LukeFRC

I've tried Hi-Beams and Fat-beams Both feel great - they both have a round core rather than hex which means they feel nice on the flexibility stakes. The Hi-beams I don't get on with massively, as they age the tone gets a bit uneven. Fat-beams have no kinda problem and are simply amazing. Big full sound and best of all, as they age the tone doesn't change much. They last for ages until they hit a wall and go really dead. In my experience of having them as my favoured string for the last 10 years or so I would say that the "dead" zone comes after a year and a half! They are great. For a lower cost similar alternative Newtone round core strings are pretty good and I enjoy them.

Pointed me to an approved repairer when my Walkabout transformer blew up. Anyone found any more videos of the WD800

Yeah but then I would try to lift it and settle on the wd800

Dunno, but OT the big three or retail chains in the uk have formed their own buying group to cut out the distributer and try and compete with European internet retailers like Bax and Thomann. For what it’s worth if I were amp shopping with a stack of cash my top two I would want to try would be the WD800 and the Berg B|amp

Presumably he’s asking if retailers who sell Mesa have organised themselves into one big price fixing team ?

Tried the Fatbeams? I find they have a more even tone and stay really stable tonally as they age. Hi Beams I like but found they got more middy as they got older. Mind you if you're changing them every month you might not be getting the same sounds as me! I find a set of DRs will last me a year or two before going dead. ....

I think it's more how the Mesa>distributer>retailer model works. Mesa seem to be one of the good guys in the business in terms of how they act, and the products look and sound amazing and there are probably massive benefits in having a distributer doing that work for you, liasing with retailers, and for being that interface to help deal with repairs. I'm not criticising any company being set up that way because it probably makes sense - but it does add on a whack to the prices (both new and for parts) for us, and must limit then number of units you can sell to Europe. But hey, I'm sure that goes the other way too for other items that are made in the EU or UK.

great demo @agedhorse (mind you I skipped 2/3 of the parametrics!) I don't think there's that much negativity here, from my POV and having not heard it, it's probably in the top two of my best and most interesting new amps available now to buy. The features are well thought out and from the demo it nails some of the Walkabout sound that I like. However, and in trying to explain some of the feelings you're picking up... Say I wanted a new amp, and went to our specialist UK bass shops and went to Bassdirect, and the Bass Gallery, I also went online to see what Thomann would sell me. My spec sheet is I want a new amp in the 700-1200w range from. I want something lightweight so I'm not looking at the SVT options or anything with a valve power stage... So I go online to a great bass forum like Basschat...and maybe google also takes me to Talk bass and I get a list of available makers... Aguilar Ampeg Ashdown Bergantino Darkglass EBS Eich EA Fender Genzler GK Glockenklang MarkBass Orange Quilter TC Electronic Trickfish Warwick and of course Mesa... Now having just checked those three retailers websites, I could choose any of the amps manufactured by any of those companies (excepting big SVT and valve power stages) and the Mesa WD-800 is the most expensive option to me, of any of them! I can pick and choose of a worlds worth of high end bass amps, from mass manufactured through to boutique, and the WD800 is the priciest of them all. Now I've no doubt it's a great amp, maybe one of the best - but over here, on price alone, Mesa position themselves as the Porsche of the amp world. Maybe that's justified, but a lot of us will never get to own a Porsche.

You get the amp too or just the preamp? That preamp should sound nice fed into your ip310

They did, I was wrong - and where did you find one?

I think I had a similar problem with a heavy poweramp I had bought that got smashed by the courier. On my amp the symptom was the transformers not being tightened down properly

Will do

What do you think your bass cabs are tuned too? Unless you’re useing ACME cabs, or there was a mod to downtune fEARful 15/6 you know your cab isn’t going to be much different to that RCF

Aside: though it didn’t enjoy the high output on my G&L L1000 on Sunday - it was peaking the input. Ended up just going via DI

Or you wanted to use the Helix for a certain delicious cab tone and wanted to have that tone via FOH and your rig...

For a basic DI check out Orchid. Read the reviews - they are v. good and won't break the bank

This. I think given the choice @Al Krow most of us would have several big heavy rigs at home and then ask our roadies to take and set up the one we wanted on stage.... in the real world though it depends what you want- and I kinda think if FRFR becomes a fad then folk will waste money trying something that doesn’t suit them. First question is where do you gig, and what do you want your bass to sound like? If you want a big wide valve sound with traditional sounding cabs then that’s probably what you want... how do you get that sound to the PA - I guess the traditional DI. Most bass rigs, combo or separates work in this way. An amp that may or may not add its own colour, and a cab that will do likewise... Where FRFR comes into its own is if “your tone” doesn’t come from the amp and cab, but from something like a Helix or Zoom B3n in my case. what it means is that I can dial in my sound, say an amp and cab sim with a compressor beforehand, during practice using the FRFR speaker and then have a reasonable confidence that through a venues FOH it’s should be about where I set it. I once played a gig where the drum machine we used vis laptop had been “polished” by the guitard... we spent most the soundcheck trying to remove the Eq that sounded great in a pair of cheap headphones but really caused problems through a PA- same thing! So it depends on what you want... however if I were going FRFR a separate amp that could run without a load would give me a reasonably lightweight preamp option to feed into the FRFR which the combo wouldn’t. So in summery, it depends what you’re trying to do, and the answer is probably IEMs...

Doesn’t the K12.2 and the Quilter bass block share some similarities power module wise?

Lucky booger

There's 101 different amps around 700w, and to be fair 500w would do you well so you *could* add them to your list. The main question @Misowaki I think is what kinda bass tone are you going for? And what kinda gigs are you using it for?

Rant over!

You’ve already shelled out for an an upgraded Status neck, I would Take the neck uncut, and either flog it or build a second bass with it. Then move on, yes Fender should have done more to help, but life’s too short and the lesson for all of us is buy Status not fender! I think I wrote on here years back whenever it was the AVRI ‘75 model (which I wanted) got replaced with the AVRI ‘74 model ... I tried all the new fenders in the shop and thought the necks were poor. I had been researching a custom build at the time and done a load of reading on how luthiers pick wood for necks... the Fender necks I tried didn’t meet any of the basic advice I was reading interns of straight grain lack of knots etc. And they were covered with a very thick layer of laquere ... while they do make some good basses (you have to try a lot) but honestly don’t know why you would buy a Fender vs the great value Squier stuff, anything G&L are making (now they have their new distribution with PMT Dawson’s GuitatGuitar etc) or even a early 80s Japanese copy bass...

Aye I saw that!

Early Tecamp Puma did, used their Digimod units. Sounded great. I've always thought of it linked to how the amp supplies power, solid state amps with big old capacitors in the power section are better equipped to supply power too to shift big bottom end. With many class D we can see that they have the initial burst power and then it drops off. In theory that's not a problem, but I wonder if it affects the way we perceive it. Mind you I think that's based on design choice rather than topology as the Tecamp Pumas with the powersoft units seemed to be way more low mid biased than some of the other units I've tried with the high mid bias that @Dood just mentioned

So cHambered MDF with alder top and back- makes sense if you’re going for lightweight.