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MarkBass Combo or Traveller and Head?


Linus27
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I went through a similar quandary a number of years ago, between the CMD121H combo and traveller 121H cab with LMII head. Ultimately, I went with the head and cab. The cab had slightly deeper frequency extension than the combo, and I just felt the mini stack would be more versatile. On several occasions, and at rehearsals I was able to leave my cab at home and use my head with someone else's cab, meaning I didn't have to carry as much. Although compact, and lightweight when it came out, it was still a bit of a lump to carry in certain situations (like up and down dark fire escapes, or through endless corridors in large hotels).

 

But I completely get the attraction of a single, simple to move, and quick to set up combo. As such, if I was in that place right now and looking at Markbass again, I would be considering one the new MB58R combos instead. They're so much lighter, that moving it around for any gig and rehearsal is a non-issue The mini stack doesn't offer the advantage it once did.

Edited by Greg Edwards69
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4 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

I have dozens of compressors. The Cali76, DG SS, Empress etc etc.

 

I like the Boss BC-1X better than any of them. It's magical. I'd just like to not need to take it with me at all!

 

Understood. I've been through loads of compressors too and the Markbass Compressore is an always on pedal for me now. With everything at noon the 12ax7 adds lovely valve harmonic content to my SS preamp Markbass heads without softening their tone or even sounding like it's compressing.

I've ogled the 1000 watt Markbass heads over the years but know I'd never get close to needing their immense power on the small to medium sized gigs I get. I dread to think how loud they can go before they limit based on my 800 watt (635 watt RMS at 4 ohms) Markbass Momark amp!

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20 minutes ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

I went through a similar quandary a number of years ago, between the CMD121H combo and traveller 121H cab with LMII head. Ultimately, I went with the head and cab. The cab had slightly deeper frequency extension than the combo, and I just felt the mini stack would be more versatile. On several occasions, and at rehearsals I was able to leave my cab at home and use my head with someone else's cab, meaning I didn't have to carry as much. Although compact, and lightweight when it came out, it was still a bit of a lump to carry in certain situations (like up and down dark fire escapes, or through endless corridors in large hotels).

 

But I completely get the attraction of a single, simple to move, and quick to set up combo. As such, if I was in that place right now and looking at Markbass again, I would be considering one the new MB58R combos instead. They're so much lighter, that moving it around for any gig and rehearsal is a non-issue The mini stack doesn't offer the advantage it once did.

I guess one benefit of the amp plus cab route is that if either component fails you can use backups whilst it's out for repair, if you have them of course.

 

I went through the CMD121H plus traveller 121H cab to my LM3 with two traveller 121H which was better, to a CMD121P with traveller 121H but ended up with my LM3 and two NY121P cabs. The LM3 and two NY121P cabs is not massively bigger than the CMD121H combo but is significantly more capable.

Edited by Sparky Mark
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1 hour ago, Sparky Mark said:

I guess one benefit of the amp plus cab route is that if either component fails you can use backups whilst it's out for repair, if you have them of course.

Indeed, at a showcase event, such as the OP mentioned, my LMII head met with an accident when we were loading in (long story, fell out of boot during load in, thought it was okay but went into protect mode 15mins into a 30min set). I bought a Carvin BX700 to use in the interim whilst the LMII was being repaired. After that incident I realised how delicate these tiny class D amps are and I ended up making the LMII my backup.

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I like the flexibility of heads and cabs. I have two MarkBass 102P's and a Barefaced One10. For heads I have a TE Elf, an LM3 and soon a vintage Bassman 50 head. I can adjust my setup using any permutation I need, and also have a backup head if I ever need one. 

 

Rob

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40 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

Some of them are. The early ones were A/B and then they swapped to D.

Nope, sorry. All LM2 were class AB. LM3 were introduced as Class AB in 2009 then went to class D around 2012.

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