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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 11:55 am
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I ran across a poll on another forum on Ampeg's new Portaflex amps. The question was "Has your Ampeg cut out on you?". Fully 1/3 of the over 150 respondents said yes! A whopping 33% failure rate! :shock: How is Ampeg even in business??? And these same people have the nerve to put down Fender Rumbles as childrens toys. :roll:

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 12:55 pm
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Wow, that's not so good. That's one thing I've noticed around here was not too many people have had this kind of problem, or at least that's reported anyway. Another one that had a lot of reports of problems, which seems to no longer be made, was the Line 6 amps. I remember reading their forum and seeing a lot of complaints.

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 8:49 pm
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linnin wrote:
I ran across a poll on another forum on Ampeg's new Portaflex amps. The question was "Has your Ampeg cut out on you?". Fully 1/3 of the over 150 respondents said yes! A whopping 33% failure rate! :shock: How is Ampeg even in business??? And these same people have the nerve to put down Fender Rumbles as childrens toys. :roll:


The new line of offshore-built Acoustics suffer a similar malady.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 4:56 am
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linnin wrote:
I ran across a poll on another forum on Ampeg's new Portaflex amps. The question was "Has your Ampeg cut out on you?". Fully 1/3 of the over 150 respondents said yes! A whopping 33% failure rate! :shock: How is Ampeg even in business??? And these same people have the nerve to put down Fender Rumbles as childrens toys. :roll:

Couple points here.

First is that any survey where the sample is self-selecting is automatically invalid (a topic, or maybe Statistics 101 book chapter, all on its own). I think this is what Linnin was driving at, tongue in cheek.

Second, I think it's interesting how different manufacturers' reputations will help or haunt them through the decades. Without mentioning names -- and without restricting myself to the instrument amplification business -- I see some manufacturers cheapening their products, hoping to continue to sell them based on prior reputation for good quality. I think it's sadder when the opposite happens: when a manufacturer tries to recover from a bad product (or years of bad products) by beginning to put out truly good stuff, but the market's memory is too long and too unforgiving, so the uptake is low and will always be low.

Saddest of all is when a manufacturer persists in being it own worst enemy by continuing to ship products with known design or manufacturing defects. One would hope the market would eventually smell the self-inflicted rot, and relegate these manufacturers to the shadows, where they'd stay indefinitely. For various reasons this is often not the case.

One thing I've learned over the decades is that country of origin (whether parts or subassemblies or the actual top-level "saleable part") tells me nothing about initial quality or long term reliability. What speaks loudest is warranty length. That's the sole indicator of a manufacturer's confidence in his own product. If a manufacturer botches that number, he'll pay and pay big -- either in lost sales (warranty too short) or in excessive return costs (warranty too long). Manufacturers know this, and that's why that number is not arrived at trivially.

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:00 pm
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CPL wrote:
... Another one that had a lot of reports of problems, which seems to no longer be made, was the Line 6 amps. I remember reading their forum and seeing a lot of complaints.


I bought the first Line 6 Studio 110 sold at Guitar Center Charlotte years ago. I still use it frequently. I'll let you know when it dies. I've had it now for about 5 or 6 years. It has one of the best XLR direct outs I ever heard.

Line 6 discontinued their entire line of bass products. Variax electric basses, Bass amps and the BassPod preamps/floorboards etc. Everything bass related was discontinued at Line 6 a year ago this past May. It is a volume thing. Not a reliability issue. They were selling 50 times more guitar gear than bass gear. It is sort of like Fender discontinuing the MIM Left Handed P-Bass, it was simply because they weren't selling many.

I have beat the snot out of my Line 6 Studio 110. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking and when this thing smokes I'd buy another one just like it, but now I can't. If my Line 6 amp smoked out tonight I've gotten way more than my money's worth.

Let's face it, there's problems in every amp line. And as previously mentioned it comes down to "who has the best warranty" when buying an amp these days.

I plan to stay far away from any tube gear from here on out, other than a tube preamp or tube pedal. In a hybrid amp with a tube preamp I want the preamp to be switchable between tube and solid state in case the tube fails. 12AX7's can fail without warning these days. They used to become microphonic and make whistling noises for a while, but now they just go dead with no warning. That is the most common bass preamp tube and has also been the number 1 microphone tube preamp since I started using tube microphone preamps in 1968. The vintage RCA ones lasted longest but you can't get them anymore around here. Even the late RCA ones were buggy. The offshore 12AX7's seem to last an average of about 12 months and then fail with no warning whatsoever. If you have one in a hybrid bass amp you are playing gigs with, you need to have a backup plan and a spare tube.


