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amp seems to get distorted as volume is turned up [message #25466] Tue, 23 August 2016 20:08 Go to next message
shawncfc is currently offline  shawncfc
Messages: 14
Registered: August 2016
Location: ohio
Junior Member
My k200b1 seems to sound great at lower volumes but becomes distorted when turned up loud especially on the E string. I am using an active bass with emg jazz bass pickups and running a ampeg 610 4 ohm cabinet with more than enough power. any suggestions ?
Re: amp seems to get distorted as volume is turned up [message #25467 is a reply to message #25466] Wed, 24 August 2016 06:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
stevem is currently offline  stevem
Messages: 4728
Registered: June 2004
Location: NY
Senior Member
Welcome to the place here!

Your playing through a amp that is well over 45 years old here, so let me ask how would your car run for you if it was not tuned up in 45 plus years?
The fact is that certain parts of these amps that help give it punch and clean head room hold up better with age if the amp is used like every 2 months as compared to sitting on a shelf in a Basement, actually the amp just needs to be turned on and left to idle and that will extend the life of these parts I speak of, but that does not negate the fact that at some point they just need to be replaced and at that time they can also be up graded to give the amp a tad more punch then from the factory

Then there are two other issues here also , 1 being the far hotter signal level out of you active Bass then what the preamp section needs and the fact that this amp is only 100 watts RMS of output when today's average Ampeg Bass amp is like three times that!

Have you tryed running the volume on your Bass lower and just opening up the amp more?

These amps can run just fine with no speaker load do if you care to you can pull the audio output signal off if the RCA Jack on the rear of the amp and then feed that into a 600 watt or whatever power amp to drive your 4-10 Ampeg cabinet.
Re: amp seems to get distorted as volume is turned up [message #25468 is a reply to message #25466] Wed, 24 August 2016 16:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
shawncfc is currently offline  shawncfc
Messages: 14
Registered: August 2016
Location: ohio
Junior Member
So I cleaned up the inside sprayed contact cleaner and blew out all the dirt . Put it back together sounds a whole lot better and I also realized I had my Twitter turned up on my cabinet and it was causing the unpleasant distortion. Now I only get that sweet kustom sound .
Re: amp seems to get distorted as volume is turned up [message #25473 is a reply to message #25466] Thu, 25 August 2016 05:54 Go to previous message
stevem is currently offline  stevem
Messages: 4728
Registered: June 2004
Location: NY
Senior Member
I fully hate the sound of tweeters / horns in a Bass cabinet, in all of my set up's but for my new 4-10" cab I run 2-15s in which one of them is a more full range 15", or 2-15s that already have a wider frequency range to them like Altec 421 drivers .

My two most favorite 2-15 Bass cabinets out of the six I own are the one mentioned before , and my other one that is loaded with a EVB Model driver and a EVL model driver.
By far for playing out live two 15 cabinets are the way to go, it's just that these days they are hard to move around in a
MG midget!
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