Andy H.

Much better vertical for sound dispersion across an audience too!

Double post - sorry!

Don't have it any more (age / weight ratio thing), but I had many great sounding gigs with my old Peavey 410TX cab. Bought it in preference to Ampeg / Trace / whatever else I tried at the time. Have also had many good Peavey combo experiences. Their bass gear always seemed to do the job for me. Amp-wise I've got quite a few (!), but the one I probably use most at home is a little 10W TOA PA head from the '70s. All valve, basically point to point built, and just great sounding clean. Overdriven it just gets sweeter and sweeter. Love it for bass or guitar. It is at my techs right now for a little fettling, just to keep it as bomb-proof as ever. Looking forward to having it back on top of my BF One 10. Picked it up for 25 quid ages ago. One of my better buys! Andy.

Horizontal or vertical?

Very sensible. You can always keep your GAS on a low flame by trying out any amps you get a chance to. That also has the side benefit of giving you an idea what might work for you in the future. There is plenty of great gear out there to scorch your bank balance one day.

I do plenty small gigs and jams with a Micromark 801. (Sure you didn’t try the 6” version = black speaker? That sounds great too but is pretty much limited to smaller acoustic sessions.) The 801 positioned carefully though can be quite surprising when pushed. I often put it on a beer crate to calm the bottom end. Have used it at smaller jams with drums and it did fine. Vastly preferred it to a PJB Bass Cub 100 which went straight back. I do have (much) bigger rigs though. If it is going to be your only amp (meantime anyway) and just for home use / not too loud jams etc than the 801 is excellent and pretty much indestructible. But you can pick some nice and way more powerful combos for less second hand. Fenders can be good, don’t dismiss Peavey gear either - it works and generally keeps on working. Lots of other choices to GAS about too...

All above tone stack comments are true and will help. Just one other trivial thought for you though - cab positioning! Moving your cab around in relation to ‘room boundaries’ affects the sound - a lot! Most noticably the low end. Unless you are flying your rig near the roof the important room boundaries here are floor, back and side walls, and especially corners where they are combined. Often a few inches can make a surprising difference. The easiest way to show that is just to raise the cab off the floor by different amounts. Bunging it on a beer crate or stool can help cure boom. (Maybe with a thin layer of foam - or my secret weapon an ‘astroturf’ doormat - under the cab to keep things secure and prevent rattles). As can simply moving it away from nearby walls / corners. The great thing about doing this is that you can really fine tune the lows, at least as effectively as with the amp EQ because different gaps from room boundaries will affect a different range of frequencies. Also really effective are things like ‘Gramma Pads’, especially on creaky wooden stages. I often do small gigs / jams with a Micromark combo (1x6” or 1x8”, I have both) with just a single (VPF = mids scoop) tone control. Still have good control of the bass and treble ranges too though - the tone control on my bass for treble, and room positioning for the bass!!! I always try to put my cabs where they SOUND best, not just where they LOOK best!