Traynor 200 Watt All-Tube Bass Head

I matched this with a Greenboy 12/6 and lost interest in ALL of my many other amps and cabs, which I was very proud of. Sold almost everything shortly after.\n\nBarely portable, I would haul this pair anywhere.\n\nThis head will glom on to any bass you give it with amazing tone options. Thus, providing the Thoughtful Bassist clean thump and authority - or, a gooey Blues whump.

I bought this amp as a B stock from Thomann Germany and got it for about £550 uk pounds \nLots of features on this amplifier and it does take quite a bit of practice to try all the features to get the tone you want its a bright amplifier so you do have to try a few settings to get what you prefer sound wise i have paired it with a 2x10 TC electronic cabinet and a Ampeg pf 2x10 both sound really good and loud too for the price its a excellent buy

Just picked this up today and wow...so happy with it. Had the master at 3 and gain at 5 and the house was shaking...tons of headroom. Simple and loud and the sound is amazing. Paired it with the 210115 cab. Even sounds great playing my electric guitar through.

People know this as the "Bass Distortion Amp" or "Bass Crunch Amp" and yes, when you crank up the pre and power sections, it can get outrageous very fast.
This amp can be subtle too. I have done LOUD jazz guitar cleans, dialed in the with EQ (including range knob) and judicious use of the scoop function.
The trick for cleans with this amp is to plug into the -6dB active input. Otherwise, the preamp is just way too hot.
If you are going for a heavy sound with this, make sure you have a properly rated cabinet. I tested a cabinet rated at 200 watts - it didn't stand a chance. This amplifier outputs 200 watts at a certain distortion level. The modern standard is to give power ratings at 1% and 10%. Traynor doesn't share this information.
This amplifier can output much more than 200 watts when the power section is driven, I am pretty certain of this. I have achieved 135dB at 1m with a single inefficient 12" speaker + horn. So be careful.
I blew a supposedly 200 watt-rated cabinet in about 3 seconds with this thing driven. It was a fairly cheap cabinet, not a fake one though - it was backed with a warranty in case of failure. Any Traynor cabinet that they sell you with one of these will be fine, those are built really well.
I'm mostly writing this to tell current owners of the YBA200 to try their 6 string guitars with it. You can dial in really nice brighter tones with it, it takes pedals very well, and it has lots of headroom even for jazz cleans but can also do crunch or even power if you go nuts, although I would reserve any extreme YBA200 distortion for bass.
Another very cool and unique thing about this amp is the resonance potentiometer. I don't know of other amplifiers where the damping factor is fully adjustable. In the high-fidelity world, a high damping factor is always preferred, as it tightens the sound. This is deep musical instrument amplifier knowledge. Lowering the damping factor is very important for reggae, for example. That's why when you see a modern reggae band where the bassist is playing a Mark rig, the bass tones don't sound right, even though the bassist has the "vintage" low pass filter engage :P

What a wonderful bass amp. It is the original version with a mix of 6550 and KT88 power tubes and optimized pre-amp tubes. Never a hiccup because they are all older high quality tubes and the amp is auto-biasing. Warm sounding overdrive or clean round tones with a few knob turns. Pots are a little light to the touch and I don't need or use the scoop feature . Mine has a cream knobs and grills tastefully installed by the former owner which I like. These amps don't cost a lot and deliver good volume at a reasonable weight. If you understand it's passive tone stack you won't have trouble setting the controls for whatever sound you need.

