IDK about the rest of you but it's tub amps from here forward for me. I prefer solid snake for bassssssss though.
eephus wrote:
One of the best bass sounds is AB165 bassman (kinda underpowered for modern bass onstage) with everything dimed.
I mean if we're talking about bass amps that are almost always more often used for guitar, I'd probably also add Traynor Bass Master (although for bass, the 1A version would put you in a better place for bass (same w/ the later higher-power versions of Bassmans for that matter)) to the list too even though we're veering well out of solid-snake amps. Josh and I used both of those tracking bass for the mic signal and were happy w/ results and did NOT dime everything.
I'd also probably personally argue some for V4B vs V4 since we're talking about doing dual-duty as I do quite like the "Ultra Lo" switch for bass most of the time (depends on cabinet it's being used with).
Anyway, sure there are a lot of exceptions as far as guitar amps that can do a good job on bass. Sunn Model T belongs on that list too technically regardless of ridiculous overpricing. What most of those have in common are that they provide plenty of
clean headroom and plenty of
power for
whatever instrument to do it it's thing and that's really what Bass amps are going to deliver more consistently. Your pedals are where you'll get your grit, tone, etc but going in blind, if we go back to the "build a rig under x dollars that does both" challenge, I'd still start w/ bass amps first.
Going back to solid-state amps though to fit the brief, there was a head-only version of a Jazz Chorus JC-120H that I would suggest trying if it were priced more reasonably these days but along those lines, there were a ton of amps that kinda aped that clean solid state thing including that recently-mentioned Yamaha that would probably do fine. & since the TS-120 was mentioned, probably should suggest TS-200 - but we all know too that the TS-50b does a great job with guitar distortion so yeah different animal doing a niche thing but worth mentioning.
I think we all pretty much agree that especially at drummer volume, you don't want to be using guitar
speakers for bass (especially not in open back as noted above). & since folks should be using separate cabs for each app, it really makes more sense to not have one thing try to do both. I generally like amps for guitar and bass that do that one special thing really well vs shoehorning a partial solution where neither is a perfect fit.
Which brings us to unless the main issue: If this is actually
space vs cost discussion, then that's a different subject which we should start discussing cabs and speakers that do dual duty and I think again, I'd go w/ bass cab first to do both. Same thing applies about clean reproduction, you don't really want speaker breakup for bass most of the time. Going old school, speakers like the EVM-15L & EVM-12L (still in production but $) and their clones do pretty well. If it's a cost concern, I'd probably say there are still a TON of affordable options for good-sounding amps available regardless of the pandemic-gear-cost-inflation-phenomenon that I'd just get separate bass/guitar amps personally.