- Jun 24, 2006
- 2,560
- 91
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: MTD basses and strings; Bergantino Amps & Cabs
Epifani UL 502 Amp:
Nice, small, well-built, fairly light, but not unbelievably so. Lotsa power, sort of, in a digital kind of way. The amp sounded incredibly clean, magnitudes beyond what I have experienced before. It just has this transparent, digital aspect to it that I remember from hearing my first CD (I was horrified- no 'punch') or my first 'bad' digital effect unit. Clean, clear, quiet, accurate, fast attack, but somehow there's a giant 'hole' in the sound that is hard to describe but blatantly obvious when you hear it. Kind of like cooking a chicken in a microwave: Is it hot? Yes. Is it cooked? Yes. Is it palatable? Well...sort of...some people really like it. Is it edible? Well...that's one aspect we're still working on: 'edibility'. There's something just inherently 'wrong' in the sound of most of the 'digital switching' amps I've heard. Is it light? Yes. Is it powerful? Yes. Do the tone controls work well? Yes. Does it sound good? Well, that's one aspect we're still working on: 'audibilty'. Also, the pots are so light that they will be easily bumped out of place while transporting it, and you'll be constantly resetting the controls, which would personally drive me crazy. One other subtle thing the Eden WT800 has done so well. Very nice try, some people will dig it a lot, just not for me. And quite expensive.
7/10
Epifani Performance Series 600 Amp:
I liked this amp a lot better than the ultralight stuff. A conventional size and weight unit, it sounds like a well built amp, nice features, good power, kind of heavy for its size, good punch, lotsa balls. But seeing an Eden WT800A nearby, similar size and weight, and you know, much as I personally hate that company now, that amp is just, well, the industry standard, and nothing else quite measures up unless you spend a LOT more money AND get something substantially bigger. The Eden blew it away, IMHO. Same size and weight, roughly, and just a little more expensive; way better features (stereo, bi-amp, balance control, bridge mono, etc.). I'd go for the Eden.
Epifani 600 - 8/10
Eden WT800 - 9.9/10
Epifani UL 212 Cab:
Light, like stupidly light, well-built, but this cab just didn't do it for me. A nice sound, clinical, accurate to a point, but had a nasty kind of 'overtone' to it, a kind of scratchiness to it I just didn't like. Tried it with all three amps. Surprising, because I really like 12's in general, and my last two rigs (and current one) use them. 6/10
Epifani UL 410 Cab:
Initially sounded great. Light as a feather (also one of my favorite albums of all time). Clear, clinically clean to a magnitude I've never heard before in a cabinet. Tight, punchy, deep, missing some high-mids or low-highs (2.5K kind of thing), very polite cabinet. Fast, accurate to a 'T', ballsy (with the right amp), sounded very 'digital' with the 502, better with the 600, and bordering on great with the Eden 800. One of the best 4x10 out there, not boxy or honky like the vast majority of them; I would love to hear this cabinet with conventional (non-neo) speakers. A nice cab, especially for fretless, I would just be worried that it would get buried in the mix with it's deep bottom and polite high-mids.
8.5/10
Mesa Titan V12 Amp:
Ridiculous. Too many switches, buttons, knobs, lights. Big. Surprisingly, about the same (or maybe less) weight than an Eden 800. TONS of power, really good EQ, nice switching, really nice amp. Wish it had the flexibility of the Eden, but it didn't. Nice amp, sounds great. The knobs, also, would be VERY hard to see on a dark stage. I personally would like to see this same amp in a smaller package, with less bells and whistles; keep the 2 channels, put an A/B button on it, lose all the distortion channels stuff, make it stereo, bi-ampable, with a bridged mono function, make it two rackspaces, and they'd have a... a..... an.... Eden WT 800,
with a little more power. And two channels, kind of like the 1205 was supposed to be, but just isn't.
You just can't get away from those things. I hate them, but they just work, man.
8.5/10
Mesa PowerHouse 1000 Bass Cabinet:
This cabinet is just TOTALLY absurd; it goes against EVERYTHING they would teach you in an audio engineering school. Stick a 15" speaker in the middle of a 4x10" cabinet where the tweeter should be. Ridiculous: big, HEAVY!!!!, way too many speakers in there (4x10 + 15" + tweeter), not enough porting, the wood's about 2" thick, stupidly big and heavy, looks totally OBSCENE, a complete absurdity in audio engineering, I just know it's going to sound like s***. It's going to HONK, it's going to rumble, with a nasty low frequency fart, and with a horrible scratchy crisp bright top end that's gonna hurt. I just KNOW it's going to suck just by looking at it. Looks like a hoser from Surrey (Vancouver's equivalent to a bad part of New Jersey or Oakland) said "hey dude, like, let's stick a 15" in 'er'". If the 'Trailer Park Boys' designed a bass cabinet, this would be it.
