Hmm. I would have expected more input from the MarkBass community by now, given that they are homed in Italy.
The LittleMark amp heads (II, III, 800, Tube 800) are all stellar performers, in my humble opinion. Loud, versatile, lightweight, and robustly indifferent to abuse. But they are still relatively expensive new.
Once upon a time, they were the cutting edge of class-D bass amps, and it was worth it (at least to me) to pay full price for a LittleMark II. (That would have been right after Guitar Center started selling MarkBass products in the US, sometime in the mid-2000s.) I developed a great fondness for the sound, which I would characterize as transparent and very responsive (no sag, squish, or bloom, just faithful reproduction of the input). I now own several more of them, and several have passed through my hands.
The EQ stack, and the so-called "Marcus" and "Jaco" voicing knobs (VLE/VPE), cover a very wide spectrum of tones. I have yet to encounter a venue or style I can't cope with with a LittleMark (yes, including slap -- sorry). The 800 and Tube 800 offer more output power, and the Tube 800 has a tube pre that dirties up the tone in a musical way (but won't get you into super-distorto metal or sludge territory without pedal help). All models have DI out. Some (the III, for instance), have controllable DI output gain, and the ability to switch it between pre- and post-EQ.
I haven't played a venue yet where a LittleMark (or two) couldn't keep up, given a decent cab (or two), from cafes to outdoor festivals. And my view is that if you reach the point of needing a kilowatt of output power and a whole pile of cabs, you're probably in a venue where it makes more sense to go through FOH anyway...at which point your bass amp is just for stage monitoring purposes.
Nowadays, it is fairly easy to find used LittleMark heads at reasonable prices (under $US500). And I'm confident enough about their robustness that I'll buy them online, sight unseen. Pretty hard to kill them or break them to an unusable degree, although I've had to do a bit of connector repair on two of the used ones I bought. I currently own five LittleMarks; but for gigging, I stick with my original LMII, and an LMIII I bought used a couple years ago.
Okay, but that's just me and my biases. I got into MarkBass gear early, liked it, got used to it, and don't feel a need to change. Is there better and cheaper stuff out there now (20 years later)?
Of course there is. I've played or owned a sampling of the newer class-Ds: Hartke, GenzBenz/Genzler, TC, Aguilar, EBS, Quilter, Carvin, and others. I like them all, for different reasons, (although some ineffable thing about the TC gear makes me a little nervous on build quality and robustness). All I can say is, I keep going back to my LittleMarks. (I do have a lot of respect for, and good experience with, Carvin gear, BTW. Not sure how easy it is to buy outside the US.)
Other folks on this thread can better address the amp brands and models I'm not familiar with, or don't use for regular gigging. There's already been good advice and useful observations from them.
And I'm agnostic about cab brands and models. I favor smaller cabs, neo drivers, and a more hi-fi sound, but others have good reasons to make different choices. All I care about, with cabs, is: can it handle the wattage I throw at it? can I carry and maneuver it into hard-to-access venues without a hand truck or a road crew? does it color my sound in a way I like, or not color it at all? Brands and models mentioned on this thread, especially Euro-centric ones, are all good choices, but in the end, it all comes down to availability, budget, and your ears.
Having made the jump to class-D amps, there's no way I'm going back. An amp that is lighter and smaller than my song/chart book? Can't beat that. I hope never to lift an SVT again in my lifetime.
