Mesa Boogie TITAN V-12

Which Ampeg head? Hybrid of full-tube?

 

personally i'd go with the mesa,but.........depends on what you are looking for in sound, and like in my case it all depended on what my bass got along with better. She didn't like my SVT pro 4 one bit, too bad i had already bought it. big money lesson right there. so try each one with your bass excessively.

 

I would take a Titan over any Ampeg (besides an older SVT or the VR).

But it depends what kind of tone you are after.

 

I'd say "warm and articulate," and you can dial up the gain (or more specifically the overdrive) as much or as little as you want. It's not a SS amp, so it's not going to be super clean, but between the switchable overdrive, semi-parametric mid (active) and passive mid, you have a pretty wide tonal range. Just on reliability and customer service alone I'd take Mesa over a new Ampeg. Also depends on what you play??
I put both active (Bongo, Sterling) and passive (Fender P) though it, it responds to each individual instrument well (eg, they don't all sound the same) and has more than enough headroom to drive 8 ohm 2x12s without breaking past "10 o'clock" on the volume.
Can't say I'd describe the Mesa as "bright" though - I would say "fast and articulate without being 'hi-fi" sounding.

 

i would still try them both, but i am pretty sure you will land on the mesa, i got no push with my ampeg and i owned for nine months, the dude mcdude at the guitar shop basically called me an idiot because i said in nine months i haven't been able to dial in a decent tone with my pro 4. so he had me bring it in and i watched him mess with every bell and whistle on it for a half an hour till i convinced him to plug my bass into the mesa and pow without touching a single dial i could rattle teeth.

 

Sure, grind is more than adequate for that. If you're looking for "bright" you may also consider a big gun from GK, or the Carvin 1500 w/effects.