But you know, put away your slide rules, let 'win isp' or whatever that software audio analyzer is called crash (again!), you plug the thing in and it sounds absolutely AMAZING! Makes an Ampeg 8x10 sound like a pair of anaemic headphones. Our stupid instrument, the electric bass, somehow calls for absurdity in audio engineering for it to work properly, and some cabinets just do it, man, and this is one of them. One of the BEST electric bass sounds I have ever heard in my life, right up there with the 15" Genelec monitors I heard in a studio once. It shouldn't work, it looks absurd, audio engineers will either A) cry or B) wet their pants laughing when they see it, but it, I think, is possibly the best electric bass cabinet ever made. Deep, like REALLY deep, punchy, clean, accurate, fast, bright top end, it just has it all. Amazing sound. Possibly designed by a 15 year old heavy metal guitarist who smokes too much dope, but man, the thing just sounds wonderful. I would NEVER buy one unless I had an ox to move it around for me, but one of those rare, stupid things that just works. Magical. An amazing accident. A total fluke; they must've been drunk when they did it. Totally stupid. Nuts. It's amazing that they brought it to market, but I'm glad they did. The thing sounds like God; I want two so I can run stereo.
Soundwise, 9.99999999/10, but drops to 5/10 if you factor in stuff like practicality and weight. But don't do that. A totally devastating product. The 15-year-old hoser metalhead from Jersey had the right idea.
Pure genious, stupid, nuts, shouldn't work at all, a complete and total fluke I'm sure. No one could be serious about a cab like this. Insane! The Shelby Cobra of bass cabs; no wait (or should I say weight)! The Cobra was light, clean, elegant. This is garish, over-the-top, absurd, too big, gross, it'll never sell! I can just imagine the committee meetings at Mesa on this one; 'You wannna do WHAT!!!!???? Are you INSANE???" It's the Dodge Viper of speaker cabinets (ever been in one?). The most fun you can have with your pants on, and one of the greatest things ever produced.
Just my HO, flame suit on,
Cameron
Nice, small, well-built, fairly light, but not unbelievably so. Lotsa power, sort of, in a digital kind of way. The amp sounded incredibly clean, magnitudes beyond what I have experienced before. It just has this transparent, digital aspect to it that I remember from hearing my first CD (I was horrified- no 'punch') or my first 'bad' digital effect unit. Clean, clear, quiet, accurate, fast attack, but somehow there's a giant 'hole' in the sound that is hard to describe but blatantly obvious when you hear it. Kind of like cooking a chicken in a microwave: Is it hot? Yes. Is it cooked? Yes. Is it palatable? Well...sort of...some people really like it. Is it edible? Well...that's one aspect we're still working on: 'edibility'. There's something just inherently 'wrong' in the sound of most of the 'digital switching' amps I've heard. Is it light? Yes. Is it powerful? Yes. Do the tone controls work well? Yes. Does it sound good? Well, that's one aspect we're still working on: 'audibilty'. Also, the pots are so light that they will be easily bumped out of place while transporting it, and you'll be constantly resetting the controls, which would personally drive me crazy. One other subtle thing the Eden WT800 has done so well. Very nice try, some people will dig it a lot, just not for me. And quite expensive.
7/10
Epifani Performance Series 600 Amp:
I liked this amp a lot better than the ultralight stuff. A conventional size and weight unit, it sounds like a well built amp, nice features, good power, kind of heavy for its size, good punch, lotsa balls. But seeing an Eden WT800A nearby, similar size and weight, and you know, much as I personally hate that company now, that amp is just, well, the industry standard, and nothing else quite measures up unless you spend a LOT more money AND get something substantially bigger. The Eden blew it away, IMHO. Same size and weight, roughly, and just a little more expensive; way better features (stereo, bi-amp, balance control, bridge mono, etc.). I'd go for the Eden.
