If you're playing a gig with 800 listeners, you really need to use the PA that should be available to amplify the bass to the audience, at which point your backline is only going to serve as a stage monitor. An Ashdown head into a 410 cab will do that job as well as carry the room for smaller gigs.
Thanks for calling that to my attention.
Another recommendation would be to look at something like a Markbass Little Mark, which is lightweight, fairly powerful and warm.
I was actually going for a MarkBass Little Mark II, until it went out of stock. I usually shop from
www.thomann.de but they seem to have sold out LMII and are now stocked LMIII, which is twice the price of the Ashdown, and has less features (but more tone, no doubt about that).
If he's already going direct into the PA for large venues I don't see much sense in a 600w head driving two 4 ohm cabinets.
Gossamer, you just need to figure out what volume needs you'll eventually have to meet with your backline rig. Nobody here can decide what arrangement of cabinets you're eventually going to need for gig purposes.
My thoughts on your situation are that tone is more important than power availability. If you're considering the Kustom head and a second cabinet, then you have to know that 600w into two 4 ohm cabinets has the potential to get pretty damn loud, and if you don't plan on running your backline at arena levels, that's alot of output potential you're never really going to even use.
The Kustom head is at 600W 2ohm, while the Ashdown MAG-600H is 575W 4ohm. If both are paired with a 4ohm 410 cab, the Ashdown will deliver theoretically 575W at 4ohm perfectly matched load, while the Kustom will deliver less, since it runs at 2ohm minimum and the cab runs at 4ohm.
Note that in the EU, they both cost Eur388 ($574). The Ashdown has more of the fat, warm tone I'm after, but I can only have it power 1 cab, while the Kustom has more of a hi-fi head and can have it power eventually 2 cabs.
This complicates matters a bit I guess.
Tone-wise, if you want old-school Ampeg tone, you're already a long-ways there with the Ampeg cabinet. Why haven't you considered an Ampeg head? Ashdown amplifiers are nice but I'd stay far away from their cabinets loaded with the blue speakers. They're vintage as in "total lack of clarity and definition" vintage.
The cheapest Ampeg head is the (apart from the Micro VR, which is a souvenir, not a head) AMPEG B-2RE, 450W 4ohm, which would be a perfect match to my Ampeg cab. However it costs Eur599 ($887). It costs half as much MORE than the Ashdown/Kustom heads. Tone-wise, IT'S PERFECT for what I'm after. But I need versatility too. Is it capable of a hi-fi sound? Slapping seems to lack a bit of definition and low end.
Does buying an Ampeg B-2RE make as much sense as buying a hi-fi Kustom Groove 600H and putting a Tech 21 VT Bass in front of it, for the possibility of having both hi-fi and old-school tones?
