Best amp head (500W to 1000W) you've ever owned? (Or should definitely avoid!)

[Al Krow]

More love for the...Aguilar DB 751

I've had two BCers independently both raving about their Aggie 751 heads this morning, which is kinda very timely given the comments above!

@Kenny Gair

"Best amp I have EVER owned! Moves the earth Al"

...and keeping things completely 'fair' here's the second paired his with a VK410 rather than a Barefaced cab  

@petergales (I've moved the discussion back on to this thread to avoid turning KingPrawn's FS into an Aggie discussion topic!) Btw what was the gig /venue? - it looks impressive!

1 hour ago, petergales said:

I'm using an Aguilar DB751 with my VK 410LNT. I'm absolutely delighted with that combination. 

 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Al Krow

[NancyJohnson]

If I could submit a two part scenario, I use a Matrix GT100FX-2U power amp and have previosuly fed this with a Tech 21 Sansamp/RBI pre-stage and now a Geddy Lee Sansamp pre-stage.  Until I went this route, I went through a ridiculous amount of gear...from lowly entry level Carlsboro combos, H/H, Orange, Trace Eliot, Ashdown etc etc.  The only all in one unit that was equally good was a Tech 21 Landmark 300, but it just wasn't loud enough.

The current rig does everything I could ever want.  Loud/quiet. Clean/dirty.  Phat/thin.  An pretty much everything in between.

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

If I could submit a two part scenario, I use a Matrix GT100FX-2U power amp and have previosuly fed this with a Tech 21 Sansamp/RBI pre-stage and now a Geddy Lee Sansamp pre-stage.  Until I went this route, I went through a ridiculous amount of gear...from lowly entry level Carlsboro combos, H/H, Orange, Trace Eliot, Ashdown etc etc.  The only all in one unit that was equally good was a Tech 21 Landmark 300, but it just wasn't loud enough.

The current rig does everything I could ever want.  Loud/quiet. Clean/dirty.  Phat/thin.  An pretty much everything in between.

Cheers Paul. Not sure I've come across the Matrix gear being used by bassists (and btw is it the GT1000 and not the GT100) so very interested that you are doing so - I thought (maybe mistakenly?) that this was better known as a guitar amp rather than as a bass amp?

[NancyJohnson]

6 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Cheers Paul. Not sure I've come across the Matrix gear being used by bassists (and btw is it the GT1000 and not the GT100) so very interested that you are doing so - I thought (maybe mistakenly?) that this was better known as a guitar amp rather than as a bass amp?

Yes, sorry, GT1000FX. 

It's 'just' a powerstage; to be honest, to my ears it sounds fine, whether or not it's supposed to be for guitar or bass. 

I had a day up in the Midlands with the Matrix guys about a year ago and their attitude ultimately came down to the unit being fine for whatever you needed to push through it...bass, guitar, keys, PA.  It's reasonably priced and weighs very little...I have it housed in a Gator 4U rack with a Korg tuner.  Easy!

[RW1965]

In recent years I’ve had the TC RH460, Aguilar TH500 and now with the Darkglass 900. The Aggie was a definite uplift on the TC, although the fan noise was a bit announcement . Now, I’m totally sold on the Darkglass.  Great build quality and looks, lightweight, bundles of power and a great tone paired with my Vanderkley LNT210. I dial in just a little overdrive and it gives a great sound.  Whilst all the video ad’s show the head being used for metal, I’m playing soul and funk and it gives me a great sound and exactly what I’ve been looking for. 

[petergales]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

More love for the...Aguilar DB 751

I've had two BCers independently both raving about their Aggie 751 heads this morning, which is kinda very timely given the comments above!

@Kenny Gair

"Best amp I have EVER owned! Moves the earth Al"

...and keeping things completely 'fair' here's the second paired his with a VK410 rather than a Barefaced cab  

@petergales (I've moved the discussion back on to this thread to avoid turning KingPrawn's FS into an Aggie discussion topic!) Btw what was the gig /venue? - it looks impressive!

