See, this is the kind of stuff that just confuses the heck out of me. Again, I'm sure you hear what you hear, but with the input gain set correctly on a solid state amp with a safety limiter, it would seem virtually impossible to get 'distortion'. The only way to 'distort' a modern day SS amp that I know of would be through user error of setting the input gain too high to handle the transient peaks, or in extremely rare situations with a player with very aggressive technique and/or a very hot output bass, and/or a massive amount of low end coming from boosting on onboard bass pre, to overload the input stage even when the pre gain is set almost to off.
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MarkBass Little Mark Tube 800
- Thread starter Red Planet
- Start date
See, this is the kind of stuff that just confuses the heck out of me. Again, I'm sure you hear what you hear, but with the input gain set correctly on a solid state amp with a safety limiter, it would seem virtually impossible to get 'distortion'. The only way to 'distort' a modern day SS amp that I know of would be through user error of setting the input gain too high to handle the transient peaks, or in extremely rare situations with a player with very aggressive technique and/or a very hot output bass, and/or a massive amount of low end coming from boosting on onboard bass pre, to overload the input stage even when the pre gain is set almost to off.
Well it confuses me too. 
Best I can tell is my excessive aggressive playing technique cause this.
I play Passive Basses most of the time (which are not hot) but play pretty darn explosively and I think where the problem comes in is I literally can cause transients to explode through the signal chain so fast the limiter in the amp can not keep up. So I think it has to do with the speed at which I play and coupled with the aggressiveness.
Though it seems some times I play it and everything is fine and other times I play it and it is not. Makes me wonder if something is wrong?
I do not have this problem at all playing through the SWR M2/QSC PLX2 Though having a 4 knob compressor set to deal with the transients may help and the high headroom of the amp.
I seem to get some of this distortion with the SM 12 as well but not near as much as with the LMIII.
Hopefully soon I will have a new 4 ohm 2x10 Golight Cab and the new SWR Headlight Lightweight System Head to compare to.
Best I can tell is my excessive aggressive playing technique cause this.
I play Passive Basses most of the time (which are not hot) but play pretty darn explosively and I think where the problem comes in is I literally can cause transients to explode through the signal chain so fast the limiter in the amp can not keep up. So I think it has to do with the speed at which I play and coupled with the aggressiveness.
Though it seems some times I play it and everything is fine and other times I play it and it is not. Makes me wonder if something is wrong?
I do not have this problem at all playing through the SWR M2/QSC PLX2 Though having a 4 knob compressor set to deal with the transients may help and the high headroom of the amp.
I seem to get some of this distortion with the SM 12 as well but not near as much as with the LMIII.
Hopefully soon I will have a new 4 ohm 2x10 Golight Cab and the new SWR Headlight Lightweight System Head to compare to.
Well it confuses me too.
Best I can tell is my excessive aggressive playing technique cause this.
I play Passive Basses most of the time (which are not hot) but play pretty darn explosively and I think where the problem comes in is I literally can cause transients to explode through the signal chain so fast the limiter in the amp can not keep up. So I think it has to do with the speed at which I play and coupled with the aggressiveness.
Though it seems some times I play it and everything is fine and other times I play it and it is not. Makes me wonder if something is wrong?
I do not have this problem at all playing through the SWR M2/QSC PLX2 Though having a 4 knob compressor set to deal with the transients may help and the high headroom of the amp.
I seem to get some of this distortion with the SM 12 as well but not near as much as with the LMIII.
Hopefully soon I will have a new 4 ohm 2x10 Golight Cab and the new SWR Headlight Lightweight System Head to compare to.
Actually, that makes total sense to me, and was my guess. A tube pre should help, since they seem to 'absorb' those massive transients better. They will still clip, but it won't be an ugly clip.
I AM BLOWN AWAY WITH MY LM TUBE !!!! played my first show with it last night and it was incredible !!!!!!! this is my rig : spector basses - boss me50b - LMtube - swr henry the 8th .... i set the amp flat to start with and it was great . after a small amount of tweaking on the mids and highs i was in tonal bliss ! plenty of volume . i was filling in for a friend of mines band last night and the normal bass player uses a svt head and 810 . everyone was blown away with my rig and tone . this head reminds me a lot of my old 800rb . so im really diggin it so far . no distortion or farting or nothing else anyone is talkin about here ... the sound difference between this and my old swr sm500 is huge . the mark exceeds in everyway , especially ease of set up . the d.i. seems very natural even though i set it post eq . at this point i have zero negatives to report . the best thing was when i came rolling in with my bass gig bag on my shoulder , a small tote bag in one hand and the henry kicked back rolling it in the other hand ... everyone was like "wheres your bass head ?" when i took it out of my gig bag they freakin fliipped out !!!! really diggin it so far !!!!!
