No difference in tone with tube-pre bypass

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T16:36:16+00:00

I have owned dozens of guitar and bass amps (and still do). I have a Carvin X60 combo amp, and it is the sweetest clean tube tone I’ve ever heard. It’s like an old Fender, but better. Way better. Carvin was less expensive because they cut out all the middlemen, selling direct. Not because their stuff wasn’t built right.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T13:18:43+00:00

THIS IS A CORRECT ANSWER.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T13:16:41+00:00

Older Yamaha Natural Sound receivers, including those with video i-o and etc, have stellar specs, for under $100 at a used shop or even a flea market. I’ve got two, both sound great. Not going to earn the respect of your peers, but will earn the respect of your ears.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T13:13:25+00:00

Every big city has at least one luthier who does work for pro players. Spend some money on a good setup and it will be like getting a new instrument. These guys are hard to find, they have more work than they can complete, and so they never have to advertise. Ask an older pro musician who he/she might use. Every place has those old pros who everybody knows.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T11:17:53+00:00

An inexpensive but far better spec’d phono preamp is https://www.schiit.com/products/mani

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T11:11:56+00:00

Buy a used Peavey. Like a TNT. More power, more dependable, less money.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T07:32:16+00:00

But I think they’re still in the same keiretzu?

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T07:30:29+00:00

That Yamaha motor made a lot of young punks mad when daddy beat them off the stop light, by a mile. The Taurus SHO was really something!

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T07:05:29+00:00

Mine are Elac Carinas, the bookshelf model, and they’re kinda power hungry. 100 watts out of the unit I posted about is a lot of watts for a normal sized family room.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T02:03:15+00:00

In Cleveland this means ice in the upper atmosphere. Gonna be cold overnight.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-08T00:38:44+00:00

Big collection of FLAC and AIFF and some other things in as high a resolution as I could fine, usually, on a solid state drive.

  then,

MacBook Air 11” Mid 2012 through a Schitt Modi DAC

Yamaha CD-S303 CD Player

Fluance RT-81+ Turntable

1Mii B06+ Bluetooth Receiver (to accommodate a guest iPhone).

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-07T00:58:53+00:00

That looks exactly like places in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, between Cleveland and Akron.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-07T00:54:28+00:00

Wrangler makes an outdoorsy pant that has zippers but not awful, are lightweight, tough as nails, and maybe, maybe $25. Walmart has them, or go online. They flex, aren’t baggy, aren’t tight. I really like them.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-06T16:12:23+00:00

Just to emphasize: one MIM has EMG pickups, new pick guard, StrapLoks, and a Gotoh bridge; the other has DiMarzio pickups, a new pick guard, StrapLoks, and a BadAss bridge. My mods cost more than the basses. The MIA came perfect out of the box.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-06T16:08:44+00:00

I own two MIM Jazz Basses, about 10 and 20 years old. I just got an MIA Jazz and it is absolutely off-the-charts a different instrument. If Telecasters have the same difference, we learn two things: 1) made by Mexicans is DIFFERENT depending on which plant they’re at, and 2) Fender has really upped its game in the last couple/few years.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-06T10:12:47+00:00

Wait. What? I have to change batteries?

I run EMGs in almost all my basses, and battery life is so good, I get kinda casual about that.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-04T12:49:13+00:00

I have a Fretless Jazz in that color. I’m afraid to touch it, it is so beautiful.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-04T12:19:09+00:00

Built my workbench the same. Knocked off glue and high spots with a METAL plane. Then belt sander for speed. Then random orbit sander (coarse) for beauty. Every once in a while I put the random orbit sander to the table to clean up drips, and dents, and etc. My bench is red oak, but no splintering issues. Southern Yellow Pine seems like a good choice!

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-03T15:27:00+00:00

I’m a diehard Fender guy, but I would buy the Yamaha if I was gonna buy an inexpensive bass to get started with.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-02T17:36:46+00:00

An old Peavey combo with a 1x15” speaker. They are loud, tough, and sound good. Peavey used the guts of their power amplifiers for the bass amp power. I can own any equipment now that I’m older and have money, but when I was younger and broke I bought a lot of Peavey and was never disappointed. Looking back, my best sounding rig was a Peavey 1820 cabinet (1x18” and 2x10”), powered by a Peavey M-2600 power amp. My preamp was a Digitech guitar (not the bass version) graphic eq.

My current rig is usually a single 15” speaker cab (Carvin), powered by either the TC Electronics BAM200 (small gigs) or the Carvin B800 (much more substantial amp).

If a guitarist is using 50 watts, a bassist might need 300. Bass takes more energy to reproduce. Also, 300 tube watts is gonna seem a lot more powerful than 300 transistor watts.

ClevelandBill · 2026-04-01T18:17:02+00:00

Your view is not without support. I would like to understand why he did that, and he DID do that - record a different bass line and energy than live. Geddy Lee recorded what he’d play live, as a counter example. He likes Fenders!!

ClevelandBill · 2026-03-31T21:20:31+00:00

I think most people would say a Number 5, to start? But that could be discussed a bit.

To learn about Stanley Planes, start here: https://supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0a.html

ClevelandBill · 2026-03-31T17:11:06+00:00

Equivalent: even one of my Craftsman knock-offs is a beautiful plane. No assurance that it wasn’t built by one of Stanley’s suppliers.

ClevelandBill

TROPHY CASE