Bass Combos.

[blondie]

Right. I'm looking to buy a practice amp for my bass seeing as how I'm currently playing through a guitar amp that orginally came free with an 80 quid guitar, so you can imagine just how unbeliveably crap the sound quality is.

I'm looking to spend no more than £200 and I'm not looking for an amp that has a powerful volume because I'll only be using it to practice at home, but I do want it to have a really good quality sound that can handle drop tuning as low as low a/b.

Can anyone help? Seriously, anything you have to say will be useful seeing as I'm only just starting out to look for equipment and don't really know what to look for!

Thanks!

[E_MaN]

Well what I have currently is a Ashdown Electric Blue 180 1 X 12" combo. Its a great piece of kit and an awesome sound. It retails at £270 or something like that, which is a bit out of your price range. I've heard good things about the new range of render combo's as well.

However I will give a word of warning, if you do plan on practicing or jamming with people you might want to think of getting a amp and cab separate, although it can be a bit crazy and hard to understand at this point, you don't want to end up having to lob around a combo everywhere....like me.

[odub]

I had a Trace Elliot gp7 combo that i sold for £150 and would recommend to someone in your position for that price. Easily able to keep up in a practice/live enviroment, sounded like, well a trace, they come up all the time.

[OldGit]

How about my Warwick CCL?
Small enough for home use, headphone socket,
[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11375&st=0&p=119728&#entry119728"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...mp;#entry119728[/url]

[Tee]

I have a Trace Elliot Boxer 65 for sale in the amps section, only £100. And i'm in London. Perfect for home practice. PLus it has a headphone jack too.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11361"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11361[/url] (scroll past the Ampeg)

Edited January 16, 2008 by Tee

[Paul Cooke]

for home use I'd recommend getting one that has an aux input for hooking up to your CD/MP3 player or the audio out from the computer...

[Machines]

You can get an Ashdown EB-12 180 for £180 new and they regularly sell on eBay for around £120 if you don't mind 2nd hand.

[sk8]

Eden N8

[bigjohn]

Ampeg b50r.

You can't get them new any more, but they're a lovely amp.

headphone and line out.

[yorks5stringer]

Roland Cube 30's often come up on ebay, pretty bulletproof and some cool FX.
Like it was mentioned earlier they won't keep up with a guitar and drums but are small, light and with a reasonable sound

[stingrayfan]

Get yourself a small mixer for £40, then run it through a spare hi-fi or some active speakers. Plug the output of your bass and your PC/ipod etc through that. Will sound much better than any amp at home and takes up much less space too.

[bigjohn]

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='122968' date='Jan 18 2008, 04:48 PM']Get yourself a small mixer for £40, then run it through a spare hi-fi or some active speakers. Plug the output of your bass and your PC/ipod etc through that. [b]Will sound much better than any amp at home[/b] and takes up much less space too.[/quote]

Not sure about that!

My little 50w home amp is lovely. Much better than I'd get running my bass through my nice hi-fi...

My b50r was £120 I think second hand. Comes in useful for acoustic gigs and some recording too.

[Mr. Foxen]

I've killed a few hifi speakers playing bass through them. Can't reccomend it.

[chris_b]

[quote name='blondie' post='121368' date='Jan 16 2008, 11:25 AM'].... currently playing through a guitar amp that orginally came free with an 80 quid guitar.... how unbeliveably crap the sound quality is.[/quote]
I had the same problem. When I used the headphone socket, bypassing the speaker, the sound was fine, even low B. Cheap solution?

[skywalker]

Fender Rumble series are good, I think they come in 15, 30 and 60 (and upwards), headphoe socket and a CD in slot. I Paid £90.00 for a 60 on E-bay, good as new.

Steve

[The Burpster]

Roland cube 100...

Versatile, reliable and easy to lug, with aux input and various modelling profiles.

If you'd like a 30 rather than 100, I have one you can have cheap.

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='123555' date='Jan 19 2008, 09:50 PM']I've killed a few hifi speakers playing bass through them. Can't reccomend it.[/quote]
Haha - I wasn't suggesting running your bass through Linn separates, just an old hi-fi you're not using. For a long time, I ran a mixer through an old micro hi-fi that we didn't need anymore. Sounded great and I was able to mix myself in with iTunes to learn stuff. Much more satisfying than cranking up a boomy, hissy bass amp in a small space.

[markytbass]

[quote]Roland Cube 30's often come up on ebay, pretty bulletproof and some cool FX.
Like it was mentioned earlier they won't keep up with a guitar and drums but are small, light and with a reasonable sound[/quote]

+1
I have a Cube30 around £160 new good array of sounds, headphone socket and input for cd/mps/minidisc player. I use it mostly with headphones and find it good for learning songs.

I also have an SWR Workingmans 15 (160w or 200w @ 40hms) £175 2nd hand off ebay. This also has a headphone socket and I can plug my minidisc player into one of the inputs to play along to. It's quite light too, about the same as my peavy 15" cab.

Its really swings and roundabouts, buy new and get some sort of guarantee on it or buy 2nd hand save some cash but make sure it hasn't been abused.