I have owned 3 YBA-200 heads. I toured the whole country with one as well, and although the output jack came off at one point, we were able to repair it ourselves before the show. Really you just need to tighten the output jacks once in a while as they can come loose in order to avoid my predicament & needing to remove the backplate.
I sold my first YBA-200 when I was at my nadir as a bass guitarist. I got back into playing more seriously after a couple of years and tried out a few different rigs (markbass - too clean and frankly too much power, traynor small block - sounds a little more raw than the markbass but still pretty sterile compared to tubes), wasn't satisfied with any of them, and then eventually two YBA-200 units went up for sale at one of my local stores.
One was advertised at $399 and had the older logo. There was another with the current logo with $599. What a steal! I grabbed the one marked $399 and a wicked 12" Dyna cab, discontinued B-Stock cabinet also marked way down, but still brand new.
I came home and cranked it up. Instantly caught on fire. Yikes!! Maybe there was a reason it was only $399 ...
I brought it back and the L&M staff were very apologetic. I upgraded to the head with the newer logo for $200 more and they gave me 2 years of free extended, even-if-you-break-it warranty. This unit has performed flawlessly.
As for the sound, don't let people tell you it can't do a clean tone. Yes, there is a lot of input gain, but you don't have to change the tubes to get a mellow sound. Just plug into the -6dB active input and you are set. If you only have an active bass with super high output pickups, just turn your bass volume down a few notches. Attenuation should never be an issue. You can also just keep the gain around 3 and then turn up the master. Plenty of options for a clean sound. When I toured with this head, I used a Warwick bass and my tone was mellow and jazzy.
This head has a ton of power. I am curious to see how much more headroom the YBA-300 has, which I ordered for a similarly discounted price recently and am planning to pair with a TC412. I have never had trouble keeping up with drums, multiple guitarists who don't care about your stage volume requirements, heavy electronic beats, really anything. My cab is fairly low sensitivity, so with a bigger, higher sensitivity cab, you could easily do some major damage.
In terms of sound, this head is kinda mid-scooped I would say. It has a definite character, a particular voicing which lends itself to guitar as well as bass, in my opinion. The scoop and resonance knob give some cool extra tonal possibilities, although I think that the head is scooped to begin with, and unfortunately the mid knob is not tuneable, so it's not really possible to get those chunky low mids that some players are after. An ampeg has chunkier low mids for sure, but I've always found that sound to be a bit muddy.
When I'm recording with this head, I keep the bass knob almost all the way down. For live playing with a loud/busy band, having all that sub/fundamental power is a godsend, as it's pretty tough to get the mids from a bass guitar on top of a busy rock mix.
Is this head worth over $1000 when you can buy a solid state head with a higher power rating for 1/3 that? Let me explain something. I plugged this head into a cheap cab that would generally be paired with a cheap amp. It was rated at 300 watts, and it had stood up well from being pounded by a super loud 50 watt head. When brought the YBA-200 up to level into this cheap cab, you could smell it instantly. Personally I think that Traynor/Yorkville are genuine and honest about their power ratings, whereas some manufacturers blatantly lie. But I know that this cheap cab could be paired with an average "200 watt" solid state head and perform pretty well. The difference between a 200 watt tube head and a solid state one is basically that the tube head can produce 200 clean watts, but tube drive is pleasant enough that you can push it way past 200 watts and still not hear much distortion. BTW, to do this with a YBA-200, you have to be careful with the input gain, but the power tubes have quite a bit of headroom. If you keep the input gain low enough, you can crank the output all the way up and get a ton of clean power.
I didn't buy this amp for it's incredible power, I bought it because it sounds really good. I haven't used this most recent unit for any shows as I'm pretty washed up and am essentially just a recording artist these days. One cool feature I can think of would be having the direct output go through the power tubes, then back to balanced line level, instead of having a noisy preamp out, but at that point you kinda need a cab emulation & a mic emulation (do those exist? haha) to get the sound.

I've owned this head for about a year, played a bunch of gigs, large and small, and used 410, 410 and 210, 210, 210 and 1x15, 210 with 2x8 and 2x8 alone. Different cab combinations bring out some different character, but it always sounds amazing and has great punch. The only thing I did was swap V1 for a lower gain vintage tube.

I've owned this amp for a few weeks now and have had many practices and gigged out with it once so far. The tone is amazing on this. You can get anything from a clean punchy rock sound to a old school over driven tube distortion sound. You can even get the tubes to break up at low volume which I love. Could not do that with my SVT without blowing windows out. It has a tonne of power as well. We played a live show at a club with no PA support and it kept up with my drummer and guitarists all tube half stack with room to spare. Amazing build quality, made in Canada and the price you can't beat. Not to mention they have the best warranty out there.

For the money you cannot go wrong with this head. I see it as an entry level tube head but don't let the price fool you. This head is AWESOME! I'm using an American Standard Geddy Lee JB and the growl it produces is killer. I also get a great growl crunch sound out of my Ric 4003. I find the treble bright button makes it too bright and I don't use the scoop (ok for practice maybe but live you'll get lost in the mix). Excellent features, quality and weight. Recommend

This head sounds great! Tone is fantastic! I must note, I swapped both AX pre tubes for AT's. I think its only drawback is the tame eq section. This head has been my go-to since I got it. I did a gear swap for mine, but would now buy this without hesitation.

