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Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread part Four!

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#801
vin*tone said:
Surely the whole original idea of the "Walkabout" is its portability. You don't walk about with a rack - particularly in this age of lightweight micros. Also..I can't see them adding another yet another 2 space rack mount 600ish watt amp to their line-up. Something's gotta give. Sure we can hear the differences but I'd say most people couldn't. They would perceive the M-Pulse and WA600 as the same thing.
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I'd disagree in that that the WA case and front pannel are not that durable or protected, and, if you drop that much cash for an amp, one probably doesn't want to bugger it up. I bought mine with the idea of carrying it like my LMII and quickly changed thinking after scracthing it up. The headcase they make is huge and heavy and the rack ears add considerably to the width. IMO, the existing pre with twice the mosfet power, bigger ouput transformer, beefier power supply, fan, etc would fit in a 19" 2-space package.
It would be a shame if the M-Pulse sales were based on the preception of a 600 watt WA, and that most were resold based on disappointment.
I still believe that it is all about how long it would take for sales of this new amp to generate enough profit to pay for R&D, tooling, and manufacturing costs. Can't blame them if that is their reasoning.
Lastly, Mesa really is a guitar amp company; don't have any access to sales numbers but would think it might be a 10:1 ratio of guitar to bass products; probably good business to focus on the big sellers to stay healthy in this economy.
Maybe someday we will really know the truth behind their thinking.
 
#802
lomo said:
Not surprising to me in the least, considering they still push the Walkabout 12 combo as being 300 watts into 4 Ohms, even though the driver/cab maxes out well before this and an 8 Ohm is just as loud and makes far more sense.
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Yeah. Same dudes that emphasized that "2 ohms isn't a great idea but 2.67 is fine" when i bought my Walkabout stack, despite all the TB evidence that 2 ohms is fine. I'm not too worried, honestly. If the amp somehow overheats, I'll blame the sales guys... and if that 4 ohm speaker ever blows, same deal. Worst case I'll buy a new 8 ohm driver to swap into the combo box.
 
#804
derrico1 said:
Anyone here tried feeding WA to power amp via a speaker-level DI?
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The problem with that method is that you must have a speaker connected to the Walkabout in order to use the speaker DI (unless you buy a fancy rackmount DI with a dummy load). This kinda negates the whole reasoning behind wanting a more powerful amp in one package, as it requires the use of two separate speakers, a separate power amp, and a separate DI. Might as well just buy a second Walkabout at that point, like Ben Kinney from Incubus...
 
#806
sunbeast said:
The problem with that method is that you must have a speaker connected to the Walkabout in order to use the speaker DI (unless you buy a fancy rackmount DI with a dummy load). This kinda negates the whole reasoning behind wanting a more powerful amp in one package, as it requires the use of two separate speakers, a separate power amp, and a separate DI. Might as well just buy a second Walkabout at that point, like Ben Kinney from Incubus...
Click to expand...

Pardon my ignorance but how do you set up the input to two heads from one bass?
 
#808
Chef said:
something like a radial di to split it to two destinations should work.
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There may be another way not requiring another device. If all he's looking for is a way to slave another amp to drive more speakers, and he doesn't use the effects loop, it should be possible to run the send from one amp into the return of the other. The cable might have to be a bit creative depending on how the loop works tho.
 
#809
sunbeast said:
The problem with that method is that you must have a speaker connected to the Walkabout in order to use the speaker DI (unless you buy a fancy rackmount DI with a dummy load)...
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Why? The WalkAbout doesn't have a tube power section. it doesn't need a speaker load.

You'd go speaker out of the WalkAbout into the speaker-level DI (ART one costs $22) then that sends line level to your power amp.

Seems like a great idea.
 
#814
So I'm playing a Walkabout Combo at GC and I really dig the tone! I have a couple questions though and what better thread to ask on. First I notice on the Mesa site you can order as a 8-ohm so you can add a cab if you like (I like). Can you run this at 2-ohm? Not sure how a 8-ohm will fair compared to the 4-ohm unit. Does the head/cab separates go down to 2-ohm? I read one post that some ran theirs at 2-ohm. Is the M6 a better choice? They do it in a combo too. Thanks in advance.
 
#815
Some run it at 2 ohm. Mesa doesn't formally recommend it in the manual. Some people have had issues running it at 2 ohm, many others have not. I personally can't see why it would be a good idea to tempt the gods.

Yeah, yeah... in 'old manuals', it used to say that it was stable at 2 ohm, but I think it's pretty strange not to take the revised recommendation in the new manual, to operate it at a minimum of 4 ohm.

I'd go 8 ohm, despite the fact that I own a 4 ohm, just to be safe. (Not to mention the fact that the woofer won't really be able to handle 300W from the WA running at 4 ohm before farting out. Lomo will expound on this, I presume.)
 
#816
naturalkinds said:
I can only imagine that would mess up the impedance of a signal, hence why we don't do it with mic cables. We use a mic line splitter for that, or some Radial equivalent.
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Depends on the output impedance of the instrument vs the input impedance of the amp(s), but I do think it's generally frowned upon as a practice.
 
#817
Possibly frowned upon but have done so in the past with no signal to noise issues (with older SS MI amplifiers); couldn't find amp input impedance in the manual though
 
#818
If the effects loop in the Walkabout is not buffered, a stereo Effects Loop Interface (like a dumbleator for Dumble guitar amps) can be used. The send loop on the Walkabout goes into the ELI which buffers and splits the mono signal into stereo and runs it back into the return loop on the Walkabout and into the return of another amp, in this case another Walkabout. In that way, the preamp section of one Walkabout is going into the power section of two Walkabouts. It's also a unity gain/impedence matcher. It works for a guitar amp so I see no reason why it wouldn't for the Walkabout.
 
#819
naturalkinds said:
I can only imagine that would mess up the impedance of a signal, hence why we don't do it with mic cables. We use a mic line splitter for that, or some Radial equivalent.
Click to expand...

I just can't think of a way to get the impedence matching that we know and love, which for me is a passive bass into a WA, with two WAs. With a DI or active bass, it wouldn't matter very much how many amp inputs you connect, but a Y cable with a passive bass would drastically change the impedance from what I get with my pickup connected to the tube.

That said, maybe it still sounds great. I don't have two WAs to try any options, but I have used a DI into the WA, and it sounds different than plugging in directly with my passive bass. Does anyone know what Kenney uses?
 
#820
Jim C said:
Possibly frowned upon but have done so in the past with no signal to noise issues (with older SS MI amplifiers); couldn't find amp input impedance in the manual though
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Yeah, and really, I don't think I've ever seen an input impedance published except maybe for some of those amps that have XLR inputs for upright basses.
 
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