Better combo for home and small gigs.....

[Rothstaman]

Peavey basic 60 or Fender BXR 100.

 

I am familiar with the Peavey basic 40. I am assuming the 60 sounds similar.

 

Which do you choose? Why?

[DeepEnd]

Based on specs alone, the Fender because it has twice the Wattage. Truthfully, I'd look for a used TC Electronics or some other lightweight amp. You can find a 250 Watter under 50 lbs. for $200 or so used. Here's an example near me: http://stlouis.craigslist.org/msg/5758370622.html. I have a 60 Watt SWR LA12 for home use and, while it would be okay in a small room with acoustic instruments, I wouldn't really play sizable gigs with it. The problem is that combos with decent Wattage normally tend to be heavy. What's your budget?

[Rothstaman]

Well really I have a little crate that i am borrowing for practicing, I was just thinking I should have something just in that rare case people might want to jam, or heaven forbid, maybe even a gig.

 

I saw those two amps available which is why I posted about them.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I have a 60 Watt SWR LA12 for home use and' date=' while it would be okay in a small room with acoustic instruments, I wouldn't really play sizable gigs with it. [/quote']

 

I have that same amp and I have gigged with it in exactly those types of circumstances - small intimate gigs with small acoustic combos. At 60W, it's not big enough or powerful enough to handle more than that. It is light and compact and easy to move around though.

 

Today with Class D power amps, it's relatively easy to build something that will weigh a lot less than bass amps of years gone by. I'm going to second DeepEnd's advice and suggest you look for something in at least the 200W range if you want to use it live with a band. Of the two amps mentioned, the Fender will be louder, given the same speakers and overall speaker efficiency, but 100W still may not be enough for you. It really depends on the band, the size of the room, and whether or not you can send a direct output to the PA for further support.

 

[WRGKMC]

I bought a BXR 300 head removed from a combo for $75 about a year and a half ago. All it needed was a new power cord. I sold it to my old bass player for $100 a few weeks later then bought an Ampeg Portaflex 350 for $199.

 

The BXR amps are part of the Red Knob series that were sold by Fender in the 90's. They were a fairly cheap build compared to other SS fender amps. I have a 100W Red Knob Guitar head I installed in a portable 4X10 cab. The quality is about the same as Peavey SS amps. Nothing to rage about but can suffice if you use pedals to enhance the sound quality.

 

The BXR 300 I bought is barely enough power to jam with a full band. Its a bit underpowered for my tastes because I'm used to quality amps. Let me explain this point. When it comes to bass, you need allot of extra power left in reserve to get good plush tones and produce a big footprint.

 

Its allot like a having a car with a hot rod engine. You may only drive the car around like you would some crap box 4 cylinder, but you feel the extra horsepower and any time you kick it, it responds instantly. The 4 cylinder has no reserve headroom and pushing the pedal to the floor does nothing to push you back in the seat.

 

This is the rub. Manufacturers continually over rate solid state amps power ratings. They use a flawed method of rating them. Most use a 1K test tone and push it till the amp begins to distort at that one frequency then then slaps a wattage sticker on it.

 

Problem is our instruments don't put out pure sine waves, they produce complex waveforms covering a wide range of frequencies. They also produce sharp transients. Bass especially has to match the dynamic range of a drummer hitting drum skins. A drummer can easily go from zero to 100~120dB with a double tom slam and kick.

 

A bassist has to match that dynamic kick. Now, you can take a lower wattage bass amp and compress the hell out of the strings and crank the volume to get a higher wattage like a guitarist does but you loose all your dynamic range in the process. your soft notes wind up being as loud as your hard notes so everything you play sounds two dimensional.

 

I like having the extra reserve power so I can run my preamp low and get a big plush tone. and when I dig in I can get those sharp loud transients when needed, just like a drumer gets when he hits the cans harder.

 

A BXR 200 might be enough for a three piece but a live drummer will likely overpower it on loud songs. The BXR 100 combo would be an excellent practice amp but for Gigging un-miced? Ain't gonna happen unless you prefer fuzz bass.