Pros:Great loud and simple tube head, almost too much bottom end, great construction, good value.

Cons:Can't dial in good mid freq tones, no speaking jack outs, wish they offered graphic eq or Low mid/Hi mid control, wish it had the yba300 tube biasing controls OR fenders self biasing.

Just thought I'd chime in... I'm using this as a pedal platform for my guitar and it's brilliant! I run it with a standard guitar amp and it fills out the frequency range in a very natural way. Pulled a pair of tubes to run it @ 100 watts through an open back 2x12 with Jensen Blackbirds. Takes all manner of effects extremely well. Very warm and round. Great eq section, go easy when voicing it as little changes make a big difference. Not like a guitar amp at all in that regard. Nice and light too! Love it.

Even at full price brand new it's a great deal compared to almost any other all-tube bass amp on the market. Plug in your P-bass, set the controls flat, and just play! Setting the gain at about 6 or 7 allows you to play clean finger style or to dig in hard with a pick for some grit. What could be simpler? I matched this amp with a Traynor 1x15 NEO for a very affordable and light weight rig.

One mean machine.
I find I no longer need my distortion peddles when the gain is up on this.

Ive always been one for tube tone. I used to have and Ampeg SVT CL and a Fender Bassman 300. This is just as good, but at half the cost and half the weight. Is 300 watts all tube really necessary? REALLY? No. Unless you are playing wembeley stadium this is plenty loud. Did I mention the tone? Pure tube. I was never a fan of Traynor just because the were the bland brand at every L+M, but now I know why. Canadian built as well so the quality is top notch. I currently pair this with the Traynor 412 cab.

I've had this amp for a while. I paired with the 1510 cab. Love the whole set up. I'm playing a fender 50's pbass. I run some pedals like overdrive and other various pedals and this amp keeps coming back for more. All my stuff sounds sick with this amp. The only issue is the tubes were fried shortly after I got it. And I had gotten it brand new still in the box. I don't know what the heck happened. I read stories on how bulletproof this thing was. For some reason when I turned it on, let it warm up, and took it off standby, it let out the most loud window shaking squeal I have ever heard. I turned it off, called up long and McQuade, and they told me to bring it in immediately. So I did. They tested it out in store. It did the same thing. Only the tubes were burning so bad they looked like red Christmas lights. It was bad. So they sent it away. It took a little while. I'm the mean time I got to try allot of different amps. Everything from solid state to hybrids. But nothing I had compared. I got told traynor wasn't going to cover the tubes. I was choked. Tubes are the guts and sound of the amp! How could it not be covered. I finally got the call from l&m saying the amp was in. I went in expecting to fork out a couple hundred for repair, but traynor stepped up. I didn't pay a thing. I'm back to rocking out and haven't had a single problem since

This is the best all tube bass head ive ever played and I have honestly played almost all of them, this amp has the same tube configuration as the Orange AD200-B and at 1/3 the price. Built as good if not BETTER than any Ampeg/Fender/Mesa/Orange head. 2yr full warranty and it's made in Canada. Do not hesitate to buy this head!

I found an original YBA-200 upgraded to YBA-200-2 Specs and tube complement at a pawn shop, for a steal. (I prefer the older "winged" logo to the newer plastic text logo of the YBA-200-2, but this is my own nit-picking). I mated it to a new YT-1510 cab from L&M and with little to no tweaking, I was instantly teleported back to 1972, all for for less than $1000. Whether you want vintage flabbiness or modern punch it is available to you easily and accurately, with the comprehensive front-mounted controls and modern features. Other than the largest venues or very highest gain applications, this head has very nearly all the tube punch, purity, and power of an SVT or an Orange, at a mere fraction of the cost of either, (and more flexibility than either, IMHO). Its so versatile that it will be far and away more useful to you than an SVT and 8x10 in 99% of situations you encounter, and better featured than an equivalently powered Orange. To conclude, if you cannot reproduce that tone in your head with this amp then go ahead and spend the extra money ..., that might make you happy, or perhaps you could take up basket weaving.

Great with the tc8-10 cabinet. GREAT at Zeppelin.

Use this for gigs ranging from early Beatles to Green Day plugging in either a Epiphone Viola or a Ibanez Gio this amp pulls it off. Recommend swapping the 2 12ax7's for 12at7's for lower smoother overdrive in the gain section (easy $20 mod). Really comes alive with the master around 2 o clock through my SVT410HE cab.