BassManGraham

I love them both, but if I had to choose the Epic would be a no brainer. I have been complimented on it's sound at every gig by sound engineers, using a variety of rigs . It is very distinctive and really cuts through the mix. The band love it and it sounds great even on iPhone vid clips etc.

2018 is / has been another very gaseous year for me. My 2019 resolution is reduce my emissions. Best amp considering performance, cost and exceeding expectations was QUILTER BASS BLOCK 800. But the MESA SUBWAY 800 plus is lovely but cost twice as much so edged into second place. Best bass: A limited edition Alembic Epic, have also acquired an Aria SBR-60, and a KAWAI FIIB both pristine. I love 80s Alemibesque Japanese basses. Worst basses either Epiphone Toby Deluxe, which is great value fun bass for dodgy gigs, so I am keeping it, but not is same league as other purchases. Or Marcus Miller P7 which I traded for a Chowny, but didn't like it and immediately p/x'd it for a Marcus Miller M7.The P7 was a good bass but just not as good as other Sires I have tried or owned. The M7 is lovely..

I have done just that. I will share their response as and when they get back to me.

My BQ500 arrived this morning after waiting several weeks. I will gig it later this week, but early signs are promising. For the price this really is a great value little head. It has a clean and punchy sound which I really like. The 4 band EQ has a good tonal range. It doesn't do gritty overdrive, so if that's what you want a pedal would be needed. I am not a fan of compression and prefer sound with little or no THRUST! The active and passive switch appears to be reversed which seems counter intuitive, but not a problem. I can wind the gain up to 2 o'clock on passive setting before clip light flashes and that is with an Alembic with quite a hot active ouput. The DI out seems nice and clean and doesn't colour the sound of my bass. I have just tried it thru a pair of Eden EX112s, this makes a superb, punchy, portable small footprint rig for under £600! OK this is no MESA or QUILTER etc, but for the money it's a no brainer. and so far I am quite impressed and prefer the sound of this amp to previous TC Electronic heads I've tried.

Agreed Sires are amazing value for money I have had a V7 and a P7 both great value for under £500. Personally I would not bother trying to upgrade these as they are pretty much optimum as they come and I suspect the routing cavity may differ from a Fender for which the J Retro was designed. A real quality but cheap alternative to upgrade would be an SX Jazz. Most players think my upgraded SX sounds and plays like an American Fender. I have just fitted a tortoise shell pickguard and Badass bridge. The original pickups are great. I would try the East J Retro before anything else. You probably won't need different pickups, the East Retro will work wonders even for Squier or Mex Jazz pickups HOWEVER I do love John EAST J Retro Preamps and have fitted them to four Fender Jazzes. 2 Mexicans, an American Standard and even an American Active Deluxe. They're easy to fit and require no mods to body at all, I kept original circuits so they can be returned to original in a few minutes. I did not hesitate fitting them to a US Fender, they sound like a Fender on steroids! I much prefer the East Active circuit to the stock Fender one. The Deluxe Jazz has the battery compartment which saves having to mount the PP3 battery under the J Retro chrome control plate. That said the batteries last for ages and there is the passive option. So in conclusion it won't hurt trying one in your American Fender, but an SX Jazz which should cost you less than a new East J Retro, might be worth a punt! BEWARE you may prefer an SX or Mexican Fender with a J Retro to your American Standard! Good Luck

The GK MB amps are very loud. An MB500 certainly seems to hold its own against other more powerful rated heads. They seem to have a lot more gain than most of their contemporaries which means too much treble and high mid EQ can produce audible hissing! Not noticeable when playing, but mildly irritatingly at idle or quiet passages in studio. The D800+ has wonderful tone and plenty of volume for my needs, but on balance probably not as loud as a GK MB800, or the Markbass Little Marcus 800 either. No front of house engineer ever likes me playing anywhere near that loud on stage anyway!

Make sure you check out the DI out specifically unless you intend using a separate DI box. Fender Rumbles are good value a second hand Markbass combo is worth considering. I've had a CMD 121P and a CMD 102P both excellent with great DI outs. I have had two T.C Electronic combos despite being fine little combos the DI out was noisy and unusable on both. No ground lift and considerable mains hum. If weight is not an issue you could do a lot worse than one of the bigger Hartke combos. The tiltback facility is very useful too. Good Hunting.

