Bass Gear Review

Reviewer	Peter Sylvia
Experience	30 years
Review date	October 06 2001
Manufacturer	Ampeg
Model	SVT
Price	$500.00
Item owned for	A very, very long time

Dimensions	height 46.5" width 26" depth 16"
Weight	135 pounds
Power	300+
Speakers	8 - 10" speakers
Ohms	4 ohms
Other	1970 cab / no bar or wheels Cab and head were in excellent condition
	until I played it for 30 years with about 10 of those years on the road. Cab t
	olex is beat but the head still looks good.

In 1969, a bass amplifier head producing over 300 watts RMS of power was unbelieveable! And the cab that went with that head was the SVT cab. 8 X 10" speakers. 30 watts RMS @ 32 ohms each in a combination of 2- 10" speakers per section times 4 sections of infinite baffle design (sealed cab) gives you a grand total of 240 watts @ 4 ohms! Another feat of audio engineering cosidered unbelieveable at that time! Professional bass players everywhere had finally come out of the dark ages and into the real world. Originally Ampeg sold the SVT head with 2 cabs and specified it was supposed to be used that way. Todays SVT 8 X 10" have a higher power rating thanks directly to speaker technology. Some cabs are now available with 150 watt speakers totaling 1200 watts per cab! I play an original Dan Armstrong bass I love to death with my 1970 SVT head and 1 cab! The Dan Armstrong bass has a strong midrange so I dial in the frequency I don't want with the 3 position midrange switch and simply cut the mids out big time and all the natural highs and lows of the bass guitar come right thru the SVT cab. The infinite baffle design gives the depth and the 10" speaker design gives the highs. Not to mention the "unified effect" you get from having 8 speakers doing the exact same thing at the same time! That's how I've always run my set up. For me it works out great! The head, cab and guitar all work together. My review may seem a little off target some but your choice of bass guitar and head will ALWAYS have a major effect on cab tone. If your a bass player that demands a very deep bass tone with an ability to shoot out mids and highs whenever you feel like it, then this is a very good cab. If your a roadie, you hate the weight. If your a sound man, your probably tired of mixing the P.A. system around the bass player and asking him to turn it down!! repeatedly. The bands I was in always said to turn it up cause the cab really starts to come together at increased volume levels. I was ALWAYS more than happy to accomodate their requests! By the way, I also own an Ampeg V4-B cab that weighs 225 pounds!! Now that's heavy!

Construction	100%
(STILL solid as a rock!)
Clarity	100%
(I love it)
Volume	100%
(still too much for most clubs)
Portability	75%
(could be better, could be worse)
Customer Service	100%
(Saint Louis Music has been pretty good)
Value	100%
(excellent)
Overall	100%
(I compare all my cab combination experiments with the SVT cab as a starter)