| First try with a 400+: impressed
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My band shares a rehearsal space with another group, and I took a few lessons from the bassist of this band in the past. He recently switched from an Eden rig to a 400+ into SVT cabinets (210/115). While I have enjoyed his playing live, he uses a monstrous amount of effects, so I can't say that I found his tone particularly interesting or unique. At any rate, last night I played through his rig for a few hours, with the effects bypassed. I have very little experience with tube heads, minus the usual music store noodling. The first thing that struck me about this rig was that the notes had some serious authority. My usual 'sound' is more along the lines of being a bit sterile: I use modern-voiced amps and cabinets; someone at a show recently called my bass sound "polite". Not so the Mesa/Ampeg combo. Big, girthy, really round, and just plain great soundin'. I plugged into my own rig a few times during the session and it sounded pretty lifeless by comparison, EQs flat on either setup. One of the coolest things about the Mesa setup was that as the volume increased, it seemed to sound even better, but it still sounded very good at low volumes. I'm not in the financial position to simply switch to another rig, but the 400+ just became a lot more interesting to me. I recently bought a used PH212, and got to thinking that another one of those with a 400+ would be teh sex for a metal band. Great, now I have to wipe the sweat off my forehead... | 
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! Probably my favorite all tube head overall although I really enjoy the 300T as well. A good SVT is a different beast and will never have the aggressiveness that I can pull out of my 400+. Only complaint would be.... I've blown a few phase inverter tubes in this head. I think that jacking up the bias is to blame and I went through a JJ every 2 months until I put the stock (Chinese) tube back in. So far so good.