It was the Guiseley Music Festival in September this year. The band is Hysteria.

[tonyxtiger]

The Matrix GT1000 is indeed tasty bass amp when paired with a nice pre. Ive used it with a Vulcan XL and a meatsmoke pre for a lightweight option.

That said the Matamp GT200 with its heeefingly big C core transformer makes the lows lower, the highs higher and generally everything better and clearer than anything I’ve owned. That includes SVTs, boogie walkabouts, carbines, bigblock, 400+, AD200, Aggie750, swrs, Genz.

so Matamp probably not classed as lightweight. I can carry it however so Im considering it portable...

[Guest]

Fisrt of all sorry for my crappy english.

I never owned any amp between 500 and 1000w, I just owned a Mesa Titan 1200 @ 4Ohm.

It was a beast with an incrediable headroom, I could listen evrething cristal clear at very high levels (Cab was a Mesa PH410), but its best point was to be usefull at very very low levels (to pracyce in a flat) with no problems with any hssss or noise (just the noise of the fan), but.... It was heavy as hell, too much amp for me sooooo..... I moved to a Mesa Prodigy, a 250watt tube amp with just 13kg  :-P

Edited December 12, 2017 by spark

[Kev]

Mesa Boogie M9 Carbine

Darkglass M900

Tecamp Puma 900

Gallien Krueger MB500 Fusion

All excellent heads owned in the past 24 months, ranked in order of my preference.  GK lacked a bit of umph compared to the others, but with a lower rating its not terribly surprising.

The only other amp I owned in that time was an Aguilar TH500 - I was very disappointed in this amp.  AB'd it against the GK and Tecamp at the time, felt like the Class D head people love to stereotype; underpowered, real lack of weight in the tone and just generally weaker sounding than the other two.  Preamp I found dark and rather hard to get away from its baked in sound, just didn't like it at all.

 

 

[Al Krow]

@Kev Guess I'm not surprised that the Mesa M9 is at the top of the tree. I completely love my M6 2x12 combo, but at 80lbs it's not going to be gigged (by me anyway)! It has one of the best bass amp and cab tones I've come across.

I was almost tempted to put in an offer on your recently listed M9 (possibly in part-ex for the Mesa combo!) but actually the more sensible thing is to see if I can easily remove my M6 head from the combo without causing any damage to the casing...need to investigate.

Interested that you prefer your DG 900 to the Puma 900? 

[Kev]

Listing the M9 was a moment of GAS induced temporary insanity. Fortunately the GAS inducing item sold and I came to my senses! The M9 can do almost anything and sounded massive with the band on Sunday. The powerhouse cabs are very heavy indeed, but Berg NV115's are more than manageable

The Darkglass certainly seemed to be louder and more flat sounding than the puma ; I found the puma had some kind of bass or low mids boost baked into the circuit.  Believe it or not, the Darkglass has the cleanest flattest sound of all the amps, Microtubes circuits disengaged of course. It's a great amp, I only sold as for various reasons I decided to have the Darkglass pre on my pedalboard again, and it seemed OTT to have the amp and not use the Microtubes section. 

I have no experience with the combo, but I am almost certain it will just be the rackmountable version of the M6 in there and should be whipped out easily ; it's only usually cheaper combos that tend to have the head more built in. 

[Al Krow]

@Kev I totally believe / get what you're saying about Darkglass M900 having "cleanest flattest sound of all the amps". Other BC mates who have owned DG M900s or have tried them out have said exactly the same thing. I know for a fact folk have been on the cusp of getting the DG900 because it has such a good EQ but have been put off the amp purely because they're not into the DG microtubes  'metal fizzy drive' (which DG seems to have firmly nailed their colours to?) and feel they are therefore wasting their money on a bit of kit they know they are not going to use (or worse, positively dislike) which, psychologically, is going to put folk off, right?

