Hi all. A Mesa Boogie Bass 400 + has come up for sale on the local CL. I'm certainly intrigued, but I have a couple of questions that I was hoping the TB community could help me with.
1.What's the difference between a 400 and a 400 +?
2. How do these measure up as compared to an SVT CL or a
Fender Bassman 300 Pro, or basically any of the other high powered all tube heads?
3. How's the reliability on these, retubing costs etc?
I'm currently using a Traynor TC 810 in the rehearsal space and a TC electronics 112 at home, and bringing a shuttle 6.0 back and forth for home practice and rehearsals/gigs. The idea was to get a dedicated head to use with the 810 that would be able to drive a second 810 if needed. Would the 400+ be up to the task? Does anyone think the 400+ would work better on top of an 810 than a genz shuttle 6?
1. The 400 has six tubes, and those tubes can be either 6L6 or 6550. The 6550s obviously have more power. The 400+ has twelve 6L6 tubes. The later ones also have a graphic EQ with seven sliders instead of the earlier six.
2. They're roughly equivalent. They have a very different sound than the Ampeg, but about the same amount of volume. Maybe a bit less low end, but, you know, there's an EQ on the amp for that. Unlike the Ampeg, the Mesas have a Fender tone stack, meaning the bass and treble are pretty much boost only, and the mids are cut only. I have a D-180, the precursor to the 400, and I have my mids basically always at "10." When I need an actual mid
boost, which the rotary controls are incapable of, I use the graphic EQ.
3. Last I heard, they're pretty reliable. My D-180 has performed well despite being driven hard, and required relatively little maintenance. I suspect the 400 and 400+, being part of the same design family, would be similar. As to retubing costs, while the 400+ has twelve tubes, 6L6 tubes are cheaper than the 6550s that Ampegs use. Don't retube every year, that's just silly. Retube when you actually need to, and even then, replace only the pairs with bad tubes in them.
