The Littlemarks.....

[nottswarwick]

Well, finally back and able to post from my Mac, not my iPhone. Joy.

Anyway, lets try and establish form out collective experience how the various members of the Littlemark family differ.

We have:

500 watters
LM3
LMtube
LMRocker

LM250 250 watter

and 800watt fully digital:
LM800
LMtube 800


Personally I have used LM3 and LM2 - great, big warm clean. No possibility of grit.

And most folk seem to use and rave about these.

However, I would be keen to know a bit about the ones with tubes, and indeed the rocker. Anyone got one and could chip in their honest thoughts?

Chris

[Muzz]

I had a LMIII for quite some time, but it wasn't valvey/gritty enough for me (I had a Sansamp which I was using all the time), so in the search for a simpler solution I tried the Tube and the Rocker - several times, until I was sure of what I was hearing. The Tube was very subtle - too subtle for me, and I felt it didn't warrant the cost to change, whereas the Rocker I thought was too fizzy, and didn't seem to have much variation of grit - it was pretty much off from 1-3, then full on from 3-10. IMHO and YMMV, etc, etc, but just my perceptions over a few A-B sessions.

I guess it all depends on what you're after, at the end of the day. FWIW, I ended up with a RH450 (with plenty of TubeTone), and I'm keeping it, so that might give you an idea of where I was coming from, and what I was looking for.

[Prime_BASS]

Owned a LMtube 500 for a while.

The ability to blend preamps (SS and Tube) wasn't new to me but in thi head on a single knob is the best I've seen and used. Both preamps sound essentially the same as in voicing and frequency output so the tube is only really giving those transient harmonic gubbins. Which can be very pleasant. The Tube side does go a smudge louder, which is probably(I may be speaking bull though) due to the compressing nature of tubes.

For me it was essentially a Littlemark with a tube character knob, not knocking it though, the head is great and I really enjoyed the whole sound of it. The bass and treble roll of seemed just right. The lows being low enough and deep enough without rumbling, the highs being crisp enough to not sound shrill and enough for a brighter edge(which seem more obvious on the tube side) the sound as a whole is very punchy and articulate.

Not grindy, but personally I prefer clean tube sounds as I like those extra harmonic things.

The Tube side doesn't necessarily add "warmth" as the Littlemark SS pre-amp sound warm anyway.

The whole package for me was a perfect clean tune sound.

I didnt get why it has a second input for DB and other such things, they already have it on other SS heads and I've used once with the Tube and with the tube side even on moderately you could hear a fair bit of feedback making it pointless.

The knobs are all very sturdy and the sweeps are all pretty linear. They respond to the smallest tweaks which is very good IMO. I just wish it had a better input gain structure and a better "mute" button placement. If it had the smart input of the TC it would be a lot better, I found on my stingray it clipped pretty early on compared to the TC where as a passive J has the sane input setting on the TC compared to it nearly going over 12 '0 clock on the MB.

After my short stint with TC though I'm going back to Markbass, as the features I needed before I now have in a smaller package.

[Musicman20]

The LM2/3 and F1/500 are the popular Markbass amps for a reason. The 800 series sound odd, and I never really liked the LM Tube and Rocker.

If you want more power, the SD1200 is closer to the LM3 tone compared to the 800 series.

[chrismuzz]

F Series all the way! Before I used dirt pedals the F1 was still a monster, the super quick aggressive attack it was capable of meant that a clean tone more than did the job and if the attack is too much and you want a bit more warmth, well that's what the VLE is for