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Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

#4,041
agedhorse said:
Both of you highlight the difficulty (actually the impossibility) of making an amp higher powered yet at the same time not changing anything about it. The WA's limitations were also its greatest asset IF you could live with the limitations.

These limitations have nothing to do with being class D either, nor does it have anything to do with the tube type, it's simply because what's happening in the WA doesn't scale to higher power. Once we got into the redesign, we approached it in a way to make it "better" for those players who were unable to use the WA due to these limitations. Therefore, the tone and feel will be quite close not be identical by design.

The WD addresses the needs of those players who wanted much the same time and feel as the WA but couldn't make the WA work because it was too compressed or too bloomy and became inarticulate at higher volumes. This was a very real challenge for gigging players who needed more than the amp was capable of. The changes and added features came directly from player requests here on TB.

If you prefer the original WA, keep yours. If you don't have one, there are plenty available on the used market and likely will be for quite some time.
Click to expand...

At one stage I had TWO Walkabouts. I can't see why ppl that need the sound of the original WA don't simply do this, slave one into the other.
It ain't as tho they're heavy or large and a problem to move.
That has always muddled me
 
#4,043
rodl2005 said:
At one stage I had TWO Walkabouts. I can't see why ppl that need the sound of the original WA don't simply do this, slave one into the other.
It ain't as tho they're heavy or large and a problem to move.
That has always muddled me
Click to expand...

That's what Ben Kenney did with Incubus at one point...
full.jpg
 
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#4,044
rodl2005 said:
At one stage I had TWO Walkabouts. I can't see why ppl that need the sound of the original WA don't simply do this, slave one into the other.
It ain't as tho they're heavy or large and a problem to move.
That has always muddled me
Click to expand...
That's one way some have overcome this, but that's quite a bit larger and heavier than a single WD-800 and for many players, it is understandably a big deal.
 
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#4,048
TuneMan said:
This was a big festival stage, and they had a huge group, but their stage volume was very controlled, a refreshing change from some acts....
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I got the impression their stage setup and sound was very refined. The venue was a fairly small theatre and the FOH was almost too much, but it was controlled enough that I could tell the only way they were keeping it so would be to have it well controlled on stage. Same bass rig when I saw them - a couple of Walkabout combos.
 
#4,050
Doodaddy said:
All of this is exactly why the WD-800 was immediately appealing to me and why I sold the Walkabout over not keeping the WD-800: the Walkabout was in my personal perspective, a one trick pony for me as it was a low volume only amp. The WA was "stable" at 2 ohms, but not in a comfortable way for me plus the louder you pushed, the dirtier it got. I did not like that so the tubey nature of the WA was a double edged sword for me. I had once tried using 5751 tubes in the WA, but it really neutered the tone to me. The tone I was able to get with the Walkabout was wonderful, but I couldn't always have or use it in a band setting's volume. I will willingly compromise some to have a more versatile and usable amp in the WD-800 plus features I didn't have with the WA.

View attachment 3316586

For years I tried to have it both ways using the Walkabout as a pre before a dedicated power amp (Crest Prolite 3.0) not significantly unlike what Leo was right suggested, but I really feel like the Walkabout lost a decent amount of what makes it special when the power section was taken out. I can't say why, agedhorse probably could, but it just didn't leave me content. Plus using a full rack like that is a bit unwieldy.

I initially wanted a 1,600 watt Walkabout or a rack mounted tube Mesa or 800+ preamp. I even tried sweet talking agedhorse into it, but I suppose I'll live with the WD-800 for now. If I could add just a bit of tube sheen to the WD-800, I'd most likely have little to nothing to want other than power and I might learn how to coax more things out of it once I spend more intimate time with it.

I still thing Mesa would murder the market if they ever released a tube pre in rack form.............
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Dude, that just looks so sweet! OMG! drool
 
#4,053
rodl2005 said:
At one stage I had TWO Walkabouts. I can't see why ppl that need the sound of the original WA don't simply do this, slave one into the other.
It ain't as tho they're heavy or large and a problem to move.
That has always muddled me
Click to expand...
I had twin Walkabouts too for a year or so, which was no biggie- it was the two cabs that was the annoying aspect to me. I’ve been a one-trip single cab user for so long that the idea of two or three trips at a show was too much trouble for the pay-off. If I had roadies then I’d probably just have a couple Mesa 400+ instead!
 
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#4,054
agedhorse said:
Just a quick note for folks who were fine with a 300 watt bass amp... if you are using very efficient cabinets that don't have a lot of low frequency extension, like the earlier Diesels, Road Readys and Powerhouses and especially those that used the EVM-15L, the added sensitivity combined with less low end extension combined to work better and be more player friendly. As player wants/needs changed and cabinets went from larger, heavier, more efficient, voiced cabinets to smaller, lighter, less sensitive and less voiced cabinets with more LF extension, and especially for those using a single 8 ohm cabinet, 300 watts (~150 watts into 8 ohms) was no longer sufficient for many live applications.

This doesn't mean that the WA wouldn't be ideal for some of you who have more modest needs, but for the others it was more of a "game over" scenario as it was simply not enough amp, and not enough rig for the gig. This was especially true outdoors.

This is what the WD excels at, it's a practical solution for a problem that some of our players regularly enough encountered that it made total sense to develop.
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This is a great point that doesn’t seem to be talked about much - bass cabs have changed a fair bit over the years in terms of design goals.
I used to have an active early 80s bass - the preamp was designed to sound good with a tweeterless cab with not that much low end extension... plugged in via DI to feed my IEM and the FOC the preamp was more or less useless as the freq points were just wrong!
 
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#4,055
Sorry for the double post - my wee daughter gives me more time to write now...

I guess when it comes to cabs there’s plenty of cabs that should give enough output from 300w - but I bet they will tend to be bigger, heavier and at least 20years old. My guess is they will have a lower power rating than most the newer cabs you see now, and not try for such a big bottom end. The only recent cabs that I can think of that might pair well is that genz Benz focus range... but I’m only guessing that off of the lower rating they had.
In an ideal world there would be a equivalent speaker diy design as greenboys fearful range but with more sensitivity and less bottom.
 
#4,058
Mark Desmo said:
Did you ask them about why only the one pilot light was on?
I think I might have done - if I was working for them and all . . .
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Not my dept. I assumed that one amp was a back up, though I would have had it powered up. The band crew were a bunch of road hardened guys from the UK who were not in the mood for questions........and they were too busy telling me to be careful with their one of a kind guitar amp ("One of one," they said). The rest of the guitar amps were definitely not one of a kind....

Audio Kitchen.jpeg
Sigur Ros DeVilles.jpeg
 

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