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[quote name='cheddatom' post='735954' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:25 AM']Well, in the situation I was describing, I did compare with the "best" chain, which means it's technically not the best chain. I take your point though. I wish I was rich enough to worry about whether my modelling sounds as good as an all valve head. I'd love to be rich enough to try different cabs! Fortunately, I can use my pedal board to re-create my sound through my cheap sh*t rig, and through FOH PAs, without worrying about tiny (im)perceptible nuances.[/quote] Dont we all! Please realise I actually stand in the camp that states, "If its working for you its right". However the very best tone possible for a given player and situation can only be assesed by comparing complete systems against each other, not by swapping individual parts out one at a time. The nature of the human ear/brain and its blatant pantsness in remembering with any realiable accuracy differences in timbre mean this is the case. I completely agree that this is rarely a practical solution though! Your brain tries very hard to smooth out anomolies in sounds. An example, does your living environment sound reasonably quiet to you when everything is switched off? Now go and turn off the main power to the house and go listen again. Chances are you had simply got used to a certain amount of background noise. When working on a mixdown its vital to constantly (every 5 or 10 minutes, sometimes) refresh or 'reset' your ears by listening to a mastered album track that matches (however loosely) your goals for the overall sound of the mix you are working on. Bob Birthright taught me the value of this, and he was spot on! The moral of the story? Even half an hour of mucking around invalidates your ability to truly make an AB comparison without switching back to the orignal.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='735938' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:14 AM']Surely you listen and re-asses with every new peice of equipment in the chain? If I have an all valve rig, but then I try a POD and realise I could carry the same tone around much easier, I chose the POD, and it's not an inferior choice. Then I try the phaser on the POD and realise I can get it to sound like the vintage boutique pedal I spent £500, so I chose the POD and it's not an inferior choice. Then I try the squire VMJ and it sounds the same as my £4k super jazz, so I take the squire to gigs..... etc. I just think there's a hell of a lot of b*llocks said about tone, usually by people with more money than sense (or listening ability).[/quote] But you didnt test the entire end result against the entire "best of breed" chain did you..... Because you have to trade one for another as often as not. So you swap one imerceptible (but measurable) inferiority for its superior original, and over time you introduce perceptibly inferior tone, but YOU cant tell, because it all happened so gradually.

Take poor quality patch leads as a simplistic example. You have a board with 5 pedals on, so thats 4 patch leads. You use top quality cable in your home spun patch cables, and top quality gold plated neutriks right angle plugs. These are bespoke rolls royce quality patch cables. Yet one fails, so for that gig you replace it with the only available ultra cheap nasty as patch cable. You dont notice any diff on the gig, hooray you say, I can save a bundle here! You replace all the remainder of your deluxe patch cables with el cheapo cr@ptastic ones. Hmmm, suddenly your bypass tone is losing some bottm and top, maybe, just. But you can live with it! Its only just perceptible, and with the nature of the human ear, and the inherent laziness of musicians you dont do a straight A/B test to see how bad its got, you just have a sneaky feeling, but its so much cheaper that you can live with it. Next week your beloved Carl Martin chorus goes kufffuuuttt on the gig (damned nasty power spike for instance) chorus is integral to your sound on the gig, so you borrow a nasty no name chorus from someone, Again the tone in bypass, it a tiny iot worse, maybe (hard to tell on the gig, its all so damn loud anyway, and you had a couple of drinks). The guy who lent it to you says keep hold of it till you have a replacement. Next time you go into the studio to record, you compare the result with last time and your tone is sucking big time. You blame the sound guy. You get fired from the gig, your reputation for great tone in tatters.... You and your family subsequently starve, because everyone knows that the public all have golden ears that can tell the difference - no really.... Because you didnt take core tone seriously! Dont say I didnt warn you

[quote name='cheddatom' post='735912' date='Feb 5 2010, 10:56 AM']If you can't tell the difference, then the substitute isn't inferior![/quote] I think what BigJohn is saying is that you may not tell the difference with any one inferior choice. After all the difference from that particular item, although measurable, may be imperceptible. But if you continue with that mindset, replacing many things with inferior items in your signal path, then the total difference will become perceptible, even if the difference at any one stage is imperceptible. As he states, that is the route to a substandard tone.

