Genz 6.0 or Mesa m6

[dirtymungoo]

i have played the Genz Benz 6.0 and the sound that i can get from it is great. I have never played the m6 carbine can anyone give me their input on the tonal differences and experiences with both the shuttle and the carbine? or is there no comparison?
I play many different genres including deathmetal,blues,jazz ( im in jazz band), country,progressive,reggae.

[KsPiNeSh]

Shuttle 6.0 or ShuttleMax 6.0?

[lomo]

I have owned and played both. The Shuttle 6 is smaller, cheaper and has aux in and headphone jacks BUT the M6 is louder and sounds faaaaar deeper, thicker and more pleasing. The Shuttle is a nice micro head. The M6 is a bad*ss tone machine. All IMHO of course :-)

[dirtymungoo]

Originally Posted by lomo

I have owned and played both. The Shuttle 6 is smaller, cheaper and has aux in and headphone jacks BUT the M6 is louder and sounds faaaaar deeper, thicker and more pleasing. The Shuttle is a nice micro head. The M6 is a bad*ss tone machine. All IMHO of course :-)

great description! thank you.
anyone else have input?

and im talking about the shuttle 6.0 not the shuttle max.

[LeonD]

I had an M9. Loved the tone and never had any problem with it.

But I ended up selling it. Why? Because I had a Shuttle 3.0 and was using it most of the time (practices and smaller gigs) because it was so easy to transport.

My solution was to replace the the M9 with a Shuttle 9.0. The 9.0 has 99.99% of the M9's tone in an easier to transport and convenient package.

No regrets.

[Crabby]

I owned a Shuttle 6.0 for 2 years and quite liked it but moving from a 3 pound micro head to a Mesa is a night an day experience. Side by side, the Carbine is simply in another league.

The Shuttle has a nice growl, is loud for its size, nice feature set, is very well made and is extremely portable. The Carbine is extremely loud, punchy, quick and highly detailed and makes you realize that its pretty much in its own league. I still like the Shuttle 6.0 but there is simply no comparison except that one is very good and very light, and the other is moderately heavy but crushingly loud and articulate.

[dirtymungoo]

Originally Posted by LeonD

I had an M9. Loved the tone and never had any problem with it.

But I ended up selling it. Why? Because I had a Shuttle 3.0 and was using it most of the time (practices and smaller gigs) because it was so easy to transport.

My solution was to replace the the M9 with a Shuttle 9.0. The 9.0 has 99.99% of the M9's tone in an easier to transport and convenient package.

No regrets.

thank you for your input. very helpful


i will be going to try these both out at bass central sometime next week but i just want everyones opinion on these 2 amps.

[Andysalt01]

+1. I had a toss up between the fathom and shuttle 9. My experience was tje fathom was too sterile to my ears, and the 9 ws more versatile , tubey and portable.

Originally Posted by LeonD

I had an M9. Loved the tone and never had any problem with it.

But I ended up selling it. Why? Because I had a Shuttle 3.0 and was using it most of the time (practices and smaller gigs) because it was so easy to transport.

My solution was to replace the the M9 with a Shuttle 9.0. The 9.0 has 99.99% of the M9's tone in an easier to transport and convenient package.

No regrets.

[pygmygrizzly]

gotta have your small, med and large. depends, are you playing for 25 people, or 25,000? or somewhere in between? they are both nice. I wouldn't want to part with either

[LeonD]

I would probably agree with this for the Shuttle 6.0. I think the gap between the two is a lot narrower if you compare the Shuttle 9.0 to the Mesa.

The 9.0 is voiced differently. It has a more open low end and a fuller sound.

Originally Posted by Crabby

I owned a Shuttle 6.0 for 2 years and quite liked it but moving from a 3 pound micro head to a Mesa is a night an day experience. Side by side, the Carbine is simply in another league.

The Shuttle has a nice growl, is loud for its size, nice feature set, is very well made and is extremely portable. The Carbine is extremely loud, punchy, quick and highly detailed and makes you realize that its pretty much in its own league. I still like the Shuttle 6.0 but there is simply no comparison except that one is very good and very light, and the other is moderately heavy but crushingly loud and articulate.