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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:43 pm
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brotherdave wrote:
The offshore 12AX7's seem to last an average of about 12 months and then fail with no warning whatsoever. If you have one in a hybrid bass amp you are playing gigs with, you need to have a backup plan and a spare tube.


+1

A wise decision regardless if your rig is new, vintage, or anywhere in between.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:59 pm
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What a shame.


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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 2:16 pm
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Retroverbial wrote:
brotherdave wrote:
The offshore 12AX7's seem to last an average of about 12 months and then fail with no warning whatsoever. If you have one in a hybrid bass amp you are playing gigs with, you need to have a backup plan and a spare tube.


+1

A wise decision regardless if your rig is new, vintage, or anywhere in between.

Arjay


That just makes the Rumbles look even better even though they are Asian made. China/South Korea/Viet Nam

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One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD


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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 12:56 pm
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brotherdave wrote:
CPL wrote:
... Another one that had a lot of reports of problems, which seems to no longer be made, was the Line 6 amps. I remember reading their forum and seeing a lot of complaints.


I bought the first Line 6 Studio 110 sold at Guitar Center Charlotte years ago. I still use it frequently. I'll let you know when it dies. I've had it now for about 5 or 6 years. It has one of the best XLR direct outs I ever heard.

Line 6 discontinued their entire line of bass products. Variax electric basses, Bass amps and the BassPod preamps/floorboards etc. Everything bass related was discontinued at Line 6 a year ago this past May. It is a volume thing. Not a reliability issue. They were selling 50 times more guitar gear than bass gear. It is sort of like Fender discontinuing the MIM Left Handed P-Bass, it was simply because they weren't selling many.

I have beat the snot out of my Line 6 Studio 110. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking and when this thing smokes I'd buy another one just like it, but now I can't. If my Line 6 amp smoked out tonight I've gotten way more than my money's worth.

Let's face it, there's problems in every amp line. And as previously mentioned it comes down to "who has the best warranty" when buying an amp these days.

I plan to stay far away from any tube gear from here on out, other than a tube preamp or tube pedal. In a hybrid amp with a tube preamp I want the preamp to be switchable between tube and solid state in case the tube fails. 12AX7's can fail without warning these days. They used to become microphonic and make whistling noises for a while, but now they just go dead with no warning. That is the most common bass preamp tube and has also been the number 1 microphone tube preamp since I started using tube microphone preamps in 1968. The vintage RCA ones lasted longest but you can't get them anymore around here. Even the late RCA ones were buggy. The offshore 12AX7's seem to last an average of about 12 months and then fail with no warning whatsoever. If you have one in a hybrid bass amp you are playing gigs with, you need to have a backup plan and a spare tube.


That's true. I don't know about Line 6, other than what I've read. There is another side to this that could cause problems. There are quite a few newbies who don't really know what they are doing with their gear and misuse it, thus causing problems. I think if you have some experience, especially with gear, then you're more likely not blow your stuff up by cranking all the knobs to 10 and running it into the ground. I've seen that happen many times. I actually jammed with this guitar player that actually sounded like a wet fart by trying to pump a lot of bass into his cab with an additional EQ. Those drivers were vibrating so badly that I thought they were going to shoot off and fly across the room. It was horrendous.

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:38 am
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I've got two Carvin bass rigs.

My used 1967 (?) Fender Bassman 100 head with a four 12 cabinet had great tone but trying to put a bottom under 3 screaming guitars put the amp way into tube saturation.

I got a Carvin PB518 rig: 500 watt bi-amp head, 18 bottom & 4 x 10 with tweeter top. It still is going strong over 20 years later. The head is noticeably lighter than the Fender.

My new rig is Carvin BX500 and 112AG cabinet. This head is about 6 pounds (lighter than the transformers in the Fender. 500 watts at 2 or 4Ω or 300 watts at 8Ω

The new stuff is so I can still jam in my mid 60's. My back hurts just walking by my old rig.

I planned a vacation through southern California mainly to try out Carvin gear before I made a purchase.


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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 5:59 pm
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I don't blame you, there. I'm only 41 and the thought of moving something the size of a small refrigerator or so and only 100 watts, tube or not, doesn't appeal to me either.

That's great the Carvin is working for you, too. I wish it wasn't such a gamble on the amps for me to take, because it would be something to consider. I did have a couple of their cabs, and they were fine, but nothing with electronics that could fail and have me ship it across country.