Just for the record, when I record, I normally go straight into a Joe Meek twinQ, and use its lovely eq and compressor. The sound just blows me away. Its just brilliant. If I were ever to get another rig, it would be an IP112ER stack, and a Joe Meek oneQ preamp. Absolute tone nirvana....

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735347' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:12 PM']Aye, to be honest, no-ones right or wrong when it comes to what they think they can hear... [/quote] At the point we're getting to its highly subjective I agree [quote name='bigjohn' post='735347' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:12 PM']It's a bit tinny. I prefer my Sansui [/quote] I know, I had to get three and even then I couldnt get the volume and tone I hoped for out of my ipod dock [quote name='bigjohn' post='735347' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:12 PM']I didn't think it was measurable at all. In that you can measure the difference between two different wires, but the wire wouldn't be able to tell you which one was $8000 a meter. Didn't this audiophile speaker wire thing start off as a con with some bankrupt stock? I'm sure I read that somewhere.[/quote] Oh you can definitely measure it - if you have accurate enough equipment - but there is no way you could hear anything even orders of magnitude greater in difference. My choice of the word immeasurable earlier was very poor, its imperceptible but very measurable. [quote name='bigjohn' post='735347' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:12 PM']I'm still not convinced. Ok - I'm not suggesting that I can tell if someone else is playing through whatever amps. However, I find, that I prefer playing through valve amps... I find it easier to EQ a pleasant tone to my ears. I've yet to hear myself play through a model which sounds like I know I get valve amps to sound like.[/quote] Is that the fault of the model, or the interface to it, or the user though? I'm certainly not trying to say modelling is the answer to everyone's tonal needs, but I really do think it shouldn't be written off as a dead end for tone. [quote name='bigjohn' post='735347' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:12 PM']A better test would be to get the whole control group to play into two amps, one valve, one solid state modeled on the valve amp and see if they could tell the difference themselves, let them play with the EQ not knowing which one was which.[/quote] If you could make the physical interface to each amp identical it would be a brilliant test - I agree! My signal chain doesn't have any tubes in it at all, and I'm not after a tube warmth sound primarily at all, but I can produce some lovely warm tones if I want to. With my rig I hardly have to touch the eq ever, really, but I do if the room needs it, or a certain musical situation demands I move away from my starting point. I guess I just love the sound of my rig. Lucky me I have no amp or cab GAS at all, and other than a fretless Roscoe 5 string (which isnt ever going to happen) I have no bass GAS either. Woot! I struggle when I rehearse without my full rig, I sometimes end up plugging my rack into an older Hartke 410, and it just sucks so bad. Its dull and lifeless and has no bass extension, it is really insensitive, and 8 ohm, it is the very worst cab I've ever had the misfortune to use. I can, however, with heavy eq-ing , get a usable sound out of it. But it just goes to show that the speaker is the biggest point of failure, as transducers go they just aren't that great, add to that a poorly designed cab, or a less than perfectly designed cab, and you can guarantee that even a serious bass with a serious amp and compressor is going to sound less than it should.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']I never said anything about anything not taking CD as an input.