[brocco]

I was in my favorite local small music store trying a M6,KILLER amp.Local amp tech was there picking up the store's repairs(he does not work for this store) so we opened it up.Exceptional Hand made quality,he swears by them and he works on all amps.He says linear power amps will out last class D amps by far.He said the Mesa would out last me and my kids too!Then I played thru a Walkabout Scout 15........my search is finally over

[lomo]

IMO the Shuttle 9 is the best of the micro club (I seem to have tried them all). It's an excellent amp. I still sold the one I had and am using an M9 for big and Walkabout for small. You really have to compare the Shuttle 9 (and not the 6) to the M6 for it to be even remotely close to a fair fight imo.

[mentalpatient]

Never played or even heard a Shuttle, hard to come by here. The Mesa M6 has awesome tone controls. Turning the gain past 12 o'clock gives the tone I want for metal, every touch past that is something more agin, hard to explain. You don't have to set the gain to just before the saturation led lights up like on some heads because there is no saturation led. One of the tone controls is passive, it is explained in the manual, they really put a lot of thought into the M6's tone controls. Check out one of the M6 Mega threads in this forum. The M6 is a bottom end monster, tonnes of it if you want.

Hand built U.S quality all the way.

[Jim Carr]

Originally Posted by dirtymungoo

I have played the Genz Benz 6.0 and the sound that I can get from it is great. I have never played the m6 carbine can anyone give me their input on the tonal differences and experiences with both the shuttle and the carbine? or is there no comparison? I play many different genres including deathmetal,blues,jazz ( im in jazz band), country,progressive,reggae.

I, too, play several genres. On upright I play jazz (big band, trio, small combo old school), classical, folk, and bluegrass. On electric I play smooth Jazz, fusion, latin (spanish language pop from south american, the islands, europe, mexico), reggae, punk, rockabilly, country, bluegrass, soca, Urban R&B, soul, oldies, blues, etc. No metal, yet.

I've got a Shuttle 6.0 which is my main head while my early Mesa M9 is away. I have not had any problems with my Shuttle 6.0, but the Mesa was sent to the factory after shuttling down a whole lot last week. The M9 is about as loud as my Crest CA6 rackmount, but at ~28 lbs. is less than half the weight (my rack with the Crest weighs 74 lbs.). The Shuttle 6.0, as others have noted is about 4 lbs. Ok now that is out of the way, lets talk tone.

The Shuttle is good. My band mates love it. In fact in one band (rock/punk/oldies/rockabilly), they prefer my Shuttle 6.0, played through two 210 epifani cabs with a RW Jazz bass over everything else I have used. I have a lot of basses and several cabs and heads. The above is what they like. Why? I don't know—they say it is the tone. They like the M9, but fear it, I suspect.

Me? I like the Shuttle a lot, but the Carbine can go a lot louder with a much clearer and cleaner low end. Not that the Shuttle is bad or even just so so down low, it isn't. It's that the Carbine basically goes to 11.

The Carbine has other super powers too, but oceanic clear power and the ability to do it down low like few others are what I like. I suppose the M6 is a little less powerful than the M9, but I would not sweat that.

The EQ on the Shuttle 6.0 is really well thought-out, and you can dial in a lot of very useable over-drive from the pre-amp. The M9 has 9-band GEQ, but even the M6 without the EQ has a great tone pallet.

Ok, so both are very good. Shuttle 6.0 is 4lbs, M6/M9 about 28 lbs. All are loud, with M6 very loud and the M9 bordering on stupid loud. The M6/M9 have clean bottom like few others, they can over-drive the pre-amp with the gain set high. The Shuttle can get seriously over-driven in a good way.

My Shuttle 6.0 cost 1/2 used what my used M9 cost. I dig them both.

[dirtymungoo]

Originally Posted by Jim Carr

I, too, play several genres. On upright I play jazz (big band, trio, small combo old school), classical, folk, and bluegrass. On electric I play smooth Jazz, fusion, latin (spanish language pop from south american, the islands, europe, mexico), reggae, punk, rockabilly, country, bluegrass, soca, Urban R&B, soul, oldies, blues, etc. No metal, yet.

I've got a Shuttle 6.0 which is my main head while my early Mesa M9 is away. I have not had any problems with my Shuttle 6.0, but the Mesa was sent to the factory after shuttling down a whole lot last week. The M9 is about as loud as my Crest CA6 rackmount, but at ~28 lbs. is less than half the weight (my rack with the Crest weighs 74 lbs.). The Shuttle 6.0, as others have noted is about 4 lbs. Ok now that is out of the way, lets talk tone.

