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LM250Black line Vs Fender Rumble 350 Vs TC BH250 Vs Hartke 2500/3500


Sweeneythebass
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I play in what has been described as a folk-funk band playing my 51p reissue. So I'm looking in the most part for some nice warm mellow lows to drive the outfit but enough clarity and punch for some funk fingerstyle too.

Now my Hartke HA2000 has given up the ghost (on sale here!) I'm looking for a replacement on a tight budget, I dont need huge power as I usually DI on most gigs and my cabs ( 1x12, 1x15) are 200w rated (so max 400w @ 4ohms).

With the Hartke HA2000 I got the sound i was after but only after much EQ'ing and addition of the 115. One option is a replacement Hartke. Pros: I do like the tube pre-amp, compression and the versatility of the EQ., I know what I'm getting here. Cons; weight vs small modern heads.

I've never tried any of the lighweight heads so need opinions !

The few options i've so far considered:

LM250 Black line (Brand new £239)
Fender Rumble 350 (used, Ebay £100 bid at the mo, with bag, no longer made?)
TC BH250 (£240 Brand New)
Hartke 3500/2500 (New £380/180)

Edited by Sweeneythebass
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I own a LM250 Blackline and its a great cheap head, with the addition of the VLE and VPF filters you can fine tune any sound you want, roll the VPF and the VLE up and it will give you the warm rounded tone you mention, then roll off the VLE to bring the brightness back.

.........plus I think its the only one out of the bunch that has a DI volume, which can be very useful. I use mine mainly for recording but Ive gigged with x2 EBS 1x12 cabs outdoors and it did fine without any PA support for a 4 piece blues gig.

Hope that helps @sweeneythbass. Would be a great choice but interested to see what other people think of it

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Hi @mrn1989
[quote name='mrn1989' timestamp='1494433549' post='3295971']
I own a LM250 Blackline and its a great cheap head, with the addition of the VLE and VPF filters you can fine tune any sound you want, roll the VPF and the VLE up and it will give you the warm rounded tone you mention, then roll off the VLE to bring the brightness back.

.........plus I think its the only one out of the bunch that has a DI volume, which can be very useful. I use mine mainly for recording but Ive gigged with x2 EBS 1x12 cabs outdoors and it did fine without any PA support for a 4 piece blues gig.

Hope that helps @sweeneythbass. Would be a great choice but interested to see what other people think of it
[/quote]
thanks for your input, I'm already leaning towards the Mark bass head!

Anyone else with experience of the other heads?

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Markbass imo lends itself very nicely to Precision basses, a nice warm yet clear sound. You can pretty much get the sound wanted with just the filters as mrn1989 says. I`ve had a good few Markbass amps and was impressed with them.

I had the TC BH250 for a while and that`s a nice little amp, plenty powerful with an efficient cab, and of course on-board tuner and compression never hurt. I know there are a lot of comments about TCs "true" power rating but this little amp certainly held its own.

Hartke HA3500 - used them a couple of times and found them fine with the tube emulation on full, but a bit sterile without it.

Fender Rumble - not used the heads but have had a couple of the smaller combos, again, pair very well with a Precision (well they should do really, shouldn`t they).

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FWIW because I'm not a great tone freak, I just want the job done.

I have a Mark Bass Tube500 and a HA3500. the MB Tube was bought at a knock down price in a sale when the HA3500 started making strange noises after an admittedly long life.

I quite like the MB it's light and does what it says on the tin, it's plenty loud enough, nice clean bass sound and I quite like the VPF control. The VLE is fairly useless, just a way of adjusting muddiness I find. The tone controls aren't quite at the frequencies that I'd find most useful and I can't tweak the bass the way I'd like, but flat is OK and I've an active bass with parametric mids so that's OK too. It weighs nothing and seems pretty tough. I use the tube input mainly but I'd happily buy the MB III as the effect is very subtle.

However, I've cleaned up the pots on the Hartke and it does have more heft :). In every sense of course, it weighs almost twice the weight of my speakers. I think it probably has little high pass filtering as the cones flap alarmingly if you boost the bass, especially compared with the MB. I tend to roll off the 30Hz on the graphic so that's not an issue for me. The sound is just more satisfying straight out of the box and it's hard to make it sound bad, the tone shaping is great, I just find a graphic more intuitive.

So I use the MB almost exclusively at gigs, it's been utterly reliable and does the job really well, but when I do take the Hartke out it's a real treat. If the weight didn't bother me I'd use it more.

Edited by Phil Starr
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Hmmm thanks for the input guys very helpful.

If I find a LM250 2nd hand I'd go for it, not much luck so far so brand new is £240/250 which is why I'm considering the TH350 as at £300 (albeit used) it's not far off.

Anyway the EBS reidmar or the LH500 haven't been on the radar. More research needed!

Thanks again fellas 👍

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+1000 the Reidmar, great amp does everything if you pair it with right cabs and spend some time tinkering. I went from a Markbass Tube 800 to a Aguilar TH500 and settled with the Reidmar.

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