Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

[Coolhandjjl]

Wasn’t the dreaded foam rot of the 70’s and 80’s solved?

 

[Al Kraft]

Good question. If it has the cloth surround, the life expectancy is probably 30+ years, if it has a foam surround, I don't know what it might be. If somebody posts a photo I can identify the surround type.

I wasn't willing to do a complete disassembly to find out and didn't have an inspection mirror handy to look in through the port, but it would appear to be a black single roll rubber-type surround. I may be totally wrong on that - it was a quick look through the PR grille. Maybe someone else can confirm and/or provide a more accurate description. FWIW, mine is an older WA Scout 112 4 Ohm speaker combo.

 

[Al Kraft]

Wasn’t the dreaded foam rot of the 70’s and 80’s solved?

In my case it was solved by replacing my JBL speaker cabs (that did sound great during the 70's) with some nice Bose stereo cabs.

 

[BluesDawg]

I figured this was the case, but I wanted to be sure before I started rooting around. That speaker has been in there for about 15 years, so not surprising that is sticking. I will proceed carefully. Thanks much for the info.

Mine came out clean. Just took a little bit of mild prying with a putty knife I had handy. My Walkabout and Scout cab is about 15 years old, but has had very light use and is in great shape.

 

[agedhorse]

The butyl rubber should last a long time too. I don't know enough about the history of that cabinet to know what the versions might have been.

 

[Al Kraft]

My guess is that WA cabs and WA combos saw a number of variations for various reasons over the many years of production. In any event, my WA Scout continues to impress me every time I fire it up.

 

[pfschim]

Where can I get a Mesa Boogie tone luggage cart for my walkabout scout 12.

its entirely possible that Mesa discontinued the tone luggage accessory for the Walkabout when they discontinued the Walkabout itself.
did you look on the Mesa site ?

I had one on my WA 12 combo, but while I still have the cab and use it occasionally, I almost always use larger cabs with my WA amp these days.

 

[Al Kraft]

I had one on my WA 12 combo, but while I still have the cab and use it occasionally, I almost always use larger cabs with my WA amp these days.

The original WA is really more a gig capable head for me with multiple cabs and/or multi-driver cabs when running at 4 Ohms. The combo is pretty capable, but for even medium volume rock it needs some FOH help IME.

 

[five7]

Used it with my bergantino AE 410 and it gets loud. Seems like more than 300 watts. Gives my 800+ a run.

 

[agedhorse]

Higher sensitivity really helped out the Walkabout, the problem with higher sensitivity and low frequency extension is that size and weight grows, and pretty quickly you end up with a large, heavy combo.

 

[pfschim]

The original WA is really more a gig capable head for me with multiple cabs and/or multi-driver cabs when running at 4 Ohms. The combo is pretty capable, but for even medium volume rock it needs some FOH help IME.

my experience as well.
I used the WA 12 combo for a bunch of modest volume jazz sessions and dates, and numerous low volume rehearsals over the years, but it did not hold up well for med to loud gigs at all without FOH support. Like you Al, I matched my WA head to a Berg CN212 (and NV610 at times) and never looked back. I just totally dig what that amp does. I need to get my ears on the WD800 though, from the reviews here and elsewhere, it sound pretty promising. Going to be a pretty tall leap to replace the WA as the "tone in my head" though.

 

[StayLow]

Would *ANY* 12" combo in an especially tiny cabinet handle a medium-to-loud gig without support? No.

Does the WalkAbout 12" combo handle a surprising amount of gig/volume, probably more and much more ... better .. than anything in a vaguley comperable size/weight? Yes.

 

[Mark Desmo]

I am in the process of replacing my 4 ohm Scout 12" speaker with the 8 ohm (official Mesa replacement) .

Did you already buy the speaker?

I needed one for mine (also 8ohm) about 18 months ago, and did a bit of digging, and found (on here) that somebody ordered one from Mesa, and what arrived was an Eminence Deltalite II 2512 clearly marked, and even in a Eminence box, so I sourced an Eminence Deltalite II 2512 independently of Mesa, and made a considerable saving.

