Marshall VBA 400... WOW!!!

[Fab Savage]

Well mine just rocked up yesterday afternoon and having only played it at lounge room volumes through a 210, I can say I really like the sound so far.

I do like it particularly when diming the master and using the gain to control the volume, however this does make the eq section less responsive. Going the opposite way and diming the gain and backing off the master gives a nice preamp OD too.

Ill see if I can get soundclips done in the near future

Be interesting to hear this bad boy loud!! Might be tough to get power tube saturation though, even with the master dimed... Anyone been able to do it with 400W!?!?

 

[JJR58]

How do you guys rate the Marshall against the Mesa 400+?

 

[Fab Savage]

How do you guys rate the Marshall against the Mesa 400+?

Sorry never owned a Mesa but my understanding is that the 400+ is a very clean tube amp that may be a bit harder to overdrive the preamp gain stages than the Marshall.

To me the Marshall is more of a filthy rock n roll amp!

Just quietly I also remember reading that the 400+ doesn't really put out the full 400W? I have no idea if this is true of the VBA 400 but it is certainly loud!

 

[nysbob]

How do you guys rate the Marshall against the Mesa 400+?

I've played them both & there's no comparison, other than they are both all-tube. To me, the 400+ sounds a lot like a fender amp with lots of power. The marshall has noticeably higher clean output and more aggressive preamp characteristics.

They're both very nice, it just depends on which sound suits your taste.

 

[JJR58]

thanks for the input, almost impossible to find one of those Marshalls in NY, listened to a couple other things today, convinced going back to tubes is the only way to go, anybody heard or played the SVT Heritage yet? if so, what do you think? thinking of going SVT, any thoughts people?

 

[oinkbanana]

Just askin man, cos I've got the same bass. Can you get a lemmy sound out of this rig? I use a superbass 100w and an 8x10 and it nails it pretty hard, but I'm wondering what the 400watter is like.

can anyone chime in on this?




also i've read that the Marshall VBA 400 has an 8ohm tap on the OT, but it's just not wired. is this true?

 

[Clammy]

can anyone chime in on this?




also i've read that the Marshall VBA 400 has an 8ohm tap on the OT, but it's just not wired. is this true?

Don't know about the unwired OT tap, but you can get a pretty good Lemmy-esque tone from the VBA using the gain control. However, due to the use of 6550 power tubes, you won't get the same tone/character as a cranked JMP Super Bass. To nail the Lemmy tone, you really do need a Super Bass.

Cheers!

 

[Madad]

Hi,
Just read your post again and you obviously like your new rig. I recently bought the same head and cab but I'm very disappointed with it. Mine seems to perform very different. At first I thought it was the head but I've now tried it with a cab I had with a new celestion BN15-400S speaker and it sounds fantastic on any setting. If I connect both cabs the majority of volume comes from the 115. The 412 on its own is just sharp with no depth at all. On mine If the gain is at a 1/4 the vol needs to be at 1/2 to get any volume from the 412. My 412 is used but in mint condition. Never gigged at all but not right. Just wondered if you could send me a recording/you tube vid or some sound file so I can hear how it's meant to sound please? Thanks Mark

 

[Fishheadjoe]

I picked up a VBA400 for my local CL about a year ago. Running it through my NV610 in my rock cover band is bliss! I kinda jokingly suggested the other day that I might consider selling off the Marshall and my guitar player almost had a break down. You've never sounded better and that amp is a monster in both tone and power... that's the kinda reaction I want to hear.
As I said, I found it buried in an ad on CL, where the amp wasn't even mentioned in the header. I paid $1000 for it and after a trip to my tech to ensure all was well, it's worked great. (ok, there was this one gig where it was acting up, but after some discussion here, it was determined that the club's power was the source)
The tolex has seem better days, but I don't care!
Yah, it's heavy, but I picked up a folding hand cart, so no problems!

Fishheadjoe

 

[gerchu]

Hi everyone,

There are not so many videos or tests on the internet about these amp. (i don't understand why) I have a MARSHALL VBA400 head with a 412 cabinet. I was a bass player in a band earlier (but on our albums i always used a 1974 Orange Or 120 head with its cab what contained g12h guitar speakers or an ampeg cl 412 cab with a Fender Marcus Miller jazz bass). Later i used this VBA but just in live, because we didn't make more albums together.
Now i play the guitar in my new band. But in the studio our bass player always uses my Marshall stack for bass recordings. So there are some video of its sound. The language of these songs are hungarian, but the music is international. I hope that i could help for you. I have to say, that VBA400 is the Rolls Royce among the bass amps. It has brutal power and a very typical punchy tone. It blows you away. If you play rock, you cannot choose better amp than this one. And how beautiful it is! All the best, Gergely.











That was my ORANGE tone earilier, if you wanna compare these two amps: