There were three MMB amps up in the last week or two. The one I was hoping for was the ’73. I hoped the weird 6AQ5 tubes and excessive refs to how rubbish the CTS speaker was might put punters off. No such luck. A better bet was perhaps the 6V6 one with a starter of £150. It only just made it, which is often the case with highish reserves. One thing to bear in mind with the MMB amps (either type) is that a transformer does the job of the phase-inverter (more normally a 12A_7 tube).

As an amp-tech pointed out to me, if that transformer goes – it’s toast. Replacing a 12AX7 or whatever is easy, but getting hold of a transformer that’ll do that balancing act would be a nightmare. HST, when was the last time a Fender tranny packed in?

I take the point about the AVT. I was just saying that even the early ones were not that bad so people should take the “all hybrids sound cack” opinion with some salt. I’m not going to quote %s ( 🙂 ), but a lot of “valve tone” that people notice is in the preamp. Many punters take no notice of the ‘brown sound’ whatsoever when it’s gig-time in the “Dog and Duck”.

I had my eye on the very same silverface 20watter from fender, also the same guy had a Trace Elliot Bass Amp and Cab on there too, but it went over the £320 early on.
The old Valvestates were very different beasts from these AVT’s Bass, don’t get them mixed up.

Not specifically the AVT, but I’ve heard plenty of people bad-mouth ValveStates in general. I do have a lot of corksniffers for company. I must say, though, two things in their defence.

1) The LG in my ’90s band used an 8040 for rehearsal and small bars and it sounded fine to me. Not Grrrreat, but decent and even the recordings are sound. True, he moved onto a 50W something like a JCM800 (I’m not up on ‘modern’ Marshalls) with, I think, a 1936 cab and that was a lot louder and better.

2) I tried out the DBS 9400 (I think – the 400W bass hybrid with 4×10 and 1×15) and that really did surprise me. I got straight onto the ed of the mag I worked for to get it reviewed. I don’t normally like SS power, but the 12AX7 preamp had a very nice valve sound. Reluctantly, I turned the valve/SS blend knob expecting almighty sux but the character change was very neat. It got me playing in a different style to the usual, and that’s always a compliment for a piece of kit.

I was hoping to ‘score’ an amp myself today, but it went past £150 and I let it pass. Everyone knows about those little Musicmaster Bass combos these days (pity).

Ive not heard a bad word said about any of those amps in the AVT range, i played through one a couple of years back when they first came out, and i was most impressed, it looks pretty cool too.