What are the advantages of tube bass amps to a solid-state bass amps?

Posted by admin in Wednesday, February 17th 2010

Matt asked:

I’m about to buy a new Ampeg bass amplifier. The amp i’m interested in come in a sold-state version and tube version, and are almost the same cost. I play with a Fender V-Jazz Bass, if that makes a difference. What are the advantages and disadvantages of tube amps and solid-state amps?

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2 Comments

Spekulus said in February 19th, 2010 at 3:24 pm

Advantage of tube is sound quality, nothing more. You’d have to play them both together to see the difference but for bass I wouldn’t care so much - ampeg sound sweet anyway in both forms
Disadvantages however, Tube amps are waaaay heavier to carry, break more often and are expensive to fix. They take time to warm up properly (so you can’t plug and play instantly) and will often lose power in the tubes if you over power them which can ***** gigs up. As must as I like the tone of tubes its a lot of hassle if you’re using it for typical uses such as gigging.

fimpron2 said in February 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm

The best way to describe the difference is that tubes have a much “warmer” tone after playing solid state amp heads for over 20 years and laughing at guys lugging thier tube amps I got one (1971 Univox 1061) once dialed in it is 1,000,000 percent worth the trouble. As far as reliability I have never had a problem for the tone you get the warm up time is well worth it. The hotter the tubes get the better the tone and teh better the break up can get (vintage distortion) the best part they hold thier value you wont lose money on any quality used tube head. Ampeg were always great but make sure you get the american and not the vietnamese head. Good luck and enjoy