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Home practice amp, advice needed


GreeneKing
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I’m in my tiny bass practice ‘shed’ in my extension. My TC Electronic BG 250 that is pure overkill has just died. I don’t use it’s features like the tuner,  Toneprint or Tubedrive. It’s quite an old 15” driver model that I bought new some years ago. The lights all come on but there’s no output. The button switches don’t work and when I turn it off the lights take an age to fade. I suspect a component failure and it’s given good service. I don’t even think I’ll get it repaired. It’s been ultra reliable up to today.

I don’t want to use my EBS HD350 and one Accugroove Tri-112L as that's even more overkill and I don’t have an mp3 input that is vital for my practice.

So I’m looking for a well made practice amp that has a aux in for my Tascam. I don’t really need bells and whistles. 
 

Any suggestions? I can probably rustle up £200 or so.

Peter

 

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I practice in our spare bedroom and find that a Vox Pathfinder Bass 10 is more than enough. It has an auxillary input and also a headphone socket.

If I need anymore there's my Promethian combo with 10" speaker (not found the need to use this one yet).

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I keep coming back to the Blackstar Beam for practice, 40w, decent bass response, can be found new for £150.  Does have some bells and whistles in as much as it can be used as bluetooth music streaming speaker, has an onboard tuner and effects for guitar and acoustic also

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Get it fixed, or at least get a quote. Might even be worth asking in repairs on here and someone may be able to suggest a simple fix. Even if it is something you want to move on it will be valuable to someone else.

I use headphones for practice you get a fabulous sound and don't annoy anyone else. I either use a small mixer (Alesis) or more often a Zoom B1ON, now upgraded but mine is the old one, but they are on offer https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-B1on-Bass-Effects-Pedal/dp/B00JLEHMG6?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duc08-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00JLEHMG6

They sound great, you can mix in a stereo signal, there's a tuner and a drum machine, amp modelling and more fx than you'll ever use. I run mine on rechargeable batteries and it lasts about a week on those. Plastic but well made.

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My 'shed' is sound proofed and headphones are I find a pain. I'll ask at Promonade for any amp techs they recommend and I'll put a post on here too. The nature of the problem points to a board issue but I'll ask around. I'll have a look myself too. I checked all the obvious stuff.

 

 

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At £200, a Fender Rumble 40 is a great little amp. My little Ampeg BA-108 practice amp has been sitting unused since I bought a Rumble.

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/bass-amplifiers/contemporary-digital/rumble-40/2370300000.html

If you have/buy a foot switch, you can use it to switch the Overdrive on and off. If you set both OD controls fully CCW (off), it acts as a mute switch!

Much to really like.

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A solution!

I tried my spare head and my 2nd Accugroove with a Palmer pre that has an aux in. It all works perfectly.

tcElectronic watts are a lot smaller that EBS watts though......

I'll offer the BG250 free on collection locally as spares or repairs. The tip is next.

 

DSCF0011.jpg

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On 23/01/2020 at 16:41, basskit_case said:

I keep coming back to the Blackstar Beam for practice, 40w, decent bass response, can be found new for £150.  Does have some bells and whistles in as much as it can be used as bluetooth music streaming speaker, has an onboard tuner and effects for guitar and acoustic also

I've got one of these, I wanted the multi instrument aspect so I sold my Fender rumble 15 before the BEAM arrived. The Beam is great for guitars but I don't like the bass amp sounds myself as they both have some form of drive and I like a good clean bass amp sound more often than not. However if it's just for random noodling when you get a spare ten or fifteen mins it does the job. I am impressed with it for Guitar and apparently you can use it for recording. It's also plenty loud. 

Does yours hiss a bit when you stream bluetooth through it? 

If the beam is overkill or overpriced I'd go with an Ashdown Studio. Basic lightweight amp with Aux in, UK based support. 

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I am sure the usual suspects will roll up on this one ie fender rumble, but I would highly recommend anything in the Peavey max range, great features great natural tone great price range, fantastic little practice amps and the 112 & 115 vesiobs can be used for small gigs rehearsals.

 

the new Ashdown combi range looks great as well.

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40 minutes ago, GreeneKing said:

I'm sorted now thanks. The above rig is simply awesome. I can't believe how much better the EBS and Accugroove are than the BG250. I saved myself a couple of hundred pounds too. 

Ah sorry, i missed that for some reason. Glad you got it sorted for no outlay. 

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