51m0n

Cheers! Now you see that's a nice amp that is. I highly recommend it 😁

Way back in the day when the 800w Markbass amps first came out there were a lot of comparisons between them and the LMII. Invariably the common thread in those reviews was how the extra headroom was great, but the inherent special part of the LMII tone wasn't there in the same way. Now with the Trickfish there is a similar comparison between the .5k and 1k heads, and I am not sure whether I will go for the 1k for that exact reason.

This is the measure of 'enough' power for me too

Bergantino gear is pretty good, but my one argument against his amps are the way they are heavily targeted at his cabs, which I no longer use, since the Big Twin works far better for me than my old Berg rigs did. Plus all that DSP gubbins is just asking to go wrong 🤣

This is all great, and then you play without your pa and have to rely on a house pa incapable of projecting sound below 1KHz run by Norman whose been doing this job 60 years man and boy and is subsequently as deaf as a post, and his culpable assistant keV who can't quite work out how to tie his shoe laces or keep his trousers from descending beneath his derrière. At which point you need a big bastard bass rig in order for the band to actually hear you, since Norman is convinced you can catch IEMs from kissing someone funny, and won't have any truck with that funny stuff on his 'stage'....

Bwahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa! Brilliant 😁

Mate, that's called sarcasm. It's quite different from aggression, and was actually aimed at the other reports not yours. Chill out!

Fascinating, there's a lot of mentions of the uprated capacitors out there. Surely it can't be smoke and mirrors 🤣

It's not just a standard Pascal power amp, it has uprated caps to better cope with very large peaks apparently....

To be precise it's 1000w peak AT 8 OHMS. So maybe 500w RMS or thereabouts at 8 OHMS which could be 700w RMS at 4ohms. Well the .5k uses the ICE power section apparently. I did feel it was not as loud as the other amps, but here is an interesting point, to get them to sound even somewhere close required a lot of EQ work, removing an inherent nasal quality and pushing the low end a lot. Now that requires more power and the volume difference becomes less obvious once you start getting those amps closer to the inherent tone of the Trickfish. But I definitely want more headroom than my sa450 had and that's why I didn't walk away with a .5k there and then

So I went up to Bass Direct on Sunday. Tried out the Glockenklang Steamhammer, Mesa-Boogie d800 and the Trickfish .5k side by side through a Barefaced Big Baby II. I had tried the Darkglass m900 in GAK on Friday. To cut a long story short the Trickfish makes the rest of them just utterly redundant to my ear. Just a way better tonal starting point. I don't think this amp is flat with everything set to noon by any means. But whatever, it just sounds brilliant. All the bells and whistles on those other amps don't mean a thing, because at the end of the day the core Trickfish tone is just better. So it has a 700w ICE power section and I think that may be enough, but to be sure I am going back a week tomorrow to test a 1k they are getting in with my Big Twin. If the .5k is enough I will get that, if I think I need the extra power reserve to be able to leave the amp idling and achieve war volume, I'll go for the 1k.

Well, I would like a bit more headroom than 500w ideally, I don't need 2 channels, I don't really dig modelling amps particularly, and that is a lot of extra stuff in a box to go wrong, if you know what I mean! But it was an interesting thought!

That's a lovely offer, we'll see how things go, I might just take you up on it, you're right though I would be needing much more oomph, but the tone is probably not a million miles away from its big brother.

Like I said before, we quite often don't get to chose our pa or sound people. In those cases a decent bass rig is still the best solution imo.

Not quite, the m900 is the only thing I can find nearby to give me an idea about its core tone, IE there is one around the corner to listen to. I am prepared to go to Bass Direct to have a proper play if I have to! I know I loved the sa450, nothing else I've heard of or read reviews of seems to suggest a similar core tone with that feature set, the semi parametric EQ and separate line out level control are really useful. Given that appears to be the case I am willing to see if I can get anywhere with other offerings. My son has a Quilter, in the time I've had with it, a couple of rehearsals, I concluded it was a great amp but too bright and a little harsher than I'd like, something the eq doesn't really dial out. I'm interested in seeing if any of the current crop of lightweight heads can be made to sound like what I want to hear. On top of which if I had one thing to moan about with the sa450 it would be a slight lack of headroom. The newer 700+ watt heads should mean I can truly gig with an amp on tick over, which means longer life and less issues. Shiny is nice though 😍

Seriously mate, you can't have ever been in there, you would be lucky to find a practice amp in there, and even then it would be a sodding Peavey 🤣

The Warwick is too daft, I don't need two independent channels. Trickfish is interesting, as is Glockenklang, and the Darkglass m900 v1. GAK have an m900 so I'll have a crack at that. But it's not easily rack mounted, and I probably don't have a use for the overdrives. I didn't say money was no object quite, I said quality costs 🙂, but there is a point where the premium unicorn poop is not quite worth double the money. If I really didn't care how much it was I'd have a Glock Blue Rock, and it may be what I end up with, however if I can get close enough to it to not care for less then I'd be being a little daft wasting money I don't need to. Does anyone know if the Steamhammer is close to the Blue Rock in core tone? For a serious company Glockenklang's web presence is woeful!

Now why is that Warwick so absurd? Very cheap but the size of a house and two separate channels? Weird. So why is the trickfish so expensive if it's the same power amp? And the Glock is definitely on my list but mad expensive if there is something cheaper that will do the job. Plus I really want to have a listen to the options before buying but where to go? I am in Brighton and GAK's bass department is laughable... Any suggestions of shop s in London which stick a decent selection of amps to have a try on. Damn it, I've had no amp GAS for the 10 years I've had the sa450 and still don't now, I just need a reasonably priced great sounding amp that won't break my back, that I can try before I buy.

Q strip is an interesting idea. What I want to know is does anyone know if a lightweight amp with that same tone profile as the LM2/SA450. I know the quilter isn't even close, it's got a far more aggressive top end for a start. Great amp but not the sound I'm looking for at all really. I will be sticking it in a rack too, because I baby my gear , so that's a consideration.

I couldn't face the Peavey historical issues, they were always crap, somehow it will find a way to disappoint me, they always do, but thanks anyway. I acknowledge my snobbery, what can you do 🤩

Ha! Nah it's all down to me! We often play on stages with a naff PA monitor-wise that we have no control over. Bringing a serious bass rig is the best way I've found to deal with that....

Because our monitors don't deliver enough oomph for them. They like a LOT of bass onstage. Which is nice 😁

Yeah but the MTBF on that will be about 10 minutes 😄

Oh and I need parametric/switchable mids, and two of them, and a separate line out level control ideally.

Ok so budget is whatever it needs to be really. Obviously I don't want to spend more than I need to but quality costs... Power would be upwards 700w Amp is basically a monitor for most of the band and provides the foundation of the foh sound for most gigs. The LM2 configuration had a very lovely tone, since the LM3 the amp internals changed and they reportedly lost some of that magic slightly more old school tone. Having said that I haven't tried one and they are on the list!