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Most Disappointing Experience (Amps)

#24
I had the same experience with a Mesa Subway WD800. I completely understand why people like them so much. It does everything well. Can't really get a bad sound out of it. But for me it doesn't have that ONE sound that just wows you. If I played it for hours and eq'd a certain way and someone came by and played through it and eqd it another way. I wouldn't be mad or really care about trying to find my previous setting. It does everything well except have its own defined thing I guess. I loved my ampeg, gk, fender, aguilar heads. They all had that one sound that was just IT. The WD800 kind of farts around inbetween all of them very well without really going all the way. I got rid of it after about a month. Now the newer TT800 boogie channel... THAT is the sound I think I was searching for in the rest of the subway series. That is a sound I can hear and go yea thats a nice damn sounding Mesa. Very interested in picking one up to possibly be my main amp when venues around here start opening up.
 
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#25
My "modern tone" 2017 AmProf Pbass sounds great through my Markbass Little Mark III & two 12 Markbass cabs. Crunchy and funky! However I was having trouble getting the required thick punch with my reggae-dedicated 2008 AmStd Pbass (with Dunlop flats + PV63 pup). I tried everything to no avail. The tone was OK but hardly inspiring and I was blaming my equipment. Then I cranked up the gain knob (from 12 to 2 o'clock) and everything changed! So simple. My rig (not me) sounds like Robbie Shakespeare now!
 
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#29
Marshall VBA4O0 head and 4x12 cab. Was backline at a show. No matter what I did, the sound was wooly, loose and just got lost in the mix. That was the gig that convinced me to get a light portable head to take to every show (then a Genz Bemz shuttle 6.0, which I subsequently traded in for my Mesa D-800l
 
#30
Heavy Blue said:
Last and most painful to say is Traynor. I’m a Canadian and I’m glad that we do have a manufacturer in this & I do want to support them. I’ve had some great guitar gear from them but tbh the 3 bass amps I’ve had in the past had have left me kind of underwhelmed. They often seem kind of dark and have EQ sections that don’t seem to do a lot to the base tone. I’m about to check out the SB106 & 110 for the next month though as it was half price rentals at Long’s this week past & I picked them up yesterday to give them an honest try. I would also still like to try out the new YBA-100 as well. I had the 200 for a couple of years and while it was nice for bass it was a bit too polite for my taste. As an aside, when playing distorted metal guitar, I used to feed the 200’s power section with the preamp out from my B-52 AT-100 hi gain channel then and then ran that into my 4x12”/2x12” 3/4 stack. Playing a good Les Paul, it was like the Finger of God had struck the earth lmao. I gotta say, it was pretty amazing.:woot:
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I’ll echo Heavy Blue’s sentiments. I’m also a Canadian and I very much wanted to love the Traynor YBA-200. I couldn’t dial in a tone I loved despite a lot of effort. Sold it and got an Ampeg V4B reissue that, to my taste, was easy to dial in from the get-go.

Marc
 
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#31
Early on in my playing, I lusted after the SWR stuff, particularly the SM900. At the time, it was the coolest looking head out there and super primo on the pricing. I actually bought a Workingman's 10 combo 22 years ago that I still have and it works very well to this day and a Goliath III cab was part of my rig for some time.
So for years, I actually hoped I'd get one of their better heads some day, particularly this one.

When a time actually came that I could afford one of the SM900 heads (it was used and I was gainfully employed), I sat down to play it, with the hopes of completing a rig that I dreamed of at 16 years old.
- I couldn't dial in a sound I liked to save my life
- Output was very quiet, compared to almost every other amp I tried at the time.

I'm definitely not saying it was a bad amp by any means. It was well built and feature packed. But it really clued me into the fact that some amps just aren't for everyone.

In fact, I'd say over the years, what I truly desire in an amp is simplicity and volume. The WM10 combo was very simple and loud enough for small gigs. And my go-to brand for amps now is GK, which by comparison to the SM900, has a very simple preamp setup. It also has very loud output.
Essentially, the SM900 just wasn't for the bassist I became later on. And that's okay! I didn't have to learn it the hard way by buying one when I was younger, they were new and crazy expensive, then losing my arse when I sold it at a loss for not being what I truly needed.
 
