Beedster

I would swap out the pre-amp for a model with sweepable mids, such as the John East unit (which by the way really calms what can often be a quite brittle top end on the 3-band 'rays), and allows you to really emphasise the low mids. It won;t be 100% P-Bass by any means but a whole lot closer than you'll get with the current pre-amp I believe. The other option of course is to use your amp to do the same thing, but in my experience, it's often a less satisfactory approach, and you'd need an amp with a similar sweepable EQ to find the tone that's in your head. Here's the link, for £157 it is a game-changer for a 'ray, seriously https://www.east-uk.com/index.php/bass/mmsr-4-knob-3-band.html

The Trads looks so much better than the (old) Standards

If they're on those lovely Mesa wheels, just don't get them on an incline, they have a life of their own

Jeez mate, that's a lot of cab. Think yourself lucky they're the Traditional Powerhouse, which are slightly shallower and lighter than the Standard Powerhouse which are massive (I sold my Standard 4x10 to a USA bassist touring Europe and he asked whether I though he'd need two to get decent volume on stage; I said I'm not sure he even needed one, the Standard 2x10 is enough for most applications). That is a monster rig you have there. I'm guessing as I only live 100 or so miles away if I open the windows I'll probably hear you. Can you do Seven Nation Army so I can check it's you?

Some flight cases or even rack cases seem to have the handles in a place that helps, others in a place that hinders. What I love about the SVT-II are the two handles on the front panel that make it really easy to life in and out of a car boot.

I use my un-racked/cased in part for this reason, in part because it looks better un-racked, and in part because the shock-mount case I have adds over 10kg to the weight, and given the already serious weight of this thing, those 10kgs make a difference. Given we're going to be gigging a lot more this year, with increased risk of it getting damaged, I'd like to find a good ventilated case for it, even if it needs to be 6u to get decent air flow around the case. Very keen to hear the experience and advice of others? Thanks Chris

Whilst I get the idea that this thread is about knowledge and experience of the SVT-II, I also think it should be in praise, so here's my thoughts on my SVT-II as posted in Donslow's original thread yesterday Just reread that and remembered why I sold - and then bought another - SVT-II. The answer to 'what comes close' in my experience is nothing, seriously, not even the SVT-VR and the rest of the Ampeg large tube amps range. I'm no tech so can't tell you why this is, but I can say that having sold my first SVT-II, and realising my mistake, I owned two SVT (US re-issues) before realising that they can't do what this amp can do. I've also owned pretty much every large amp Mesa have made - 400+, Prodigy, Titan, M-Pulse, Big Block 750 and Buster, as well as a Aggie DB-750, some pretty nice pre-amp power amp combinations, including an Aggie DB-659 with an SVT-300 power amp (which got close), but nothing among that list makes me feel what the SVT-II makes me feel. And music for me is all about feeling, I'm not a great bass player by any means, but I love how I feel when I play bass on my own or with the band, and a huge part of that feeling for me is the tone, and the sheer psychoacoustic pleasure I get from this is irreplaceable. So for me, the SVT is an emotion machine, something that I can't quantify in mechanistic terms, but something that adds a huge amount of what is important to me into my experience of playing the bass. If I ever get to the point at which my back is too weak to carry it, I'd happily spend the £300 or so required to get a very high quality rack/trolley case for it, and if it meant a two person carry onto the stage, so be it. I use it even at small gigs, not because I need it, but because I like it (and unlike some tube amps it does quiet pretty well). So, the SVT-II is my emotion machine

A very wise decision mate

Likewise, nice one @donslow I'll add my thoughts re cases once I've had breakfast

Agreed, we often forget that a lot of great artists similarly started out in competitions or similar. A great song performed by a great singer is always a pleasure

And I’m loving it. Within the first few pages you’re captivated

Amazing how many similar 'economies' are to be found in recordings

Thanks Steve, and welcome to BC

Bought it yesterday, looking forward to starting it today

Totally get it, human brains evolved to be acquisitive, so the need to acquire is hard-wired into all of us to a far greater degree than is the need to master a skill, especially if the skill doesn't lead directly to more acquisition (or as an eminent neuroscientist has put it, we are all hard-wired to be addicts, the question is simply one of what we become addicted to). Once you recognise that scanning the FS pages is simply your brain playing tricks on you and acting as if it were still in a landscape in which there were very few resources - i.e., where we spent 99.9% of our evolutionary history - it's a lot easier to resist the next purchase