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Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

#2,261
EdwardofHuncote said:
Well... I'm here to learn, and the past week or so has surely been educational even though I fall into the camp of those who are pretty much happy with WalkAbout as-is. I'll gig it as long as I can still heft that Scout 15 up into my hatchback and go. I'd still be willing to try something different if @agedhorse and Mesa came up with it.
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Same, though I'm in the market for some extra cabs to squeeze the most out of it. Considering a single Berg HDN212 or the Subway 12 & 15 cabs.
 
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#2,262
Furious_Man77 said:
Same, though I'm in the market for some extra cabs to squeeze the most out of it. Considering a single Berg HDN212 or the Subway 12 & 15 cabs.
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Same, though I just picked up a 15in Scout cab to go with my existing 15combo but am wary to run the stack at 2ohms though many here have done it for a long time sans issues. mine seems to not run much hotter, but I am not really pushing the 2ohm stack either. Nor have I upgraded the fan. Had thought about getting rid of the extra 15in cab for a Berg AE212, hang on to my original 15in cab and interchange the WA head between the 15in Mesa cab and the Berg 212 for kicks. But damn that double 15 cab Mesa stack is damn sweet sounding and looks like a beast too with the WA headcase sitting atop it all. Its one of those things that you can't help but laugh at the awesomeness out of sheer giddyness from what your ears (and internal organs) are hearing/feeling.
 
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#2,264
I've played and owned lots of cabs and the one that gets me closest to what I like with my WA is my Avatar SB126 with the Genz Faital woofer and 2.5K crossover, much to my surprise. I say that because it was much cheaper than some other cabs I own. That woofer just sounds really fantastic and is very sensitive so it's perfect for the WA. Right now I have an SVT210AV, an Accugroove tri112L, and a Hathor 1533 in addition to the Avatar.
To briefly summarize, I like the punch and tone of the SVT but it just doesn't have the low lows and sounds more like a guitar cab. I love the Accugroove's clarity and 3D quality but it's a little mid-focused and a touch bright for my taste. The Hathor is really impressive - very clear, articulate, punchy, great note definition, but it's hard to find the right amount of high mids with the WA for my tastes. That upper mid spike in the Hathor really accentuates the mids from the WA and it can be too much of a good thing. Although I have a feeling most straight ahead rock players will love all of those extra mids, I like a bit smoother tone so I just EQ a little out. When you flip the mid switch down, it's much smoother but it's boring and lacks presence. I find the best balance for me is to leave all the switches up and EQ out a little treble and 1.5K and it's just right.
The Avatar has everything I want - thick low mids, smooth but present high mids, and just enough treble to not sound overly dark. I highly recommend it with that Faital woofer.
 
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#2,265
I agree 100%.. They may both be fender Tone stack types. but they sound almost like polar opposites..
adam montminy said:
I owned an F-1X and I thought it was a completely different sound than my WA. I would be extremely surprised if you could get them to sound the same. To my ears, the gain structure is completely different and that's the most important part. There's no way to get that harmonically-rich WA tone from the Alembic in my experience. As far as the tone stacks go, I found them to be very very different as well.
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#2,266
svtb15 said:
I agree 100%.. They may both be fender Tone stack types. but they sound almost like polar opposites..
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Absolutely, but I've never tried maxing out the mid control on my WalkAbout and adjusting bass and treble off that setting. I'm going to try it, just to see what -if any- common ground there is.

To be fair, the Alembic preamp is racked with a power-amp and driving banks of speakers in bi-amp mode... and the WalkAbout is always docked in my Scout 15 combo these days, so they don't cross paths much. ;)

The WalkAbout goes on gigs, but the Bass Rig of Mass Destruction stays in the practice room... I don't imagine that changing. :laugh:
 
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#2,267
After all the talk in this thread.. last night i put my F2B "chan. A" into the FX Return of the WA... I'm guessing ( without knowing for sure) there is an impedance mismatch..And i think that could affect tonality too.. I'm just guessing..

Setting the WA to its " flat setting " as per Kringles spec. , will sound very different then plugging the alembic F2B into the FX return of the WA and setting ot to 2-10-2 flat setting.. I've never played the Alembic in its Flat setting.. I make it fit the gig.. And 2-10-2 is not that .. I do run the MID up fairly high. but not to 10.

Both sound VERY good... i still love the headroom of the F2B , which to me almost seems limitless, even when hitting it very hard.

EdwardofHuncote said:
Absolutely, but I've never tried maxing out the mid control on my WalkAbout and adjusting bass and treble off that setting. I'm going to try it, just to see what -if any- common ground there is.

