Ampeg V4BH or Ampeg SVT-350H

R

ralf

New member
i am looking to get a good bass amp setup. What is the better choice between the Ampeg V4BH and SVT-350H? They are relatively in the same price range. I'm looking for something to play a typical rock n roll bar gig. i'd probably use a 1x15 and 2x10 cabinet setup. V4BH is 100W all tube power, SVT is 350W of solid state. Is there a major difference is the volume output of these? V4BH has that "tube sound" while the SVT boasts the "most tube-like feel from MOSFET solid state." I went to GC to try them out but they didn't have the V4BH (they never have the gear i want). Please give me some input. thanks!
-ralf
 
ralf said:
What is the better choice between the Ampeg V4BH and SVT-350H? They are relatively in the same price range...
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You're paying a lot for a box with the SVT-350H, which is nothing in the round world but a B-2R (not the new B-2RE) rack amp put in an SVT-styled cabinet.

I'm not huge on tubes for bass and at the end of the day 100W is still 100W, which is probably not enough to really drive all the speakers you say you plan to use.
 
question:
what i don't understand is if 100W is 100W how come my 60W Fender tube guitar amp can blow away a 150W Crate solid state head? Or how come a 100W tube Marshall head can destroy a 100W Marshall solid state model?
 
Bongolation is correct. I would also recommend the B-2R. It is a fine sounding little amp and is indeed the very same amp that is built into the SVT 350-H. They just mount it into a big wooden box to make it LOOK like an old SVT head. And they charge you quite a bit of money for that big wooden box. You are better off getting the B-2R and taking the money that you save to buy a nice rack. Get one with some extra rack spaces so that if you buy a tuner, or a voltage regulator, or a wireless unit, or whatever, you'll be able to mount that in the same rack.

As for the reason that one amp will often sound louder than another amp that is rated at a much higher wattage, well, this is a very simple question to ask, but a very difficult one to answer.

First of all, let's talk about how amplifiers are rated. A certain wattage rating will simply mean that a certain amp will produce a certain amount of watts before it hits a certain distortion rating. The spec might be .5% harmonic distortion, for example. Well, a transistor amp won't distort until you push it REALLY hard, and then it will start to break up in a sonically unpleasant way. A tube amp starts to produce distortion at very low levels. However, because the harmonic distortion that is caused by tubes is such a pleasant sound, you can continue to turn it up WAY past the initial onset of distortion, and still get nice tones. That 150 watt transistor amp that you mentioned might not hit .5% harmonic distortion until you get to about 8 or 9 on the volume knob. Up until that point, it just gets louder, not significantly more distorted. Your 60 watt tube amp might hit .5% harmonic distortion at about 2 or 3 on the volume knob but, as I'm sure you noticed, it continues to sound great WAY past that point. A tube guitar amp, even when distorting at ten times the specified harmonic distortion level, will still sound very nice.

Then there is the whole issue of speaker sensitivity. All other things being equal, 60 watts of ANY kind of amplification through a speaker that is rated at 91db efficiency will sound about the same as 120 watts of the same amplification through a speaker with an efficiency rating of only 88db. I've oversimplified some of these concepts a bit, but you get the general idea. What it comes down to is that, based solely on the power rating of an amplifier, you can't really tell how loud it is going to sound, at least not until you have some more information.

Hope this helps.
Brad
 
Bassman Brad said:
As for the reason that one amp will often sound louder than another amp that is rated at a much higher wattage, well, this is a very simple question to ask, but a very difficult one to answer.
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But the bottom line is this:

On the bench, a pure generated signal of 1000Hz at the same line level into two amps -- one tube, one solid-state -- each producing the same measured output in watts at the same measured distortion level into the same speaker will produce the same sound pressure level.

This is the crux of the "watts are watts" statement.

Of course, there are at least a half-dozen different reasons why in the real world that tube amp sounds louder per rated watt output, particularly with guitar, because amp distortion is what guitar sound is usually about. This is not the case so much with bass, an instrument that is generally reproduced cleanly.
 
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