[/quote] Sorry, I interpretted this:- [quote name='bigjohn' post='735209' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:26 PM']What I was saying about hifi though... if ever you get the chance to speak to people who design really high end hifi (not the hifi know nothing buffs ) they'll not hear of [b]digital coming close to valve[/b]s. You'd need a supercomputer to process the response of a valve and it's audible on both subjective (aural) and objective (measurable) levels. Even if you needed the flexibilty of digital effects on your front end, ideally you'd be using a plain vanilla valve power amp. We've only got used to the other way around (valve preamps and SS power) because that way around is lighter.[/quote] As suggesting that high end hifi designers wont have digital media plugged into them. Since Sildx is taking about using digitally modelled bass signal (media) through an SS amp. You seem to be arguing at odds to me on this I think.... [quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']It's is also absolute fact that people who design and build hifi where the brief is to "make the best possible" use valves. They don't use transistors.[/quote] Tell that to Musical Fidelity, their Titan power amplifier is about as good as it gets at £30000 a pop it ought to be, and its solid state. [quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']If you A/B a top end transistor hi fi and a top end valve hi fi, you can not only hear the difference, but the differences between them are detectable through spectrum analysis. So it's not "immeasurable".[/quote] Yes if you compare any two circuits there will be measurable differences if you measure closely enough, you got me. but measurable != audible by any means. If you take a decent bit of sensible speaker cable and measure the output off the end the difference between that and an $8000 a meter cable is barely measurable. A fact proven to me by one of the best educated and longest serving analogue elctronic experts in the country today, who as a day job used to design the analog test beds for CPUs. He is a certified genius at analogue electronics, and if he says it cant be audible, and can demonstrate it cant be audible, I believe him. Again you have to consider the tolerance you are measuring at, since the thd of a speaker is so much poorer than the difference between a speaker cable or an amp running within its defined tolerances. [quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']You'd need a pretty powerful computer to completely and accurately model a specific valve and it's habits foibles and responses at different levels of heat and voltage. That's what I was alluding to. It would be like modelling the weather.[/quote] No it wouldnt. Thats just not true, the weather as a system is infinitely more complex than a tube, dont be silly. You can far more easily measure input/output from a tube at varying temperatures and voltages, and frequencies than measure the weather system on a planet. I hope you are joking. [quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']I'd like to see / hear of someone who has successfully (with or without a supercomputer) recreated a specific valve amp which stands up to aural and spectral scrutiny.[/quote] Again its been done well enough to fool a forum full of bassplayers (and many others too I hasten to add) looking for the truth, its just not as hard as you are making out to model a tube closely enough to fool the human ear. Sorry, but thats the case. All those who want to dispute that, claiming unbelievably powerful senses akin to electronic analysis equiptment take a big step forward. You have not yet done a true double blind test, so you havent been proven wrong conclusively yet. If you did you would be wrong on average 50% of the time. Accept it as unpalateable as it may seem. The geeks have achieved that much. Fact:- the human ear/brain in combination isnt designed or required to analyse at this level of detail, its designed to hear a noise of a predator in time for you to get out the way. Millions of years of evolution have occured to specialise in that skill. Thousands of years have been spent making and appreciating music. Tens of years have been spent discussing amps. You gotta love Darwin!