 

Most solid state amps have a sweet spot at about half power or less. You can drive them up louder but they quit producing plush tones start giving you those nasty flat lining, like pushing that 4 cylinder car when the light changes. A drummer is driving an 8 cylinder and you have to compete with his dynamics to sound like a unified band.

 

Tube amps are different because the signal is compressed slightly with each gain stage. A 100W tube amp like an old Ampeg V4B would need a 400W regular SS or a 500W class D just to match it's footprint.

 

The footprint isn't as much about loudness as it is the Bigness of the sound. Its the point where the preamp gain staging drives the power amp to get the plushest tone at a reasonable volume with maximum dynamic headroom. A little compression on a SS amp isn't bad. You can get rid of the sterile sound and get a tube like attack from the strings when you have a comp between the pre and power amp.

 

You can get a louder tone with a bigger footprint for the wattage that way. The BXR 300 had this kind of compression built in which helped allot getting the head to play louder with less edginess. You loose some dynamic range but the 300W version works about as good as a Bassman 100.

 

With Class D heads you have to go even higher in wattage to get a nice sweet spot. I bought a Portaflex 350 thinking it might have a bigger footprint then the BXR 300. At best I think I broke even. Its much smaller in size, weight. Its a much better quality build and even though it doesn't have a midrange knob, the tone is better, but the extra 50 watts really doesn't manifest itself.

 

Again its barely enough for gigging and lacks the power reserve I'd need to match a decent drummer. As of now I need to run an additional 200W head and cab to match the live realism and dynamics of a drummer in the studio running the amps at their sweet spot at about half power.

 

The Portaflex class D heads are a solid state option to the original low powered Tube Portaflex like they recorded all those Motown hits with. They even fit in the same cabs. The 350W is likely a replacement for the 40/50W Tube combo head which can be used in studios live jazz combo's. It would get buried with most rock band unless miced. I played out with one with a blues band and it was farting out badly trying to match a drummer.

 

I'm not into ultra loud bands either. I like have extra power so I can run the amp at lower gain and get more clean headroom. I plan on selling the 350 at some point and getting the 500W at some point. I prefer the Ampeg tone over any other bass amps I've used in the past. There's something about the midrange tones that's unique.

 

I could pump my Fender 50W Bassman Tube amp through a good 2X15 cab with high efficiency speakers and probably match it the BXR 300 pretty close. I might have to push it a little to match it in volume but I'd easily match the footprint. .

 

A BXR 100, you probably wont come close to a decent gig volume running that thing at its sweet spot. You'd have to max it out and fart all over the place. The power amp just doesn't have enough balls to run it where you'd need it to get rich dynamic tones. You need that extra reserve to sound right even though you may never use it's full potential.

[DeepEnd]

. . . Of the two amps mentioned' date=' the Fender will be louder, given the same speakers and overall speaker efficiency, but 100W still may not be enough for you. It really depends on the band, the size of the room, and whether or not you can send a direct output to the PA for further support.[/quote']

The BXR100 does in fact have a line out, which is another point in its favor. The Peavey has "Pre out" and "Power in" jacks which could serve the same purpose, but why not get as much power as you can? Again, what is your budget and where are you located?

[Mikeo]

I thought about these, they are no longer made, but they got to be out there in the used market.

 

A lil more power when and if you need it.

 

 

 

 

I have an old Ashdown ABM 500 4x10 combo made in the UK, and it weighs a ton, but's one amazing amp

 

I also have a SWR Cal Blonde kicking around, it's cool for acoustic bass like the Kala U Bass I have. Heavy though.

 

IDK

 

 

Don't know much about the Ampeg Micro bass amps either, but they might be work looking into. hat is if you don't have your heart set on the Fender or Peavey.

 

Class D head are super light and powerful enough to play a gig with and do some bed room practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[onelife]

I've alwas been impressed by the performance of the Roland Cube 100 Bass amp - especially for the size and modest power rating.