#32
buldog5151bass said:
So you say the thread is not intended to sh$t on gear, then you sh$t on gear and invite others to do the same...
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No that’s not at all what I did. I was looking for other’s experiences. I also said point blank that I wanted to love the DB750 but couldn’t no matter what I tried. So grow up Mr. Grumpy.
 
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#34
Amps that have never "done it" for me;
Eden Traveler
Genzler Magellan 800
Ampeg PF800
Aguilar TH500
Peavey Mark VI
Fender Rumble 200 combo
Carvin BX1500
Carvin BX1600
TC Electronic BH250 head
TC Electronic Staccato 51

All quality amps - could be the cabinets that I paired them with, or it could have been "operator failure". Found all of them "lacking" in some way
 
#35
My biggest disappointment was an SWR SM-900 with 2 Goliath II 4x10s. Sounded great in the store - bought it and was totally pumped to try it with the band - but got totally buried live.
Spent two months trying to dial it in but never could dial in a working live tone. Sound man hated it too.

Next closest was a ToneHammer - couldn't get any definition in a live setting without completely blowing everyone else away volume wise.
 
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#36
Other than rehearsal studio gear that often is what it is, the only amp I've really been disappointed with as far as a provided backline was an Aguilar Tone Hammer 500 with an Aggie 410. I just could not get me to sound like me and it distracted me all night. Next time we played there I took my gear. I also have found a couple of Markbass amps that needed far more tweaking than I prefer to do in order to sound close enough to what I needed.
 
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#37
Heavy Blue said:
Three and a half for me with bass amps.

First being Markbass. I don’t get it. I really wanted to like them but I couldn’t get a sound I liked out of the 3 I briefly tried. Can’t say I’m a big fan of that loud whatever shade of yellow or orange that it’s supposed to be either.

Next we’re back to the Tone Hammers, in my case the 350. I’ve read on here about how there seems to be two kinds of TH users. Those like post #11 above that get it and get great tones out of them and those like me that couldn’t get a decent sound out of it if my life depended on it. What is with that weird drive control that sorta isn’t anyways?
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The controls on the TH are unique, the Drive is a combination variable hpf lpf that rolls off the very lows then starts to roll off the very highs then adds a mid bump. If you crank it up without understanding it you will be very confused. The Drive interacts with the Gain to make it weirder. The Gain in itself is different in that you can run it all the way off if you want. Finally the Bass is set very low. I love mine and find it easy to get good toan.

The amp I was most underwhelmed by was a Rumble 100, I believe it has a pretty aggressive hpf built in, I could not get any low end out of it and was shocked at its thinness compared to an older Rumble 150 head and a cheap but efficient 115.
 
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#38
There are 3 amps that come to mind as poor choices....
#1 - Cerwin Vega BG-250. I had this in the mid/late '70s. Not that it sounded bad, but it had reliability issues.

#2 - SWR Redhead (original, not the Super) early '90s. Heavy as lead, needed an extension cab to really punch, and you could fry an egg on the faceplate. Plus the fact that I sold off a mint Kramer era NS-2 to buy it still makes me bitter just thinking about it.

#3 - Aguilar TH500. I tried one of these a few years back. I couldn't dial in anything that made me feel that it was worth keeping. I had great hopes for it, based on reviews.
 
#39
joelns said:
I had a similar experience with an old Ampeg SVT on a backline. It was plugged into an 8x10 fridge. No matter what I did, I couldn't find a good tone. Might have been that the amp needed work. Might have been that the cab needed some work. I really don't recall. 30 years have passed since then. I just remember that I was thinking that I couldn't figure out what all the hype was about. And yes, this was my first time into an SVT.
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I have a similar experience. I was stoked when a friend of mine let me use his rig for one gig. He's got a modern production SVT with a 410, I think it's the HLF. I had plenty of time to dial in whatever I wanted, but no matter what I tried I couldn't find a tone I liked. Made me think the same about the hype and I stopped gassing for tube amps. I prefer my '70's solid state heads.
 

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