Combos With 15" Speakers

Duppy03

I was wondering if there was a Swiss army knife of a combo that could serve me for numerous purposes. I know it won't be "brilliant" in any singular application but what I'm after mostly is the flexibility of one amp that can do it all, so a 15" combo came to mind. 

Here's what I'm musing:

- Combo small enough to sit in my small house and light enough to lug around to practices
- Works for guitar and bass (which speaker?)
- Just about loud enough to keep up with a drummer
- Has a DI/Line Out for silent home recording and hooking up to Desk when more volume is required at gigs

Does such an amp exist?

Duppy03

It was a friends Fender Excelsior that got me thinking. After a quick search I've come up with:

- Fender Excelsior (would need a few weeks and mods, would it be loud enough?)
- Peavey Delta Blues (would need a different speaker maybe, would it be loud enough?)
- Ampeg B-100R
- Fender Bassman 20 (would it be loud enough?)

simonk

Put a different speaker in the Excelsior and they can be bloody loud... I tried a Legend and a Jensen C15 in mine. Definitely do the tone switch mod if you get one.

Duppy03

I have a Celestion 100 watt 15” bass speaker to hand, so that should handle the bass output, but would be loud enough to hear (bass) alongside a drummer?

ICBM

Duppy03 said:

- Fender Excelsior (would need a few weeks and mods, would it be loud enough?)

No. Lack of power and an open-back cabinet. Loud for guitar is not the same thing as giggable for bass - even the Fender 4x10" Bassman isn't enough for bass really, at 45W.

Duppy03 said:

- Peavey Delta Blues (would need a different speaker maybe, would it be loud enough?)

Maybe, although probably not, for the same reasons.

Duppy03 said:

- Ampeg B-100R

Yes. That's a proper bass amp that will also work reasonably well for guitar.

Duppy03 said:

- Fender Bassman 20 (would it be loud enough?)

No. I had one. Although it's very nice-sounding for home and recording and has a closed cabinet, it's not loud enough for gigging.

Have you tried the Linebacker?

Bridgehouse

Guitar and bass? Helix and an FRFR like a dxr12 or a QSC 12.2

Too many compromises in a combo to do guitar and bass

steamabacus

I'm not sure if there's a 15" equivalent but a friend had an old Polytone Minibrute (? not sure of exact model) which was a closed cab 12" combo and worked well for dual guitar and bass duties.

JezWynd

I had an Excelsior for a while that had been modified by the original owner. He'd upgraded many items including the transformers and speaker. It was too loud for home use so I had to sell it on. It sounded wonderful though. I still use an Excelsior cabinet with the stock weedy 15" as a home bass cabinet fed by a Laney Cub 10. Sounds excellent at low volumes, the Ric bass loves the 6v6 valves, esp on bridge pickup.

Possibly not suitable for your purposes but if was to get a 15" combo I'd go for the '65 Twin Reverb.

You don't need a 15" for bass though, esp these days when there are lots of very efficient small speakers that handle bass very well.

smigeon

I wonder if the Fender Rumbles sound good/OK for guitar as well as for bass (for which they dound great)? I haven’t tried one with a guitar but I’ve heard of others saying they work well. And those Rumbles are so cheap and so light!

My gut feeliing is that they might well work OK for the guitar application that would mainly interest me - i.e. playing an archtop with a clean sound.

Duppy03

There’s a guy playing guitar through a a 100watt Rumble on YouTube and sounds pretty good to my ears


https://youtu.be/AsgxDsx79lA

Duppy03

@ICMB tried the LineBacker yesterday and it was great. It wasn’t long though before the cab was deported down to the shed in a makeshift flight case made from cardboard and an old rug.

lugging that about us going to get tired quick,although I’d love to keep it. After speaking to a friend today about how much he loves his Excelsior it got me thinking. A 15” combo could be the way forewords.

ICBM

It’s more the cabinet design than the speaker size that will make it usable for bass at band volume - a completely open back is unlikely to work even with a 15” and a fair amount of power.

That’s exactly why Leo Fender came up with the separate head and cab arrangement for the Bassman - the early ones were an open-back 1x15” combo which was pretty useless, then they were 4x10”s which were better but often blew speakers and still weren’t loud enough (although fantastic for guitar of course), then 2x12” sealed cab with a head, which finally worked well.

An Ampeg Portaflex might be another possibility - even the original low-powered ones were always better for bass than the Fender Bassman combos and are still sought-after today, at least for recording. They do make a 50W valve one now I think, although I haven’t tried it.

viz

Have you considered a head and 2x12, in diagonal configuration? They’re smallish. 

Pigknows

You haven't said what kind of music or guitar you play, or what size of gig you want to play, but if you can live without the DI or reverb, and are looking for Vox and Marshall sounds at lower volumes, I've always liked the WEM Dominator Mk1 Bass amp with the spider frame Celestion G15M. Light, and great clean or overdriven. 

kreggs

That new reissue supro thunderbolt  comes  as a 1x15. Didnt the original  used to be a bass amp? I might be wrong. Bloomin expensive for what it is though.

olafgarten

I would get a bass amp and a preamp pedal for guitar. 

ICBM

Pigknows said:

You haven't said what kind of music or guitar you play, or what size of gig you want to play, but if you can live without the DI or reverb, and are looking for Vox and Marshall sounds at lower volumes, I've always liked the WEM Dominator Mk1 Bass amp with the spider frame Celestion G15M. Light, and great clean or overdriven. 

Have you tried one with a bass at more than bedroom volume?

Pigknows

Fair one - no I haven't, but I can guess what would happen - it's no Ampeg! 

Duppy03

I guess the best approach is like @olafgarten suggests and to get a Bass Amp that will work well for guitar rather than a guitar amp that will work well for bass. To that point the Rumble 100 seems to fit the bill. Wish it had an extension speaker output though for hooking up for a bigger cab when desired.

I see the 200w Rumble has a 15" rather than a 12" plus an extension cab output. But.... it's getting a bit on the bulky side. The 12" sounds like it will do the job nicely and like you said @ICBM it's more about the cab than the speaker when it comes to bass amplification.

Plus a built in drive channel, bonus!