The Deltalite that arrived with me, does look different to the original, but my WA is first gen, and looking at the unlabelled original, it's pretty obvious that it's Eminence.

Just out of interest, with the WA, the 4ohm is standard, but with the Deltalite, the 8ohm is standard.

 

[rodl2005]

Walkabout came as either 4 ohm or 8 ohm combos afaik. I had an 8 ohm 112. Don't know if either were 'standard' ......
If there were a standard, surely ..the 8 ohm would make more sense as a single 12 like that could only handle give or take, 150w i'm my experience

 

[Mark Desmo]

Walkabout came as either 4 ohm or 8 ohm combos afaik. I had an 8 ohm 112. Don't know if either were 'standard' ......
If there were a standard, surely ..the 8 ohm would make more sense as a single 12 like that could only handle give or take, 150w in my experience

I suppose you could conduct a survey to find out how many of each were sold, and then you would know for sure.
Alternatively, you could just look at some old Mesa ads for them.

Yes 8ohm makes far more sense, but then a lot more than 50% of the world population don't have any, in my experience.

 

[StayLow]

One more time per relevance:

The default was 4 Ohms for the combos *AND* the extension cabs. I'm looking at an order form as I type this. There's fine print which states you could order them as 8 Ohm versions.

The original manuals from the silver face era had a section about the WalkAbout amps being test-run at Mesa overnight at 2 Ohms with no problems, but that the "suggested" impedance to run the amp was 4 Ohm.

[...]

 

[Mark Desmo]

One more time per relevance:

Thank you for saving me the trouble.

Mine are both (combo and ext.) 8ohm btw.

 

[Mark Desmo]

Yes 8ohm makes far more sense, but then a lot more than 50% of the world population don't have any, in my experience.

This isn’t meant to be insulting to 4ohm owners btw, not by any stretch.
4ohm or 8ohm is purely situational, and totally dependant upon the individual requirements of the owner.

I’ve only been playing for just over 18 months, and when I started, and was looking for an amp, I knew what I wanted for my particular requirements - which was an 8ohm WA with 8ohm ext speaker, so that’s what I’ve got.

I haven’t gigged yet, so as yet haven’t needed to use both together, and for me the 150/165 watts the 8ohm WA allows out has been plenty, but I wouldn’t mind knowing how it sounds with 300 watts powering the speaker of the 4ohm version, and i’ll bet it sounds awesome!
.

 

[Al Kraft]

This isn’t meant to be insulting to 4ohm owners btw, not by any stretch.
4ohm or 8ohm is purely situational, and totally dependant upon the individual requirements of the owner.

I would typically always suggest 8 Ohm to provide the opportunity for use with an extension cab, but in my case I got the 4 Ohm so I could push the volume a bit and still have lots of clean headroom. Additionally with the removable head option (so I could power multiple cabs of any type) and my plan on using the WA Scout only as a combo, the 4 Ohm worked fine. However, if I were doing a replacement today, I would likely put in the 8 Ohm and be perfectly happy.

FWIW, I firmly believe WA 2 Ohm operation, especially at higher power output is inadvisable. Anytime I see a "not recommended" or "suggested" kind of caveat next to a capability that's screaming "deviate at your own risk if only absolutely necessary, although there may be consequences". Admittedly I come from the aviation field, but engineers do seem to have some common terms with primary and secondary messages that cross disciplines.

 

[Coolhandjjl]

I have two 12” models, this driver is in my Walkabout Scout, and has the deluxe EQ control panel on the rear.
View attachment 3256664

View attachment 3256666


The driver below I use as the extension cab, and has a simple HF attenuator control panel on the rear.
View attachment 3256668

View attachment 3256670

After contacting Mesa and Emeinence, they are both custom spec’d 8 ohm drivers made for Mesa.

The bottom one is an early version of the neo and has a greater frequency response higher up and may have slightly less LF extension when compared to the newer one as well, according to Eminence.

The newer version at the top of my post is a true woofer, quite similar to the 2512 Deltalite II according to both Mesa and Eminence. Perhaps, in order to save packaging costs, they simply use the regular Eminence consumer boxes.

IIR, the 4 ohm 12” drivers are ferrite/ceramic. I could be wrong though.