I am glad to hear a nice story like that. I must have gotten a bad LM Tube 800. I use a Spector NS 5 and that bass and my Modulus Q5 with EMG's in it were the basses that made the LM Tube 800 distort real bad. Funny thing is that I had the basses e.q.'s set flat. And those basses never caused my Hartke LH1000 to have problems. Strange.
Very cool. Assuming you have the LMTube (not the 800), that makes total sense (although I hear more of the GK800rb in the LMTube800 than the LMTube... so maybe you are talking about the LMTube800), since it's basically the wonderful LMII (now III) with a few extra bells and whistles. GREAT amp!
And yes, going from an SM500 to one of the LM's is an eye opening experience regarding transparent, even tone, absolute volume, and most importantly, articulate punch. Both the LMTube and LMTube800 would, IMO, be SIGNIFICANT upgrades to the SM500 in almost every way (volume, tone, weight, plug and play, heat management!, etc.)
Congrats! I really think that LMTube is the 'sweet spot' of the new line (along with the F500 for those that want it a bit 'tighter and transparent'.
I also believe the LMtube 800 will be the hit for MarkBass this upcoming year. I am gonna get mine next week and will let you know what I think !!!
i was interested in buying a lmt800 as well but after some of the reviews I can't really say I am too sure anymore.
I have owned the r500 and had to sell it because it just couldn't keep up with my band at practice as much as i would have liked. but i loved the sound.
It sounded like the LMT800 was exactly was what i was looking for as it has more power and a tube to breakup the gain a little bit better. but now i am thinking about waiting for an SD1200 or looking into the F500 if it really is that much louder and sounds good. Any suggestions?
I have owned the r500 and had to sell it because it just couldn't keep up with my band at practice as much as i would have liked. but i loved the sound.
It sounded like the LMT800 was exactly was what i was looking for as it has more power and a tube to breakup the gain a little bit better. but now i am thinking about waiting for an SD1200 or looking into the F500 if it really is that much louder and sounds good. Any suggestions?
Dr Funk
"If you ain't appearing then you be disappearing"
So this whole thread is just becoming too confusing!
Which is the "sweetspot" in the new line up the LMTube or LMTube800???
So this whole thread is just becoming too confusing!
Which is the "sweetspot" in the new line up the LMTube or LMTube800???
Pure IMO, but IMO
, the LMTube. The LMTube is basically the wonderful LMII (OK, it's really the III.. but pretty much the same thing), with the extra bells and whistles (mute switch, second combo jack channel with its own gain, and the blendable tube preamp... which seems to be kind of useless... at least on the LMTube800.. I assume also on the LMtube, but what the heck)!Again the LM800 and LMTube800 have much more in common with the SD800 than the LMII/III. The LMII gets pretty high ratings from most, while the SD800 (and hence the LM800 and LMTube800) is more of an 'acquired taste' IME.
I play in a stupid loud band. I have the LMT 800 and have never had it past 11:00 o'clock with my 4 ohm Berg AE410. Get one and try it, you can always return it if it's not your cuppa tea. I love mine!
PS - get the little rack bag as well, kinda like a mini soft rack case without the weight; great handles and shoulder straps for the load in, unzip the front and back, take the cables out of the pouch and you are set up in less than a minute!
PS - get the little rack bag as well, kinda like a mini soft rack case without the weight; great handles and shoulder straps for the load in, unzip the front and back, take the cables out of the pouch and you are set up in less than a minute!
So this whole thread is just becoming too confusing!
Which is the "sweetspot" in the new line up the LMTube or LMTube800???
I think both amps will be a hit in my opinion. The blend mix with the tube and solid state feature is excellent, while the tube 800 with its 800 watts of power will give the extra headroom that we need as bass players !!!!
on my lm tube , i could hear a good deal of difference in the tube blend . i played all night with it at 1200 , but i did roll'er on over and it made a good growl of a difference . i still cant believe just how good the lmtube and henry 8x8 sounds together . all i can say is im ready for my next show !!!!
VERY cool! The tube has literally no impact with the LMTube800 (at least the one I had, although most others who own or tried them seem to feel the same way....very disappointing). I was hoping that the tube blend would interact more with the warmer LMTube voicing (haven't heard that head yet). VERY cool.
Again, the LMTube spec seems really, really nice.
yeah im very glad my decision for the tube not the tube 800 was based on needed power and also 100 bucks less ! lol ... and now after all the somewhat negative feedback on the 800 and me playing my lmt last night , im extremely glad i have the LMT . so what is the main difference in the two amps ? the lmt and the lmt800 ? is it the class of power amp "A" or "D" ? and if so can anyone explain what the difference is or characteristics of each ? ....
+1 totally different power amp design. I have about a dozen posts earlier in this thread describing the difference in tone
Dr Funk
"If you ain't appearing then you be disappearing"
I have my LM3 out and it sounds very good, just like my LM2 actually, but...
I have a LM Tube on it's way from MF Monday and may the best amp win. I'll report back on my AB tests.
I have a LM Tube on it's way from MF Monday and may the best amp win. I'll report back on my AB tests.