The Shuttle is good. My band mates love it. In fact in one band (rock/punk/oldies/rockabilly), they prefer my Shuttle 6.0, played through two 210 epifani cabs with a RW Jazz bass over everything else I have used. I have a lot of basses and several cabs and heads. The above is what they like. Why? I don't know—they say it is the tone. They like the M9, but fear it, I suspect.

Me? I like the Shuttle a lot, but the Carbine can go a lot louder with a much clearer and cleaner low end. Not that the Shuttle is bad or even just so so down low, it isn't. It's that the Carbine basically goes to 11.

The Carbine has other super powers too, but oceanic clear power and the ability to do it down low like few others are what I like. I suppose the M6 is a little less powerful than the M9, but I would not sweat that.

The EQ on the Shuttle 6.0 is really well thought-out, and you can dial in a lot of very useable over-drive from the pre-amp. The M9 has 9-band GEQ, but even the M6 without the EQ has a great tone pallet.

Ok, so both are very good. Shuttle 6.0 is 4lbs, M6/M9 about 28 lbs. All are loud, with M6 very loud and the M9 bordering on stupid loud. The M6/M9 have clean bottom like few others, they can over-drive the pre-amp with the gain set high. The Shuttle can get seriously over-driven in a good way.

My Shuttle 6.0 cost 1/2 used what my used M9 cost. I dig them both.

thank you for the detail explanation on these amps.
you've given me more things to think about.
i guess all i have to do is try them both out

[dirtymungoo]

is it true shuttle 9.0 is voiced differently than the 6.0? if so in what way could you compare its voice to the 6.0.

[babebambi]

S6 has a more attenuated sub bass compare with the S9.

[Jim Carr]

Originally Posted by babebambi

S6 has a more attenuated sub bass compare with the S9.

Yes, but if you actually use one (Shuttle 6.0), you will soon realize that the Shuttle 6.0 can be EQ'd to do pretty much whatever you want.

[xray]

Originally Posted by lomo

IMO the Shuttle 9 is the best of the micro club (I seem to have tried them all). It's an excellent amp. I still sold the one I had and am using an M9 for big and Walkabout for small. You really have to compare the Shuttle 9 (and not the 6) to the M6 for it to be even remotely close to a fair fight imo.

I concur - I've had similar experiences. I've owned the GB 3, 6 and 9. The GB 3 and 6 are quite similar. Even in side by side blind testing i doubt one could tell the difference. When GB came out with the 9 I sold both the 3 and 6 - these don't come close to the 9's power and tonality. The GB 9 is a big jump from the others and one of the few micro amps I'd consider buying again. However, i had the same concerns and issues with "sterile" sounding micros and what I was ultimately looking for.

As a compromise the Mesa M's definitely caught my attention after playing the M6. When I first heard its depth and versatility I was intrigued. The M’s footprint is anything but micro, however, it’s still very portable in my world. I though the M9 must be better than the M6 but after trying the M9 I found it to be way to much amp for my needs. The power is crazy insane! By this time the M3 had been released and I thought it may be a better compromise but found it to be slightly under powered for my needs. The M6 ended up being my choice and as stated above is very comparable to the GB9 but totally different for a number of reasons. Most of these being personal preference.

The M6 and the GB9 are solid amps, respected by many in the profession and highly versatile, however, in the end it will come down to “what” you and your ears decide.

This is one of the best reviews i've read on the M6 - no affiliation!
http://www.bass-musician-magazine.co...e-id=902327038

JMO

[Jim Carr]

Originally Posted by lomo

I...am using an M9 for big and Walkabout for small. You really have to compare the Shuttle 9 (and not the 6) to the M6 for it to be even remotely close to a fair fight imo.

+1

I agree. However, the Shuttle 6, IMHO is still a significantly loud and flexible amp, yet not on the power/clarity/flexiblity level of the M6 or (bless us) the M9.

I use an M9 when it works, LOL, and a GB Shuttle 6.0 pretty much the rest of the time.

My lead sled CA6 is now a mere figment of my sig. I guess it is preserving my homepage URL! Maybe I need a new pre?