On it’s own, does it have a “dry” tone...not in a bad way, but very fundamental and no nonsense? The clips I’ve heard give that impression, but I haven’t personally played/heard one.
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More headroom needed & pre/power amp suggestions
- Thread starter Bruiser Stone
- Start date
After looking it up, The Quilt is on my short list. On it’s own, does it have a “dry” tone...not in a bad way, but very fundamental and no nonsense? The clips I’ve heard give that impression, but I haven’t personally played/heard one.
Good man! By all means go for it.
Single most important thing is to learn to trust your ears and cruise on your own vibes when it comes to bass. Like Hagbard Celine so wisely said: “Never sign on for anyone’s trip but your own.” My experience isn’t going to be your experience. Half the good things happening with our instrument were the result of someone ignoring received wisdom and checking things out for themselves. Maybe not the easiest or cheapest way to vet out the things you’re told. But “hands on” is the only way to know for sure what works and doesn’t work for you.
full disclosure: i am still relatively "new" to playing bass, though i've been a musician my whole life, and know what i like from a bass rig.
that said, i would definitely qualify the BB800 as having a pretty dry tone. it is fundamentally a great power amp, and i mostly use the on-board EQ controls to help dial in my stage tone. The Subway is definitely doing most of the heavy lifting for EQ. i will say that boosting the gain past 5 or 6 adds some really nice (to me) growl. But otherwise its just a great workhorse amp for a great price.
- Jan 30, 2004
- 6,985
- 7,161
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- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Mike Lull Custom Basses
I used to biamp in the early 90's. I used an Alembic F-1X preamp into a QSC USA 1300 power amp, and I ran a Peavey 2-15" BW cabinet for my lows, and a 4-12" Peavey cabinet for my highs. I dug the power of the QSC and the F-1X's tone, but I had a hard time balancing the high/low setup during gigs, but YMMV.
I can't recommend the Crest CA9 power amp enough to folks wanting to run a rackmount setup. But be forewarned, it weighs close to 50 pounds by itself. But I've never felt a lack of volume or headroom using it. It's truly a monster of an amp for bass guitar.
I'd say the combined weight of my rack with the CA9 and my Demeter HBP-1 preamp was close to 75+ pounds. I'm by no means slight in build, and I've been doing physical labor for the majority of my life. I'm 56 years old, and I can still move my rack without much difficulty, but I also rely on a convertible hand truck/dolly.
Before I play another gig, I plan on putting the CA9 in a rack by itself.
I'm now using a GED-2112 preamp, and with a stereo power amp, it allows me to run it's separate Deep and Overdriven channels simultaneously into separate speaker cabinets. For the heavier styles I'm now playing, I've never had a better amp setup.
I can't recommend the Crest CA9 power amp enough to folks wanting to run a rackmount setup. But be forewarned, it weighs close to 50 pounds by itself. But I've never felt a lack of volume or headroom using it. It's truly a monster of an amp for bass guitar.
I'd say the combined weight of my rack with the CA9 and my Demeter HBP-1 preamp was close to 75+ pounds. I'm by no means slight in build, and I've been doing physical labor for the majority of my life. I'm 56 years old, and I can still move my rack without much difficulty, but I also rely on a convertible hand truck/dolly.
Before I play another gig, I plan on putting the CA9 in a rack by itself.
I'm now using a GED-2112 preamp, and with a stereo power amp, it allows me to run it's separate Deep and Overdriven channels simultaneously into separate speaker cabinets. For the heavier styles I'm now playing, I've never had a better amp setup.
I see a CA9 for sale. It’s not just heavy, but deep. But not much more so than my Peavey....
- Jan 30, 2004
- 6,985
- 7,161
- 5,346
- 61
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Mike Lull Custom Basses
- Jan 30, 2004
- 6,985
- 7,161
- 5,346
- 61
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Mike Lull Custom Basses
It shouldn't be too much of a hassle to find a rack it will fit into, though. If you do buy a CA9, I suggest you buy a separate rack for it, because of it's weight.
I can't compare it's performance versus the lightweight stereo power amps, because I haven't tried any of them. But I've read here from a TBer who runs a CA6, that the Crest Prolite 3.0 offers incredible performance at a lighter weight.
Another thing about the CA9, -at least the one that I own doesn't have Speakon outputs on it's back panel. But I've ran into zero problems using it's banana plugs, and it was easy to find speaker cables with banana plugs on one end and Speakon connectors on the other end.
All in all, these things are a non-issue for me. It's been 100% reliable over hundreds and hundreds of live gigs, and like I posted earlier, I've never felt I didn't have more than enough volume and headroom. It absolutely slams.
I thank everyone again for the suggestions. I like my Peavey's tone, and if I'm already lugging it around, I may just get a power amp and run the preamp into it in case I need more juice. It's something else to carry, but it's not too much of an extra burden. The "preamp out" from the Peavey is 3V per the AlphaBass manual, so in my limited knowledge, this should drive most anything.