Haha yep that's exactly when I bought mine! Checked their site the next week, it was out of stock with another £250 on the price! Bargains like that exacerbate my G.A.S. Sound engineer at a regular gig was very complimentary on my 800+ first outing, and he usually doesn't enthuse about much at all!

Well that sounds very promising indeed as the HA3500 is quite loud and punchy for a 350W amp. Only ever used one a couple of times when it was provided backline but fairly impressive, only avoided getting one due to the weight of the things. It may be that the BQ500 can surpass my fairly moderate expectations!

I have been generally underwhelmed by all T.C Electronic heads and combos I havd tried. OK tone print is clever and fun, but power wise they do not come close to GK, Markbass, etc. I have a BH250-208 which is a tidy good value little practice combo, but even with an extension cab cannot compete with our drummer! But, I see Thomann are currently selling the BQ500 for €205 / £175 (free delivery) which to be fair is less than a decent preamp, DI or FX pedal! At this price GAS and curiosity get the better of me, so I am setting THRUST to stun, and getting prepared to be underwhelmed all over again. I will report further when it arrives in several weeks time!

Running an amplifier into too low an impedance is definitely not advisable, the amp could run hot and you could blow the output stage of of your power amp.

I did direct comparison between several heads earlier today. LittleMark Tube 800, Little Mark 800, Little Marcus 800 Aguilar AG700, Aguilar Tonehammer, Darkglass Microtube 900. Loved the AG700 but not sure it justified around £400 more than Markbass offerings. The Darkglass had really great drive and grit if you like metal etc, but I would rarely, if ever, use that much dirt . I too really disliked the logo of Marcus Miller on the Little Marcus 800, but at similar volume and all controls at 12 o'clock with VLE/old school and VPF/Millerizer off it seemed to have greater volume and punch than the other two Markbass amps. The mute switch is much better, and the low bass control excellent, so that is what I bought. But do try a Quilter BB800 they are probably the best vfm head out there right now.

Glad you like it. I have never tried my Crown 1002 in biamp mode, partly because I wanted a loud one cab solution (with Barefaced Super 12) and unbridged it gives considerably lower output..but will definitely give it a try now, with a pair of Vanderkleys.

QSC power amps are great,. In fact I use my Quilter Bass Block 800 (from Patrick Quilter, the Q in QSC) far more often than my Sansamp/ Crown rack unit these days, it just so handy!

Hi the Crown it is good, clean, loud and powerful and very good value for money.. The Sansamp ceates the tone, and sound engineers love them . I can't honestly compare the Crown with many A/B style amps as I have been using Class D stuff pretty much exclusively for 12 or more years and I am always DI'd through a PA so the power sections of all my amps are there to provide on stage sound. The bass and preamp are key in shaping sound/tone , the power amp and speakers deliver volume and 'heft'. With the right speaker cab this Sansamp/ Crown set-up is plenty powerful for most venues without going thru PA if you want a deafening sound on stage! I did try my Sansamp with a friends A/B style t.amp power amp before buying the Crown. The t-amp sounded OK, but to me the Crown sound was much better, and had far greater flexibility with high pass, low pass, bandwidth selection etc. Unable to compare with a high quality A/B amp.I sometimes wonder if the finer nuances are lost when a full band and drummer kick in? Personally I like class D amps. I have had valve heavyweights but even back in the day I preferred my solid state Acoustic 220 to my valve Fender Bassman 135 for cutting thru the mix,. I dare say you could get marginally better results by spending a lot more money. Demeter spring to mind. You just have to let your own ears judge what's best for you.

Just for the record (and to satisfy my pedantic OCD) a more elegant and aesthetic option is possible for the Crown . Channel 1 is wired for both channels so it can be used for BRIDGE mode wiring (or stereo wiring of two speakers using one 4 pin speakon plug) I use the rock-wire Speak-on to Speak--on with bridged terminals 1+/2+ and white sheath to avoid incorrect connection. The Crown is very flexible and excellent crossover allows bi-amping if you want to be reallly flash!

Hope pic helps, cheers Graham

There are two simple options for connecting speakers to the power amp in bridged mode. This is explained in the online manual. But briefly 1. You connect a standard speakon cable or Jack plug on one end (speaker cab connection) with bare wires to amp connection to the pair of bridged +ve and -ve red terminal posts. 2. I also got a special speakon cable made up by Dave (obbm) on this very forum. It's just different connection to terminals on the speak on plug. This then connects to speak on output on power amp.