looking for bass amp suggestions

[Jim Bonnell]

I'm fooling around with a bass I recently finished and am looking for an inexpensive amp for it. Does anyone have any suggestions. Thanks.

[David King]

Whatever you can pickup used on Craigslist locally. I love my 1984 GK 200RB. It's a small, sealed combo amp and was expensive at the time. The GK 400RB and 800RBs are also decent for the $75-300 they sell for but you'll need to find a cabinet to go along. There have been dozens of great amps since then and many more clunkers.
How loud do you need it to be? At the rock bottom end of the market you could look for a Fender "RAD" from the early 1990's.

[Rodger Knox]

Ampeg BA-112
Best name in bass amps IMHO, small & light enough to move around easily, and big enough to play with a drummer.

[David King]

Rodger,
Those look very interesting indeed, have they been out for very long? I do love my B-15 but I only ever use it for recording. It's no fun to carry around and mine needs new caps now which I haven't had time to source.

[Jim Bonnell]

Thanks a lot guys.

[Rodger Knox]

They've been out for a while, 5 or 10 years, they're solid state, no tubes or caps. I had a BA-115, but it was just too heavy for an old man to lug around, and I really don't need 100 watts. I sold that and got the BA-112. The BA-112 is a smaller version, I believe it's 60 watts with a 12" speaker. Still a little cumbersome, but anything smaller is only good for solo practice or acoustic. I sold the Ampeg to get a Vox T-60(also 60 watts with 12" speaker) to go with my vintage Vox bass. The Ampeg is a better amp.

[Chuck Raudonis]

I just bought a Behringer Ultrabass 180 head for $152. I built one of the Fearful 212 cabinets for it and it sounds incredibly good. I read bad reviews on this thing so I bought it from somewhere I could return it and I didn't need to at all. I like this thing. I just build a smaller 10 cabinet with 5" mids and horns and I've played my Strat through it and it STILL sounds good. A good buy for that price.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

If you're not prejudiced against lesser known brands, you might like the 150W Red Sub. I bought my bass-playing son one for Christmas present some years ago and we still can't find anything to complain about. The neighbours maybe will.
Here's the link:
http://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Ba ... lifier/IQQ

[Micah Covington]

I recently aquired one of the new Carvin Microbass amps. I got the smallest one they make. It weighs less than 30 pounds and is 250 watts. Sounds great. I have used it now at three live events. If the event is big enough that I would need a larger amp, I just plug it into the sound board and use the house sound system. It's plenty loud enough at home by itself. Cost less than $300 with a custom covering. I got the snake skin.

[Paul E Buerk]

I had an Ampeg BA-115 and found that it just didn't have the horses to keep up with guitar, keys, and drums. It's too bad because I liked the sound. Ended up trading it for the new cheap Acoustic 600w heads and 4x10. Heavy, but workable.

I'd recommend taking a look at the TC Electronic BG250. Light, easy to move around, and reasonably loud. Also worth looking at the Gallien-Krueger MB series combos for lightweight and decent power.

If weight is no object, there's nothing wrong with a used Peavey.

[Jedi Clampett]

I am going to use a classic ampeg tone circuit followed by a compressor circuit, feed that into a ElectroHarmonix little power amp http://www.ehx.com/products/44-magnum. This is built into an old Hoover Vacuum Cleaner. I do love it for its vintage looks and I think acoustically one of the best vacuum cleaners for Bass speakers. 6" bass guitar speakers built in.

[Beate Ritzert]

We actually do not know enough on the purpose of the amp - kind of music, size of audiences.
On the very low end, some of the cheap "made in china" practise amps sound reasonably well.
If You come acrosss an SWR LA-15, especially the old model, this might be a good choice for an "intermediate" combo (but my vintage tube amps are more fun...), and i do not think it would be expensive.