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EL84 Tube Question (GT-500H content)


prosigna

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Does anyone have any experience running bass through an EL84 based amp? My EVJ craps out on the bottom end, although there are some mods that can tighten up the bass.

 

I do not need a lot of volume. 50-watts SS would be plenty (50-tube would be overkill). My Hartke B20 can handle most of the playing I do (church praise stuff).

 

These things go for cheap (200-250), are all tube, and have caught my attention.

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el84's are not the best tube for bass purposes ( especially in a combo format).in the grand scheme of things they are pretty fragile and the circuits designed around them tend to be light in the bass department because of it.

if it's the head version and you wanna run a biamp setup with the highs going through the gt i'm sure it would be killer but, i wouldn't depend on it to reproduce a nice full range signal.

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What he said.

 

I've run my Alembic 4 string through my Mesa Rocket 440 - 4 X EL84 combo, but only at conversation-level volumes at home when I was too lazy to fire up the bass amp. I turned the bass knob almost off, and the bass itself is mostly twang, not much for lows. It sounded great, but then I like those ancient recordings from back when the bass and guitar players pretty much used the same amps. I wouldn't try it with a band, not much power and no actual bass to speak of.

 

I've also tried it with a Hughes&Kettner half-rack unit with 1 EL84 that was also designed for guitar, that just sounded terrible. SWR Interstellar Overdrive, a bass preamp/effect thing, also has 1 EL84 and can be used as a very low power amp, and that sounded very nice. Maybe 100 of them would do the trick.

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I plugged my Mesa Subway into a Marshal 212 and played bass through it. The amp is only 15 watts, but it was freakin loud!!! More mid rangey than bassy goodness though. The 84 isn't really known for its low end, more for upper mid chime and sparkle.

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