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Mesa four 88, WD800 or wait

#21
I’ve played the B|Amp, Forté, and now own a WD800

IMO, I loved the Forte tone. It’s quick, clean and punchy. The VRC is a thing of beauty and it’s a great footprint. A really great looking amp. I didn’t like the knobs actually. They’re quite tall, the pots felt a little loose for me, and the plastic just felt a little cheap. That’s mostly cosmetic stuff. Tone wise it slays.

The B|Amp can get you the same, and then some. I just preferred the simplicity of the forte. I Know the B|Amp can be simple, but if you want all it offers, it helps to learn it. It’s great if you have a lot of gigs where you play different basses, styles, etc. it’s a very powerful and impressive piece of tech. Both Berg heads feel clean and balanced without being sterile at all.

The Mesa has color, and if you’re into the color, it’s great color. I prefer the Mesa right now mainly due to the ability to dial in gain and overdrive the preamp, and the new damping options. There’s plenty of tone options with the variable mids if you want. I leave them flat mostly or tweak for the room. The HPF is also nice for a quick room adjustment. I just prefer the WD right now, and the options it gives for me. But I pretty much only play passive P basses.

You’re not gonna go wrong with any of those. I’d pick one up used here to try out, and then flip it to try another if you’d like.
 
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#24
gotfunk21 said:
I’ve played the B|Amp, Forté, and now own a WD800

IMO, I loved the Forte tone. It’s quick, clean and punchy. The VRC is a thing of beauty and it’s a great footprint. A really great looking amp. I didn’t like the knobs actually. They’re quite tall, the pots felt a little loose for me, and the plastic just felt a little cheap. That’s mostly cosmetic stuff. Tone wise it slays.

The B|Amp can get you the same, and then some. I just preferred the simplicity of the forte. I Know the B|Amp can be simple, but if you want all it offers, it helps to learn it. It’s great if you have a lot of gigs where you play different basses, styles, etc. it’s a very powerful and impressive piece of tech. Both Berg heads feel clean and balanced without being sterile at all.

The Mesa has color, and if you’re into the color, it’s great color. I prefer the Mesa right now mainly due to the ability to dial in gain and overdrive the preamp, and the new damping options. There’s plenty of tone options with the variable mids if you want. I leave them flat mostly or tweak for the room. The HPF is also nice for a quick room adjustment. I just prefer the WD right now, and the options it gives for me. But I pretty much only play passive P basses.

You’re not gonna go wrong with any of those. I’d pick one up used here to try out, and then flip it to try another if you’d like.
Click to expand...

Excellent synopsis IMO. FWIW, Jim Bergantino has addressed the "feel of the knobs" and assures us that the lighter weight has no reliability or durability downside - it was just a design choice. I sort of liked the volume knob being large as it is easy to find in live performance situation. I also feel the overall knob layout is easy to use in live performance, especially on the Forte which is my favored choice of the Berg options.
 
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#26
It's here!!!!!!!!!!! My initial thoughts...…...how can this thing work well, it doesn't weigh squat. So I fired it up..You could get plenty of bark out of this thing that's for sure, I had it on passive so I switched it to active and it got a lot mellower but I think I need to read the directions and re-post.
 
#27
O.K. I read all of the instructions and set it up like the manual says for fat and mellow I like it but it's way over kill for me (at least now) I put my SVT over in the emergency spot.

The more I play it the more I like it, in a week or so I will probably be drooling all over it as I fire it up and play!
 
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#28
As a general note with many of our amps, the more you play and experiment with the features and the more comfortable you get, the better you will appreciate the various flavors the amps can offer. There's a lot more more to amps than just plug & play, you are encouraged to explore the potential.
 
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#29
agedhorse said:
As a general note with many of our amps, the more you play and experiment with the features and the more comfortable you get, the better you will appreciate the various flavors the amps can offer. There's a lot more more to amps than just plug & play, you are encouraged to explore the potential.
Click to expand...

This is so true. Case in point, my WA that I've had for 12 years. I've pretty much have the front panel controls cased but tbh, I never played with the crossover settings other than the attenuator. Then a couple of nights ago I decided to play with the crossover frequency and wow, now the bottom end is much easier to control now on either of the other two settings but I'm really digging the bright 3K setting now. It actually seems to have more of an effect on the looseness on the bottom then the brightness of the top. But for a long time it was out of sight, out of mind I guess.:)
 

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