Trickfish and Vanderkley, not for me..

[Acebassmusic]

27 minutes ago, Defo said:

Try getting a Tecamp Puma second hand?

I've got the Puma 900 and love the "Taste" control. You can add snap and clarity or more rounded vintage tones.

[Phil Starr]

On 01/06/2020 at 20:28, wildebassman said:

I have a great Vanderkley 112ext, 300w, 8ohms cabinet. 

After saying good bye to my Markbass stuff I thought that a Trickfish Bullhead .5 would be the perfect match... after reading the great reviews and information from the dealer I ordered the amp.

 

Played the amp for two days trying my best to like it...but no, not for me and not with this cabinet.

I would say this amp is too polite for me, everything is there, bass, middle, treble, but without the clarity and zing I want to hear. There is a roll off in the highs and for me it was like, say, 2 dimensional.

 

Now the surge for an amp is on again. I play a Mesa Subway D800 through the cab now and it's a lot more "my" sound, but still I want a bit more definition, without harsness. It could be I should try out an Eich amp..

Any other recommandations?

 

Dennis.

That's really interesting, as a sometime designer of speakers I'm always really interested in people's experiences with new gear. The real problem with designing stuff people will like is that the language of engineers is so different from the language used by musicians and the words we use generally to describe sound mean different things to each of us. Ask a hundred bassists what they mean by heft for example......

Anyway we've done some blind shoot outs of a collection of cabs at a couple of the South West Bass Bashes. The last one involved a mix of 12" cabs including a Mark Bass. Technically it was the least impressive of the speakers (partly because it was modestly priced to be fair) The bass response was peaking by about 4dBat 100Hz and there was very little deep bass, the horn was poor quality and the crossover not very well worked out. Bassically it was all boom and tizz with all sorts of distortions. This was compared with @stevie high end FRFR design a Fearless and a couple of other high end FRFR designs. The Mark Bass was the speaker liked by the biggest section of the bassists present. Interestingly people scored it as the best or the worst speaker on display. It was Marmite. Interestingly for a speaker with a poor response below 100Hz it was described as being very bassy. It was easily the loudest of the cabs we tested, but on the sound level meter it measured no louder than the others. It had a shouty frequency response that made it subjectively loud.

The thing is that we could all hear the differences and they were measurable, we just didn't agree which sounded best. So maybe you are like the majority, you aren't looking for a clean neutral sound but want grit, growl, bite and heft. Nothing wrong with the Mark Bass approach if you like their 'sound'. I loved my old Hartke HA3500 and my Peavey MkIII with a 2x15 before it. Rationally I know I ought to like FRFR with tone shaping to get the best tone but in practice on a live gig with 20min to set up you can't beat a bit of baked in tone. Just before the lockdown I bought a Peavey minimax, absolutely loved it in the few gigs I squeezed in with it. It was a stopgap for my MBTube which I dropped off the stack and broke. It's going to be my go-to for a while I think, love the little thing. There's one on sale in the ads here, bargain.

[wildebassman]

Yup, funny how we all hear and perceive differently.

[machinehead]

On 06/06/2020 at 22:38, Phil Starr said:

That's really interesting, as a sometime designer of speakers I'm always really interested in people's experiences with new gear. The real problem with designing stuff people will like is that the language of engineers is so different from the language used by musicians and the words we use generally to describe sound mean different things to each of us. Ask a hundred bassists what they mean by heft for example......

Anyway we've done some blind shoot outs of a collection of cabs at a couple of the South West Bass Bashes. The last one involved a mix of 12" cabs including a Mark Bass. Technically it was the least impressive of the speakers (partly because it was modestly priced to be fair) The bass response was peaking by about 4dBat 100Hz and there was very little deep bass, the horn was poor quality and the crossover not very well worked out. Bassically it was all boom and tizz with all sorts of distortions. This was compared with @stevie high end FRFR design a Fearless and a couple of other high end FRFR designs. The Mark Bass was the speaker liked by the biggest section of the bassists present. Interestingly people scored it as the best or the worst speaker on display. It was Marmite. Interestingly for a speaker with a poor response below 100Hz it was described as being very bassy. It was easily the loudest of the cabs we tested, but on the sound level meter it measured no louder than the others. It had a shouty frequency response that made it subjectively loud.

The thing is that we could all hear the differences and they were measurable, we just didn't agree which sounded best. So maybe you are like the majority, you aren't looking for a clean neutral sound but want grit, growl, bite and heft. Nothing wrong with the Mark Bass approach if you like their 'sound'. I loved my old Hartke HA3500 and my Peavey MkIII with a 2x15 before it. Rationally I know I ought to like FRFR with tone shaping to get the best tone but in practice on a live gig with 20min to set up you can't beat a bit of baked in tone. Just before the lockdown I bought a Peavey minimax, absolutely loved it in the few gigs I squeezed in with it. It was a stopgap for my MBTube which I dropped off the stack and broke. It's going to be my go-to for a while I think, love the little thing. There's one on sale in the ads here, bargain.

That's a really knowledgeable and helpful post Phil, and very useful insight.

EDIT I've had a Peavey miniMax for a couple of years and it's the cheapest amp I own, but it's been getting the most gigs.  It's a great amp.

Frank.

Edited June 8, 2020 by machinehead

[cord.scott]

On 05/06/2020 at 10:50, MOSCOWBASS said:

I have a D800 which is great, but I wanted more bright lively sound, so I bought a D800+ di pedal. It goes into the d800 aux in and is effectivly a d800+. Gives me a choice of both worlds and at the time of buying the d800+di it worked out cheaper than selling the d800 and buying a new d800+ amp. I think these amps have a great "feel".

My mesa d800+ and the subway 210 and 115 cabs are the only gear I'd never get rid of. 

[Phil Starr]

6 hours ago, machinehead said:

 

EDIT I've had a Peavey miniMax for a couple of years and it's the cheapest amp I own, but it's been getting the most gigs.  It's a great amp.

Frank.

Yeah it's good to have Peavey back on form, let's hope it heralds a new dawn of better worked out class D bass amps from all the manufacturers.

[Dan Dare]

Given that many class D heads use the same - typically IcePower in the case of Mesa and Aguilar - power modules, the differences you're hearing between them are due to the choices of the preamp designer. So rather than change your entire head (which always costs you money - you never get back what you paid for the one you move on), would trying a few alternative preamps with it make sense?

[wildebassman]

Going to give a Glockenklang Steamhammer a try tomorrow.

Will share my findings.

[4000]

Another suggestion for a VTBass pedal. I liked mine so much I bought two of the 500watt heads as well! The heads seem to be pretty much ignored but I’ve  tried a bunch of other class Ds - pretty much all the popular ones - and for me it was no contest. The only things that came remotely close were GK. 

[wildebassman]

The steamhammer is a good solid amp, sounded good with everything flat, when I started tweaking I lost it, I just couldn't dail in another sound I liked. I left the store "dazed and confused"... 😉