@Darkglass IMHO it seem to me a shame that DG simply don't release a "DG M850" without the microtubes? I suspect that there would be a fair bit of demand for this amp head?

Alternatively, I guess folk could pick up a second hand DG 900, in great condition in the FS section, as I'm sure a DG M800 would cost probably at least as much as one of those second hand M900s and the M850 may or may never actually get made

[charic]

I'm shocked the Hartke Kilo has got such a bad rep in this thread.  I've loved mine!  The only reason I'm moving it on is to move to a Line6 setup as most venues I play these days have more than adequate backline to support it and I use my bass a fair bit in my home studio.  If I still had a real need for it I wouldn't even consider moving it on.  It's been a reliable little workhorse and done me proud

[bjelkeman]

On 19/11/2017 at 10:35, Al Krow said:

Mesa D800

Been a few slightly mixed reviews about this amp on this thread: a few folk who have tried both prefer the EQ on the D800+ (and it makes sense that the D800+ should be the better amp head given its more versatile EQ and Mesa are charging 25% more than the D800 for it!). I'm particularly interested in the fact that you have both the D800 and the Mesa M9 and wondering how close you feel the new 'kid on the block' i.e. the D800 gets to its illustrious forbears in terms delivering that gorgeous Mesa M tone?

I haven’t actually had the opportunity to try the D800+, but I have read the same thing about it being a lot more versatile. No surprise there  

Strangely enough I never got to A/B test the D800 next to the M9. The M9 has, as you say, an awesome creamy sound, which the class D amps don’t get. But in my band setting this doesn’t really come through in more than one or two songs, whereas the benefits of not having the preamps/effects I use anyway (B7K/VMT) on a pedalboard (a lot less noice), made me choose the M900 over the M9. 

I would happily use either amp, if that what was on offer. The last gig we used the M900 and the TKS W2126 for the band that came after us as well. That bass player uses an D800 and Mesa cabs. He turned down the overdrive on the amp and used his B7K instead. He really liked what he heard and I thought it sounded great too, when I got to be audience instead of up on stage. 

Edited November 25, 2017 by bjelkeman
Wrong attribution of something said

[Al Krow]

2 hours ago, bjelkeman said:

... he benefits of not having the preamps/effects I use anyway (B7K/VMT) on a pedalboard (a lot less noice), made me choose the M900 over the M9...

The M900 has a lot of fans as an amp for its clean EQ and there have been a few comments along the lines that you are making that the on-board microtubes effects on the M900 are less noisy and also less fizzy (is that correct?) than the DG B7 / B3 / AO pedals, which I do find interesting.

Any thoughts why that might be the case?

 

[Kev]

Just now, Al Krow said:

The M900 has a lot of fans as an amp for its clean EQ and there have been a few comments along the lines that you are making that the on-board microtubes effects on the M900 are less noisy and also less fizzy (is that correct?) than the DG B7 / B3 / AO pedals, which I do find interesting.

Any thoughts why that might be the case?

 

I think a lot of that comes down to some having difficulty effectively using an EQ on the likes of the B7K and AO.  Anyone getting a tone that is too 'fizzy' is doing it wrong

The amp has a 'Tone' control, which is much more plug and play and makes it easier to tame the highs.  I actually did really enjoy that about the M900, but ultimately every tone the amp B*K circuit can achieve is possible with the B7K Ultra on my board, just easier to get to perhaps.

[Al Krow]

15 minutes ago, Kev said:

I think a lot of that comes down to some having difficulty effectively using an EQ on the likes of the B7K and AO.  Anyone getting a tone that is too 'fizzy' is doing it wrong

The amp has a 'Tone' control, which is much more plug and play and makes it easier to tame the highs.  I actually did really enjoy that about the M900, but ultimately every tone the amp B*K circuit can achieve is possible with the B7K Ultra on my board, just easier to get to perhaps.