Epifani 600 - 8/10
Eden WT800 - 9.9/10
Epifani UL 212 Cab:
Light, like stupidly light, well-built, but this cab just didn't do it for me. A nice sound, clinical, accurate to a point, but had a nasty kind of 'overtone' to it, a kind of scratchiness to it I just didn't like. Tried it with all three amps. Surprising, because I really like 12's in general, and my last two rigs (and current one) use them. 6/10
Epifani UL 410 Cab:
Initially sounded great. Light as a feather (also one of my favorite albums of all time). Clear, clinically clean to a magnitude I've never heard before in a cabinet. Tight, punchy, deep, missing some high-mids or low-highs (2.5K kind of thing), very polite cabinet. Fast, accurate to a 'T', ballsy (with the right amp), sounded very 'digital' with the 502, better with the 600, and bordering on great with the Eden 800. One of the best 4x10 out there, not boxy or honky like the vast majority of them; I would love to hear this cabinet with conventional (non-neo) speakers. A nice cab, especially for fretless, I would just be worried that it would get buried in the mix with it's deep bottom and polite high-mids.
8.5/10
Mesa Titan V12 Amp:
Ridiculous. Too many switches, buttons, knobs, lights. Big. Surprisingly, about the same (or maybe less) weight than an Eden 800. TONS of power, really good EQ, nice switching, really nice amp. Wish it had the flexibility of the Eden, but it didn't. Nice amp, sounds great. The knobs, also, would be VERY hard to see on a dark stage. I personally would like to see this same amp in a smaller package, with less bells and whistles; keep the 2 channels, put an A/B button on it, lose all the distortion channels stuff, make it stereo, bi-ampable, with a bridged mono function, make it two rackspaces, and they'd have a... a..... an.... Eden WT 800,
with a little more power. And two channels, kind of like the 1205 was supposed to be, but just isn't.You just can't get away from those things. I hate them, but they just work, man.
8.5/10
Mesa PowerHouse 1000 Bass Cabinet:
This cabinet is just TOTALLY absurd; it goes against EVERYTHING they would teach you in an audio engineering school. Stick a 15" speaker in the middle of a 4x10" cabinet where the tweeter should be. Ridiculous: big, HEAVY!!!!, way too many speakers in there (4x10 + 15" + tweeter), not enough porting, the wood's about 2" thick, stupidly big and heavy, looks totally OBSCENE, a complete absurdity in audio engineering, I just know it's going to sound like s***. It's going to HONK, it's going to rumble, with a nasty low frequency fart, and with a horrible scratchy crisp bright top end that's gonna hurt. I just KNOW it's going to suck just by looking at it. Looks like a hoser from Surrey (Vancouver's equivalent to a bad part of New Jersey or Oakland) said "hey dude, like, let's stick a 15" in 'er'". If the 'Trailer Park Boys' designed a bass cabinet, this would be it.
But you know, put away your slide rules, let 'win isp' or whatever that software audio analyzer is called crash (again!), you plug the thing in and it sounds absolutely AMAZING! Makes an Ampeg 8x10 sound like a pair of anaemic headphones. Our stupid instrument, the electric bass, somehow calls for absurdity in audio engineering for it to work properly, and some cabinets just do it, man, and this is one of them. One of the BEST electric bass sounds I have ever heard in my life, right up there with the 15" Genelec monitors I heard in a studio once. It shouldn't work, it looks absurd, audio engineers will either A) cry or B) wet their pants laughing when they see it, but it, I think, is possibly the best electric bass cabinet ever made. Deep, like REALLY deep, punchy, clean, accurate, fast, bright top end, it just has it all. Amazing sound. Possibly designed by a 15 year old heavy metal guitarist who smokes too much dope, but man, the thing just sounds wonderful. I would NEVER buy one unless I had an ox to move it around for me, but one of those rare, stupid things that just works. Magical. An amazing accident. A total fluke; they must've been drunk when they did it. Totally stupid. Nuts. It's amazing that they brought it to market, but I'm glad they did. The thing sounds like God; I want two so I can run stereo.
Soundwise, 9.99999999/10, but drops to 5/10 if you factor in stuff like practicality and weight. But don't do that. A totally devastating product. The 15-year-old hoser metalhead from Jersey had the right idea.
Pure genious, stupid, nuts, shouldn't work at all, a complete and total fluke I'm sure. No one could be serious about a cab like this. Insane! The Shelby Cobra of bass cabs; no wait (or should I say weight)! The Cobra was light, clean, elegant. This is garish, over-the-top, absurd, too big, gross, it'll never sell! I can just imagine the committee meetings at Mesa on this one; 'You wannna do WHAT!!!!???? Are you INSANE???" It's the Dodge Viper of speaker cabinets (ever been in one?). The most fun you can have with your pants on, and one of the greatest things ever produced.Just my HO, flame suit on,
Cameron
I do like that little Walkabout cab though... the 112... nice sounding!
