I have a Polytone Teenybrute (the one with the 10" speaker) bass amp (no distortion control, just volume treble and bass) with a JBL speaker. It's been fine for 30 years. Bought it used from a Toronto main line jazz player. Keys are always going to be the speaker, the tone stack, and the clean headroom. A lot of guitar amps are oriented towards distortion way too early, and you can't get clean volume out of them. Solid state amps, including the new high powered D class amps, can get very high power out of a small package, and clean. At that point it's down to the tone stack, the midrange boost/cut, and how it balances with your pickup on your guitar.
I also have an Ampeg B15 speaker cabinet, the original portaflex 15" bass cabinet, that sounds amazing with any amp I've used it with. The speaker and cabinet can colour the sound more than anything else.
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Brian Evans
Around 15 archtops, electrics, resonators, a lap steel, a uke, a mandolin, some I made, some I bought, some kinda showed up and wouldn't leave. Tatamagouche Nova Scotia.
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