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735263' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:05 PM']I agree. Valve power all the way! Well, that's the thing isn't it. Where do you draw the line? For me, any compromise I make on sound quality (equiv SS vs Valve) is going to be about price and transportability. If the last two were non-considerations then I wouldn't have a solid state power amp in my rig. I did have a digital one, which was OK, but not as good as the mosfets in there now Digital models schmodels. It's all subjective.[b] I bet on average though, more people would prefer the sound of a true valve amp than a model, even if there are a few that prefer models[/b]. There are people that don't like strawberries that eat strawberry flavour ice cream.[/quote] A test was done here or TB over this and the results were inconclusive. Similar tests were done between an Ampeg B15 and a MB LMII on TB (by JimmyP IIRC) - masses of votes taken as to which was which, and guess what the split was utterly inconclusive. This is on a bass forum listened to by bassists (often with an agenda one way or the other) and even then solo'ed they couldn't be relied upon to tell the amps apart. How can you possibly expect the public to? What about in a mix? Sildx, if you need that kind of tonal control, and it works for you go for it, more power to you. Anyone else, if you can get what you need out of you hands and bass and amp, brilliant! Really pleased for you. If you can do this, why are you even looking at more gear, none of you need it - go procatice

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735233' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:44 PM']Ha ha, well. yes. I am. no. No I'm not. My "Hi-Fi" cost about £220 from Richers in about 1989. I added a CD player for a further £80 in about 1997. However, if you hear a CD through a really good valve Hi-Fi, you can tell the difference immediately. Even if you A/B it with other really good SS audiophile amps. They're much easier to listen to at higher volumes (too much volume for my semi-detached ) And they sound better, richer bass, crisper highs, rounder mids at lower volumes. There's no need for a loudness button for instance... the response is the same across all frequencies (well all the ones you'd want) at all volume levels. I do agree that an amplified signal is always going to be weakest at it's weakest point, but why just let the weakest point be so weak?[/quote] Hold on, what are you comparing here? Are you saying that tube is better than SS, or that digital shouldnt go near tube? As previously stated tube amps when pushed produce a more pleasant breakup than SS. Couldnt agree more. But in your fat ole tube hifi you arent going anywhere near breakup anyway, cos that would start to make the sound less crisp everytime, and more and more compressed. Thats exactly what happens when you push bass hard into a big lead sled tube amp. Great for rock bass, rubbish for hifi! So the tube hifi definitely does not impart its magic 2nd order trick to spice the sound up a little. In fact any tube circuit adds measurably more distortoin than its SS counterpart. It is LESS tru to the input in other words. A loudness button? What hifi kit were you looking at? I havent seen a loudness button on a serious bit of hifi kit (SS, tube or plasma ray gun powered) for decades! A loudness button was never there to make up for a deficiency in the hifi anyway, but rather the fact that the human ear doesnt respond to bass as well as it responds to mids. So if you turn everything right down it can help your listening experience to boost the bass a little. Not because of the hifi, but because your ear doesnt do so well down there. They are still completely valid. If your tube amp doesnt need one then it is definitely putting out added bass at low volumes, so making things even more distorted. Sounds pretty rubbish to me. In actual fact the point in the signal chain that adds by far the most distortion to the signal is the speaker itself look up the %age thd on some kit, fact is that speaker tech hasnt really moved very far since its inception, a paper or metal cone is not a very accurate transducer. A tube amp running within its tolerances will add orders of magnitude less thd. And Your ears can only detect whats there, the actual pressure wave hitting them. Unfortunately your brain is a very malleable thing, given to believe all sorts of things are better because you want it to, or have been told that is the case.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735209' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:26 PM']Deffo. What I was saying about hifi though... if ever you get the chance to speak to people who design really high end hifi (not the hifi know nothing buffs ) they'll not hear of digital coming close to valves. You'd need a supercomputer to process the response of a valve and it's audible on both subjective (aural) and objective (measurable) levels. Even if you needed the flexibilty of digital effects on your front end, ideally you'd be using a plain vanilla valve power amp. We've only got used to the other way around (valve preamps and SS power) because that way around is lighter.[/quote] And I've yet to see any really hi end hifi (please site some evidence) that wont accept high end CD as an input. Really good CD is very very good indeed these days. SACD is staggering. I was lucky enough to work in a studio when 96KHz 24bit first was available at all. The top digital standard then was ADAT II (48KHz, at 24 bit). We got to hear on extremely high quality monitors a 1/4" reel to reel master, the same master at 96KHz 24bit digital, and a CD pressing. There was absolutely no discernable difference between the 1/4" tape and the 96KHz 24bit version. In fact it was difficult to say what was different on the CD, although people could generally pick it out from the other two. We ended up doing blind tests for a couple of hours and no one there (about 3 engineers/producers, a band, and the guys showing off their kit) could reliably tell what was what. That was in 1997 or 8 IIRC. All valves do is degrade the signal in a measurable, gentle and acoustically pleasant way. They impart no magic other than even order distortion. They are not a Holy Grail, just a different way of treating a signal. If you push them hard they dont sound harsh because of the nature of the way they break up. If you dont push them hard the effect is less obvious. If you drive them well within their limits the degradation is unnoticeable, and unmeasurable. Just like a transistor in the same circumstances. That is an absolute fact. For example, there is a tube in the preamp of an LH500, the circuit is designed not to distort, it is almost impossible to overdrive and thus almost impossible to tell its actually a tube. The LMII tube with the blendable tube pre is very similar, but even more eye openeing since you can blend across from one to the other and compare the difference in such an immeduiate way. I spent a good hour fiddling with one in GAK, only to come to the conclusion that the tube preamp was so clean as to be pointless. As for needing a super computer to model a tube, that is a complete myth. Please site a study to support this. It just is not the case!

