Tom Bowlus He brought the M Line Wizzy which I immediately stole and took to tonight's gig. He was smart enough to come take it back after we finished playing or I may have kept it for myself.
Really great sounding box. Very light with a tiny footprint. Much more manageable size and weight than the VL 208.
Without a doubt a contender to the VL208 on DB.
It was loud as hell. The 4 ohm thing really works the Focus IIR3. I hardly had it cracked on at all. Big round sound. Headroom for days. The side porting makes the lows go sort of everywhere. Very ambient box. In a friendly room its really open and big. I suspect in less forgiving or boomy rooms it may be handicapped by those ports. It seems very placement dependant.
I think with especially bright basses and strings it would make a nice compliment. Spirocores would kick butt through this box I think. It would round out the buzz saw and make them round out nice while still cutting.
I set it flat turned it up to a reasonable volume and ran it without tweak the whole night. Never touched a thing and didn't really want to. Overall a very accurate and pleasing sound.
I suspect with busy or loud drummer the box may get a bit muddy or lost. I don't know for sure as I didn't have a drummer around. Thankfully.
I didn't run it out at all. I'd be interested to see how it sounded when I really heat it up and try to hang with lots of racket. I suspect that the 8's really show their muscle in those circumstances.
I'll play next week in that room with the VL208 so I'll be able to better gage the distinction between the two. I'll post again then.
I've never tried a VL208 so i cannot make that comparison, but the M-line as Phil says here really is a GREAT box.
Phil, in a bad sounding room the M-line shines. It seems to make the sound much more managable and it responds better to the Focus 2rIII's EQ section than other cabs i've tried. So much so that I've stopped using my LR Baggs Para eq/direct box w/ the Focus/M-line rig.
It does not get muddy or lost w/ a drummer. You'd be pleasantly treated to the bass sitting just perfectly in the mix and when you dig in just a bit the highs and mids pop out in a very pleasing way that just cuts right thru w/o raising your volume. You guys should hear two M-lines stacked, talk about headroom for days...as loud a rig as I would need for my loudest gigs and sounds nice and punchy w/ BG as well. One is surprisingly loud when you need it to be, two can handle most any large room w/o PA help.
At low volumes w/ DB, an Audix 20i mic in one channel, a Realist in the other, just about the best sound I could ever want. The other night I did a jazz trio gig w/ bass, keyboards, and flute in a large restaurant. The keyboardist's combo amp was so underpowered, small and of low quality that I told her to plug into the 2nd channel of the Focus and I used the first. She had a Yamaha weighted action keyboard w/a full a 88 keys and a heavy left hand. The M-line Wizzy handled both signals in stride. I didn't miss having the speaker all to myself at all. W/ other cabs the other instrument would normally use up too much of the sonic "room" that the speaker has, making the bass sound less deffined, maybe even distorted when the other intstrument played too many notes. Not so w/ the trusty WM-line. At times I forgot the keys were in my speaker as well.
BTW- Spiros DO kick butt thru it and w/ my very dark Prescott the W-M brings out just the right amount of mids that the Ag GS112 (although a really nice cab) somehow lacked w/ this set up...and it was heavier.
BG