Maybe if I am in a financial situation were I could take that risk and have an extra amp on hand in case something did go wrong, I might try one of those out. I do like a lot of their features. If they had dealers everywhere, I'd might have gone with them over the Fender, because they are roughly the same price range. Then again, the fact that they don't is probably why they are the same price range. No middle man.

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 10:05 pm
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Carvin is the only place I buy higher ticket items over the internet.

All my Fender gear comes from a local small music store close enough to walk to. Nothing leaves the shop in an unopened box. Every guitar is set up like it was their pride and joy. My first purchase there was a Fender Squire Stratocaster when they were made in the USA. My latest is a Fender Squire Vintage Modified Jaguar Bass. When you get the instrument in your hot hands, it is ready to gig with.

CPL you are still young! My advice is to move to lighter cabinets when you can. I like the Avatar 2x12's. Leave those 4x10, 4x12 and 2x15 cabs for the kids. A lot of bass players complain about the bass hurting their backs. I think it is moving the rest of our gear. The weight of the bass during a gig just never lets our backs forget we just moved a few hundred pounds of gear.


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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 2:25 pm
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That's another reason I have a Rumble 350 combo. It has some power and it's pretty compact. With the side handles, it's pretty easy to carry. I don't find it too heavy, at all. Especially, compared to the old stacks, and even some Peavey combos that I've handled in the past. I like the fact that it's easy to load in and out of an SUV without being a pain in the arse. I'd say bass amps have come a long way, at least where weight is concerned. I will admit, there is something about the sound of one of those massive stacks, though. I once played though a Sonic 2x18" and 2x10" cabs bi-amped through a Gallien Krueger 800 RB. One time I really cranked it and you felt it punch you in the chest. It was something else. It wasn't mine, so I never had to move the thing, though. I'll bet that would have been a joy. Nice rig, though.

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 3:30 pm
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On the Carvin v. Fender thing, man, that ain't even close.

On the Avatar suggestion, yeah, those are good cabs, as long as you fully understand what you're getting. The neo version uses a rough equivalent of the Deltalite II 2512. Click here for the PDF and check the response curve. If you don't want that kind of astronomical rise in the mids, you're going to have to do something to EQ it out. If you run only a bass head (vs a rack), your head has no graphic EQ stage, and you don't want those mids, you'll squander your amp's tone controls trying to "correct" those drivers, leaving you nothing for tone shaping. Lest anyone think I hate B212 neos, my standard setup is 1 or 2 of them, *but* I run a 31-band EQ in my signal chain to make those cabs sane in terms of response.

Anyway, this is why many people prefer the ceramic magnet B212. That huge mid rise isn't there with the ceramics. The ceramic cab sounds much fuller, and less "shouty" or "ganky." Worth the weight difference? It would depend on logistics, the owner's age, and the music being played. (A slap player or a clicky/pick player might actually prefer that mid rise.) Me, I don't play slap, I play w/o a pick, and I'm a shameless on-call mercenary, so the mid rise is something I put up with as a price for the cabs' low weight and physical integrity -- both big assets for cabs that see a lot of road hours.

Having strayed way OT, I'll bring it back: Those cabs are 100% U.S. made and needed no internal modifications. However, both my 1x15 Carvin cabs (115MB) use Chinese Celestions and needed to be better-lined to tame the (IMO) ganky mids and wolf tones. BUT . . . the particular Chinese Celestion they use really isn't all that bad of a driver; it was the U.S. part of things that needed to be looked after. Result: Same as before. It's not where it's made, it's how it's made.

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Post subject: Re: American made bass amps.....
Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 4:04 pm
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That's true. Quality control is the biggest thing of all. A piece of turd is still a piece of turd, no matter where it's made. I've played on and had US made Fenders that were problematic and my Japanese-made one I had blew them out of the water. I often wonder if 1993 or 1994 was a bad year for Fender, because a friend of mine had a 50th Anniversary Strat and I had a Jazz Bass both US-made from the same year and we had a lot of problems with both of those instruments. My Jazz had a bad neck that would constantly buzz unless I had high action, no matter what I tried and I forgot what the Strat's issue was, other than there was one. Might have been a neck problem, too. I got rid of it for a Japanese-made 50's reissue P-Bass and it was like night and day. It was perfect, at least to me. I was stupid to get rid of it. The only reason I did was because of some youthful impulse and boredom, I guess. Big regret there.

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