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Off Topic Please help: Shopping for a lightweight/powerful/versatile bass head

dmarotta said:
I have a car with lots of horsepower but I don't drive it fast all the time.Its nice to have the power when you want it.
Its all about the headroom. Many of the high power rated speaker cabs like the headroom .
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Like I said, if a gig calls for 800 watts then chances are there will also be PA which lets everyone onstage play @ normal volumes making headroom a moot spec. If the gig is small enough to not need PA then a 500 watt amp is more than enough. Heck, an SVT "only" has 300 watts and tens of thousands of 810s never showed signs of being underpowered.
 
syciprider said:
Like I said, if a gig calls for 800 watts then chances are there will also be PA which lets everyone onstage play @ normal volumes making headroom a moot spec. If the gig is small enough to not need PA then a 500 watt amp is more than enough. Heck, an SVT "only" has 300 watts and tens of thousands of 810s never showed signs of being underpowered.
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You and I must have different views on what having overhead does to a bass cabinet too. :D

tk
 
The more the merrier! If markbass comes out with a 2000 watt amp, I would want one. There is nothing better than when the guitar player gives you the wtf, I can't hear my amp look!
 
five7 said:
The more the merrier! If markbass comes out with a 2000 watt amp, I would want one. There is nothing better than when the guitar player gives you the wtf, I can't hear my amp look!
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Amen. LOL That is what it is all about right there. The sound man will tame you down. But getting that look is worth every thing to me. LOL

tk
 
It really is about headroom. And headroom gives your rig a chance to respond to those deadly serious transients in bass guitar, done properly.

I gigged for a long time with 1200 watts. Did I ever actually engage all 1200 of those watts? No. Certainly I did not. But if I'm chugging along at, say, 200 watts, and some wild-ass low note requires 100 more to respond properly, I had that in reserve.

It is definitely not about volume. (Usually.)
 
I don't usually run at 2 ohms unless I need to. I run around 480 watts most of the time. But if I need to fill the bottom without turning the volume up I go to the 2 ohm load and my 700 watts.

It goes boom without being loud.

It isn't about using a PA to get past my rig.

tk
 
cyoungnashville said:
i have one of just about every markbass head / cab inbound right now. shouldnt be much longer before i have them and can intelligently reply to threads like this. that being said, the mb stuff i have heard and used in the studio just kills. i have never heard anything that sounded that good come out of an amp at any price / weight. i would not have signed on with them if i didnt whole heartedly love the tone. if you hang in there a bit, i will be able to post audio samples of all the mb models mentioned above.
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MarkBass, Genz Benz now had a 4 Pound 900 watt head into 4-Ohm, Walter Woods has been doing this since 1968, so there's many too choose from for sure.
 
bovinehost said:
It really is about headroom. And headroom gives your rig a chance to respond to those deadly serious transients in bass guitar, done properly.

I gigged for a long time with 1200 watts. Did I ever actually engage all 1200 of those watts? No. Certainly I did not. But if I'm chugging along at, say, 200 watts, and some wild-ass low note requires 100 more to respond properly, I had that in reserve.

It is definitely not about volume. (Usually.)
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Jack is right, You want Tone get into High powered Amps, Tons of head room, I have a Crown Macro Tech 3600 into an old Demeter Preamp and still to this day Nothing comes even remotely close but at 52 I have no desire to move it around. So the smaller lighter amps win.
 
syciprider said:
Like I said, if a gig calls for 800 watts then chances are there will also be PA which lets everyone onstage play @ normal volumes making headroom a moot spec. If the gig is small enough to not need PA then a 500 watt amp is more than enough. Heck, an SVT "only" has 300 watts and tens of thousands of 810s never showed signs of being underpowered.
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Don't know if you have ever done a stadium show but years ago when I did my first stadium tour , I showed up to rehearsals with my 800watt crossed over hi-fi rig. The sound company guys were laughing as I set up. THe stage was so large that if I got more than two feet away from my rig. I could not hear a thing.They built me a custom rig with over 2K of power. The sound pressure levels were not uncomfortable but I heard every nuance of what I was playing.
 
Headroom vs. amp output ratios are meaningless without taking speaker cabinet(s) effeiciency and application into consideration.
My SVT head is thudnerous with plenty of headroom for most applications through an effecient 8x10 cabinet. It does not make nearly as much SPL through an inefecient cabinet. Both would work fine at home practice volume though

To use the automobile analogy, 750 horsepower in a 6,000 lb chasis is kind slow compared to that same engine in a 2,000 lb chaisis. Of course if you only need to go 35 mph with minimal acceleration both would work fine.

My frustration is that I love the tube sound of an SVT or Mesa Walkabout (both 300 watts at 4 ohms), but many high end, light weight cabs are ineffecient
 
I just do not know how you cannot go wrong with Markbass MKII or MKIII.
I love them and have a couple one rack, one not and I use the MoMark as well.
This is for several different situations as well.
 
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