Yup I'd go along with that to a certain extent. Although for the money I payed my Roscoe had to have great tone out of the box! I personally think any bass over £500 has no excuse sounding anything other than very very good.

From a playing point of view I think ergonomically they are the most sorted shape of all. The sr300 is quite simply the comfiest cheap bass you can buy, and the best step up from a first bass there is. If playability and ergonomics are on your agenda at all. A friend of mine started a year or so ago, we tried a lot of basses at GAK in her price range, nothing worked for her better than a red sr300. Had a rehearsal with her partner last night (he's a drummer), and he was telling me how much she loves it still, what a great sound she's getting out of it and how much it inspires her to play. Definitely a modern classic IMO!

[quote name='MythSte' post='732894' date='Feb 2 2010, 01:24 PM']Not only that but the LM2 isnt technically a class D head AFAIK. And its a lot warmer than most class D's, even the ones with tube Pre's. hmm.[/quote] True, its a switching or 'digital' powers supply, you're right, but also compared was an F1 and that is a true digital amp, and that was very different from either of the other heads, we also compared Mesa, Ampeg and maybe a GK head all through an Epifani 115ul and 210ul stack with a variety of Dingwall 5 strings. The MB 450 silverfaced old school power supply head beat the LMII by a gnats, and the F1 came next, the rest weren't even close. We spent hours going back and forth between all the different heads. Fair made my fingers sore

Anything that can get down to 4 Ohms (which is everything) The LH500 and LMII or LMIII are great suggestions, and are very very loud. In all likelihood if those cabs are older Laney 2x15s then if you significantly boost the bass on the amp then your speakers will fart out before those amps run out of juice.

[quote name='JackLondon' post='733063' date='Feb 2 2010, 03:46 PM']Will you bring your Berg ? [/quote] If I can come along I'll be bringing my Berg. If he's not snowed with something else I'm pretty sure Plux would like to come along too, and he'll be bringing his Bergs too in that case (HT115 and HT210 stack) So yes, there would be Bergantino aplenty in that case

Dont forget the MB F500, like an F1 with more powerful eq plus a mute switch and pre-post switch Personally my sa450 certainly doesnt lack any top end at all...

Depending on precisely where and when I might be able to make it too.... No guarantees though

[quote name='blamelouis' post='732053' date='Feb 1 2010, 06:49 PM']NOBODY does GROWL like Darryll Jones . [/quote] Never mind growl, thats some of the coolest slap playing I've ever heard, and a fabulous warm rich tone, probably both pickups maxed, and not too much treble (at least from the you tube vid)

[quote name='MythSte' post='732844' date='Feb 2 2010, 12:57 PM']I'm certainly beginning to wonder if there is much tone difference between Class D and normal Fet powered amps. At first i thought there was nothing in it. However im constantly being convinced otherwise. I'd like to try a high quility Class D, say 500 watt amp against the Fet equivalent and see what differences are thats for sure.[/quote] I had the oppurtunity to compare the old markbass 450 amp (not an sa450 the one before) that had a Fet power amp section against am LMII, and the Fet maybe had it by a whisker, however the sa450 that I have weighs nothing and sounds amazing....

