My friend is lookin into gettin a bass amp and some speakers soon and was curious on what would be a good investment

Whats his budget, what music style does he want to play.
I'd say ashdown because there amazing but quite expensive.
cheap option would be like peavey.

__________________
ooooOOOOoooo Bass

Im not sure what his budget is but he is gonna get the best of what he can get

I was kind of pushing him toward getting an ampeg but im not sure about the specs and stuff

If someone could reply and tell me what there favorite bass amp to play on is or whatever i would greatly appreciate it

Well if he can afford Ampeg. Look at eden, mesa boogie, ashdown, swr, hartke these are all decent makes most american session player use eden most british ones use ashdown.

I personally stay away from ampeg since they are built in the same factory Crate amp (Awful IMHO) vintage ampeg is great but hard to find and expensive I'd go with one of the ones listed above.

At the moment I don't have a rig I'm recording stuff and going direct but I will be buying an ashdown abm 300 c110 combo and 1x15 mini cab or a abm 500 and 4x8 mini cab something along those lines depends on how much power I decide I need all abm's have the same pre amp just different levels of power so you can get pro sound at low cost if you don't need to make houses rattle when you play.

__________________
ooooOOOOoooo Bass

ampeg is made in the same factory as crate!?!?!?!? Hmmmm...
anyway what kind of speakers does ampeg speaker cabs have and what is a good ampeg amp? any web-pages will help too

Don't have a clue about the speaker i'm not an ampeg fan any more.
www.ampeg.com
www.ashdownmusic.co.uk
www.peavey.com
www.mesaboogie.com
www.talkbass.com (Theres a bass amp forum there really good stuff to read)
www.samsontech.com (Hartke)

That should do you for abit, but why are you pushing him towards ampeg so much?

Hope this helps.

__________________
ooooOOOOoooo Bass

i have heard bands play ampeg's live and i just thought that they had a really good tone. and once i saw that it was an ampeg i have been hooked

so is there any good choices for an ampeg that anybody particulary likes or could recommend

thanks!!

The ampegs you will have seen the pro's using will eirther be vintage ampeg (1970's era) or all tube heads on top of 8x10 which in any case is far to heavy for anyone who doesn't have there own band of roadies.

But if your dead set on ampeg which you seem to be look at the svt's they seem to be the best.

__________________
ooooOOOOoooo Bass

ok, ok, ok, ok.....

First of all, Ampeg is NOT made in the same factory as Crate. They're both made by Saint Louis Music, but most Crate amps are made in either Arizona or northern Mexico. Saint Louis Music also owns the Knilling stringed instrument company, makers of fine upright basses and cellos, and those are made in yet another place. The Ampeg line is still made here in St. Louis, just down highway 270 from my home.

Second, I've never met a session bass player who used exclusively Eden products. Eden cabinets are common, but the heads and power amps are just not reliable. Besides, if you buy an Eden cabinet, you're essentially buying an SWR, and vice-versa. David Eden used to design cabinets for SWR, until he decided he could do it better and started his own company. The basic designs of both brands are the same.

Also, going just by price, between Eden, SWR, Ampeg, Mesa Boogie, Gallien Krueger (how the hell do you spell that?), Peavey, Hartke, yadda yadda yadda, Peavey and Hartke will be cheapest, but Ampeg will give you the best bang for your buck. It's less expensive than SWR, Eden, Mesa, or GK, and has comparable power and tone, if not better.
(I just listed those companies because those are the ones I see most often in the states.)

I have 2 setups.
Stage -
Ampeg svt2pro through dbx 160a into SWR 8x10

Studio -
Ampeg svt3pro through Focusrite Compounder into ampeg 4x10

Keep in mind that unless you're playing with the loudest SOB's on the planet, you really don't NEED any more than 300 watts.

That said, the fact that most people WANT the Ampeg svt4pro because of it's massive wattage (1600w mono-bridged) doesn't mean that it's the best head for any particular situation. Personally, I think it's the worst sounding head in the Ampeg line, and you MUST have the matching Ampeg 8x10 cabinet, or a comparable system, or you'll blow the hell out of your speakers.

Now that I'm done ranting.....

For someone just starting, I'd say just pick up a 100 watt 1x15 combo and play it to death. You can get an Ampeg BA115 from musicians friend for 450 bucks. If there's a Guitar Center in town, they got 'em there too. If that's more than your buddy was looking to spend, maybe an SWR LA15. You can usually get 'em for around 300 bucks.

Thanks for reading through my mindless dribble. Hopefully, you all won't think I'm a raving bass lunatic.

Big sale at Guitar Center tomorrow. Clearance.
I'm gonna get me a second SWR 8x10 for 600 bucks. I paid 1300 for my first one.
Those guys at GC are nuts.

-Dave

for the price, i'd say go with carvin. they sound pretty good, are lightweight, and aren't so expensive if you say, blow out some speakers.

old folded horn designs (like my earth 2x15) are great for outdoor gigs and large rooms, but aren't intended for small rooms. plus they're heavy as hell. i can't imagine a standard 8x10 would be any heavier than this thing.

you know what? sunn stuff is pretty good too, and you can usually find someone selling sunn gear for cheap.

acoustic cabinets are great as well, and in the same price range. but now we're back on the topic of cumbersome folded-horn enclosures.

all of this stuff is pretty much in the under-$300 range.

__________________
http://go.to/fitm

I own a Carvin Redline stack.. 1000 watt head running into 4x10" and 1x18" cabs. It cost me $1300 for the whole package, which is actually a pretty good deal when you do the math. After some months I was kind of disappointed with the poor performance it gave in my bedroom.

I never had the opportunity to hear it in a band setting until a friend of mine asked to borrow it for his band's first gig, being a lead guitarist and not owning any bass equipment himself. When I got to the Mason Jar in Phoenix, I found he'd went ahead and adjusted everything on the head to his own specifications.. even though he had no idea what he was doing. BUT IT SOUNDED BEAUTIFUL.

The morals of the story:

A) Don't EVER judge a stack by what it sounds like in your bedroom.
B) Carvin is an excellent choice for budget musicians. It's no SVT, but for $1300 the difference is hardly anything for you to sniff at.

My bass player has a mesa boogie m2000 head and 2 410 cabs.

It sounds amazing, and is much more versatile than a lot of the amps out there.

He always says "get an ampeg if you want to sound like everyone else", which may not bother some, but it does him.

my bassist has the ampeg b-50R i believe.. its a one speaker combo and i think it sounds pretty cool..

__________________
maybe you're better off this way...

I use the B-100R rockect 1X15 combo... I always end up DI boxed anyways so it gets me the tone I want and saves my wallet and back. If I ever get signed to a label I will get something bigger but till then this works good.

I do believe that the bass player for radio head keeps one of these around to record over driven bass stuff. I read that somewhere.