This is what I have been waiting to hear Lomo after we both blew up the Avatar 153 Thread! I am waiting on my ST 900 from YOMS (been over 2 weeks total, but I switched from a 600 to 900?) and cant wait to hear it thru the Avatar. in the meantime, I still LOVE my Genz Benz Shutlemax 6.0.
Sidenote: Mooch; Sorry for the bunk advice dude regarding the 3015 LF 15" Driver and thank you for the clarification Chef!
If you can swing it, I would recommend an Avatar TB 153 for your needs. It is $450 and just sounds incredibly full range and nice a clean even at extreme volumes. Here is a link if you are interested and some of my video clips of the cab in real gigging action are featured at the bottom.
http://www.avatarspeakers.com/TB153.htm
* I am not endorsed or paid, just think it is an incredible product for the $.
I just received my Streamliner 900 yesterday and played it through the Avatar TB153 (8 Ohm) for the first time last night at rehearsal. First impressions were:
1. I was surprised how much I had to crank the gain up to get the drive going. I had to engage the gain switch and bring the gain and pre-volume up to 12 o'clock to even begin to get the grind I was looking for. I was using a Carvin LB75W 5 string active bass (18 volt), so I was very surpirsed by this. I didn't expect to have to go that far at all after what I'd read on part 1 through part 4 of these threads. I would not consider myself a high-gain/overdrive player at all. I was actually struggling with the decision of the ShuttleMax 9.2 vs. the Streamliner 900 (clearly I chose correctly). Without the gain switch engaged, it was a very tasty clean, but not what I was looking for last night. I play in a rock/fusion kind of band so was looking for a lot of warmth, but not really heavy overdrive. All that being said, once I got to it, I was very happy with it. The band mates commented on how warm and full it sounded.
2. With the Streamliner 900 driving an 8 Ohm load, I was at 500W of amp power into a 450W Avatar TB153 8-Ohm cabinet. When I cranked the volume to 3 O'Clock, it was loud, but not as loud as I expected. The drummer is extremely loud. He wraps the ends of his drumsticks with electrical tape to make a sort of mini-baseball bat handle to make sure while he is swinging with fury that they don't go flying out of his hands. While the amp/cab easily kept up with him, I expected it to bury him at only about 12 O'Clock, but that wasn't the case. The peak light was lighting ocassionally when I was really digging in on the heavy passages.
3. Headphones - tons of gain for my Sennheiser HD280 headphones. No problem driving them really loud and clear.
All of that said, I am pleased with the sound, but I do have a lot more experimenting to do with the EQ section and the gain structure to really dial in what I'm after. While I definitely liked it, and am very confident that I will get there, it didn't instantly solve world hunger for me. So don't let the hype make you believe in instant ecstacy. Even though it is "streamlined", it still takes some time to get there. Still a damn good amp and I'm sure my ecstacy will be along shortly.