Tell the guitarist exactly how you feel, point out that maybe he should leave, or start another band, since he doesnt want to be in this one anymore. After all this is a Hawkwind tribute band, not an originals band at all. I'd have a chat with the others first to see what they feel, and if they are with you get an guitarist wanted advert printed out and give him a couple of copies to take with him as he leaves. The look on his face should be priceless If he wants to do two bands, then point out that his basslines aren't at all inspiring and need considerable reworking, if you are to stay in the originals band he is trying to put together. Other wise he is welcome to get another bassist for that band, you aren't interested. Be prepared to walk if this goes badly, but dont get down about music because of one persons inability to stick with the gameplan.

[quote name='sk8' post='730293' date='Jan 31 2010, 08:56 AM']Becasue Jim won't do endorsements or the back up required for touring[/quote] Yeah, wouldnt even cut Vic W a deal he could live with (although I expect Hartke put up some serious wedge to get his face i front of their inferior cabs). Doesnt bother me, the less punters who see my Berg gear and think "thats worth a fortune I'll have that when he pops to the bogs" the better

[quote name='Toasted' post='728588' date='Jan 29 2010, 12:31 PM']Quick iPhone snap of mine with my new U5. Sounds good.[/quote] Cwooooar! Thats about it then for you, no need to come on here any more for amps and cabs, all sorted then - right?

[quote name='supabock' post='731521' date='Feb 1 2010, 11:58 AM']Guys, Just a thought, but do you guys play a gig with a specific tone dialled into your bass and then for example do some slap inserts of slap improves/motifs during a track. If you do, how do you work between the tone you have on the bass and a good slap sound without having to stop and dial in a whole new sound on the bass. I find that with my Wal's the playing tone is great but when I put a few subtle slaps in there, I loose the bottom end and the tone can be really harsh.....I have a GT6B and was also wondering if anyone has any dialled in patch settings I could quickly use? Is this the way to go?? Steve[/quote] Its tricky this isnt it! Personally I try and get a sound that can work for both, I'm luck y though, as I dont particularly favour a very mid-scooped slap tone, preferring more mids than most. Also a really well set up high quality compressor can help you here too. I find I like a fingerstyle tone thats pretty much bridge pickup, fingers over the bridge pup and add bass to taste. If I then need a killer slap tone I can get it by just rolling the pup blend toward the middle. If I'm playing a track with the odd pop or slap accent I tend to roll the pup blend halfway back toward the middle (so still a lot of bridge pup in there) and maybe back the bass off a bit. Its a juggling act, and if I'm careful I find it just needs the right generic tone at the get go, generally I try and do as much tone shaping as possible with my fingerstyle plucking position to keep things balanced. The other thing is the potential volume difference, I pluck quite lightly as long as I can hear myself, so I have to be careful not to over do it when I'm slapping, but that is really just a technique and listening thing. I like to set up the comp so I can just hear its there when I'm slapping, but not when I'm playing fingerstyle. Its a hell of a trick when you get it just so, and sounds superb switching from one to the other then.

If you want to stay 410 but you want lighter, then you need to try an ae410 - mine is IMO the best cab I've ever heard, and I include all the barefaced stuff in there (I've had plenty of time with a BF Big One to compare too), and everything else too. If you want to stray away from a 410 then the loudest single cab on the market is almost certainly the Big One (you need some serious wattage to get close to pushing that bad boy as far as it will go). Its a massive sounding thing, very very very deep bottom, tight focused mids, you just wont get the extreme top end zing as there is no tweeter.

They're all great solutions, but I think in all honesty you need to source them and try them. I'd lean toward Berg, cos I like them so much. I have had a really long bash (4 hours with many amps in GAK) on the Epi rig you list, and to be honest its a great sounding rig too.