Cheers Kev that's useful. I guess I was being a little 'polite' in referring to it as 'fizzy' - and I take your point about adjusting the EQ.

I probably more correctly should have said: 'the baked-in bespoke DG dirt sound, primarily famous for appealing to metal heads'  But that would be a coming-off-the-fence statement and folk might guess where I stood on things? 

Edited November 25, 2017 by Al Krow

[Cuzzie]

From my point of view when I had it it’s not just about the dials, and EQ points, but also your attack and fingers vs pick. 

What I will say for me is that the distortion side of things always sounded a little separate from the actual bass sound, instead of being truly parallel with it. That was pedals and amps, and just not quite enough low end, close , but not quite for me. That just my thoughts, happy to be disagreed with.

Despite some of my remarks on other threads which was more about price points, I will stress that customer service and build quality are top notch and no one can disagree with that whether you like the products or not!

[Cuzzie]

@Al Krow it’s not a baked in sound. What you are getting in the videos on you tube is often guys playing very aggressively, or really quickly with a very compressed sound to double and triplet kick drums, and that version of modern metal. I have nothing against periphery, meshuggah etc. I quite like their stuff, but if that is all you hear, or the other extreme is people doing a lot of tapping, that’s what you’ll think of.

you can for example get very close to a Tech21 dUg ultrabass sound. I spoke to Doug Castro about this as I found it when tinkering, he has the dUg amp as well and he could not explain exactly how it happened as the circuits are different, but when you crank stuff, hit strings differently, allow harmonics to sing and blend you can get very pleasant tones.

similarly you will get a straight up tone for R&B, funk, Jazz, Country.

So I don’t think there is a ‘baked in’ tone, there is a characteristic to the drive provided which you can mould and blend with any other pedals you have.

My other 2 bits - the VMT for me was poo, couldn’t get it to sit right, it wasn’t vintage it was muffled and confused. B3K circuit is mint

[dannybuoy]

I guess I'll have to record a clip of my BB1025X into my M900 to convert you Al!

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, dannybuoy said:

I guess I'll have to record a clip of my BB1025X into my M900 to convert you Al!

Yes, please do. I'd love to hear it and I suspect a bunch of other folk would too. Are we now able to upload sound clips into the thread following the site upgrade?

I'm definitely a fan of the Yammy P bass sound for sure, although having said that I'm (very unexpectedly, spur of the moment) about to trade my BB425 in for an Ibby SR six string (I guess I'm even more of a sucker for the Ibby / Norstrand big single sound!). I'll be up in your neck of the woods next week to do that deal and may even manage to hear @Osiris in action with his beloved GM 800 & Tecamp rig performing live with his band later that evening 

[Al Krow]

On 25/11/2017 at 12:22, dannybuoy said:

I guess I'll have to record a clip of my BB1025X into my M900 to convert you Al!

No need. Converted

Tried an Ashdown ABM Evo IV 600 at PMT Cambs with @KotorTom through an Ashdown 2x10 and 1x15. He really liked. I didn't dislike at all, but being honest it wasn't a touch on my Mesa M6 Carbine so if I am asked to recommend a relatively heavy non D class amp, the Mesa would get my vote every time.

I kinda feel the valve pre-amp class AB power amp design that is likely to trump the Mesa is actually the Aguilar DB751 (given their very similar architecture) but that's a step up again in both weight and price. 

[franzbassist]

Demeter VTBPM800D

[Al Krow]

22 minutes ago, walbassist said:

Demeter VTBPM800D

Short and sweet

I take it you prefer this to your Markbass K1 then? If so, penny for your thoughts as to why?

[franzbassist]

4 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Short and sweet

I take it you prefer this to your Markbass K1 then? If so, penny for your thoughts as to why?

It's the only amp I have ever used that stayed clean and clear and yet also retained authority and presence (dare I say "heft"?) at any volume.  Quite remarkable.

They now offer it as a fliptop combo too.