To be fair, the Alembic preamp is racked with a power-amp and driving banks of speakers in bi-amp mode... and the WalkAbout is always docked in my Scout 15 combo these days, so they don't cross paths much. ;)

The WalkAbout goes on gigs, but the Bass Rig of Mass Destruction stays in the practice room... I don't imagine that changing. :laugh:
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#2,269
One interesting thing I've noticed is that plugging a preamp into the effects return of the Walkabout will give you a somewhat colored signal as compared to say a QSC power amp or something similar. I've compared and there's definitely some signal shaping going on. I could hear what sounded like a low pass filter rolling off the highs and maybe some of that driver tube doing it's thing. I would be curious to hear Andy's explanation of what's going on there because I'm just going by my ears.
 
#2,272
svtb15 said:
After all the talk in this thread.. last night i put my F2B "chan. A" into the FX Return of the WA... I'm guessing ( without knowing for sure) there is an impedance mismatch..And i think that could affect tonality too.. I'm just guessing...
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Good guess, according to the wise old horse... ;)
agedhorse said:
The Walkabout effects return input impedance is 47k, so it's probably high enough for the Alembic preamp, though there will be at least a 6dB loss in signal level compared with a high impedance input since the Alembic's (the F2B is the only model I have data for) output impedance is somewhat greater than 47k itself. I think there is enough output level available to overcome this loss.
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#2,274
kringle77 said:
Using the fx return as a power amp would definitely do something. You are feeding you signal through two tube gain stages. Pretty cool.
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The tube is only a small part of the reason, the circuit topology as a whole is much more responsible.
 
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#2,275
adam montminy said:
One interesting thing I've noticed is that plugging a preamp into the effects return of the Walkabout will give you a somewhat colored signal as compared to say a QSC power amp or something similar. I've compared and there's definitely some signal shaping going on. I could hear what sounded like a low pass filter rolling off the highs and maybe some of that driver tube doing it's thing. I would be curious to hear Andy's explanation of what's going on there because I'm just going by my ears.
Click to expand...
I can't go into much detail because there's some proprietary stuff involved, but there are several important interactions all happening at the same time, at varying rates and at different places depending on how hard the amp is driven. It is difficult to describe, even if I could.
 
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#2,276
agedhorse said:
I can't go into much detail because there's some proprietary stuff involved, but there are several important interactions all happening at the same time, at varying rates and at different places depending on how hard the amp is driven. It is difficult to describe, even if I could.
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In earlier times this would have been simply characterized as magic...in today's more scientifically enlightened times, it's still appropriately characterized as magic (we just know the voltage and wattage at which it occurs). :)
 
#2,277
Al Kraft said:
In earlier times this would have been simply characterized as magic...in today's more scientifically enlightened times, it's still appropriately characterized as magic (we just know the voltage and wattage at which it occurs). :)
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In the guitar amp world, it's called mojo. In the engineering world, it takes a certain amount of luck to develop good mojo. Also, bad mojo is much easier to create than good mojo... ;)
 
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#2,278
Furious_Man77 said:
Same, though I'm in the market for some extra cabs to squeeze the most out of it. Considering a single Berg HDN212 or the Subway 12 & 15 cabs.
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yeah, I think the WA+Berg connection is a pretty well proven good thing. CN212, HDN212, NV610, NV412 .. all have great reviews with the WA. I'm sure there are others too.
I always "liked" the WA + Scout cab combination. I used several variations; 1x12, 2 x 1x12, 1x12 + 1x15, but it was the CN212 that really made it happen for me (at the time).

I think you won't be disappointed
 
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#2,279
pfschim said:
yeah, I think the WA+Berg connection is a pretty well proven good thing. CN212, HDN212, NV610, NV412 .. all have great reviews with the WA. I'm sure there are others too.
I always "liked" the WA + Scout cab combination. I used several variations; 1x12, 2 x 1x12, 1x12 + 1x15, but it was the CN212 that really made it happen for me (at the time).

I think you won't be disappointed
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Yep. ..that's fer sure!
I can still remember the first time I plugged my WA thru my NV215 jaw droppingly good.
The NV412 is lovely too.
Can't remember how the NV610 sounded with it.
I've played other Berg cabs with it. .but that NV215 combo was superb.
 
#2,280
pfschim said:
yeah, I think the WA+Berg connection is a pretty well proven good thing. CN212, HDN212, NV610, NV412 .. all have great reviews with the WA. I'm sure there are others too.
I always "liked" the WA + Scout cab combination. I used several variations; 1x12, 2 x 1x12, 1x12 + 1x15, but it was the CN212 that really made it happen for me (at the time).

I think you won't be disappointed
Click to expand...
Has anyone tried the new HG310 with their Walkabout?
 

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