Worst Gear You ever played through.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

I've had good luck with getting good tone out of most of the Peavey gear I've owned or gigged with, and I've owned and gigged through a number of different amps over the years. I have never found any attempt by Marshall at making a bass amp rig that I could like, let alone tolerate. I had the displeasure of gigging in a band where the backline was all Marshall provided by the band's leader/owner/etc. He wanted the unified look onstage. It was great for the guitars, but all of my basses sounded like muddy crap no matter what I did to try to e.q. things out. Oh well, at least it was a paycheck, and I didn't have to haul my own gear. I just haven't liked Marshall bass gear scince then.

Have you had a shot at the VBA400 and VBC cabs? One of the few good things marshall did for bass.

The old-ish Dynabass amps & cabs were pretty good too

 

[sfericean]

Wow....

I can't even remember what it was but it was a PA amp into a 100 pound 15" PA speaker. Banana plugs on one end and bare wire into the amp.

WOW....this thread had seriously brought out some old demons...

 

[Eminor3rd]

Rogue RBT-120 or something. A 120W 1x15 combo. You can't imagine how bad that sounded and how pointless it was to try to play in a rock band with it.

 

[Nedmundo]

Excluding cheapo practice amps one can't expect to sound great, it was an Ibanez SRX500 through a Hartke head and VX410 cab. This was the first gear I bought when I returned to playing after almost ten years off, and I didn't know much at all about gear or the factors influencing good tone in a mix.

The head wasn't bad, but that bass couldn't deliver in a band mix, ever, and the cab couldn't handle much power and just didn't sound that great. For supposedly entry level gig-worthy stuff, both were weak, and I returned the rig during Sam Ash's 30 day period and upgraded to a G-K/SWR rig. I dumped the bass shortly thereafter.

 

[Vakmere]

Beheringer 2x10 - 1x15 cabinets and 450 head. Without a doubt the lowest grade you can get. No trade or resale value, farty sound, just plain terribible. Stay away from these by all means.

 

[ducatiman]

at a practice studio:

behringer fart-o-matic head into behringer 4x10.

the fart-o-matic circuit was really working well. it farted at any volume over aa whisper.

don't know (or want to know) model number. the worst tone , i tried and tried to dial it out for 2 hours, our time was up,
unplugged and never looked back. sorry, but i could never suggest Behringer to anyone, let alone buying the brand for myself.

had some other epic rehearsal studio fart machines, but that was the winner.

 

[phxlbrmpf]

Probably my first amp ever, which was a 50 watts practice amp by the (Korean?) company "Shot". Back then I didn't know that much English so it never occurred to me how funny the brand name was. I played it for a while until it was in the state that the brand name suggested.

 

[Knifedge]

Worst bass I ever owned - Charvette 4 string piece of crap
Worst cabinet I ever owned - Legion 410, rated at 800 W RMS. Even a four string made it fart... pure garbage..
Worst head - Fender BXR 400, sounds ok, but the EQ sliders broke, then the EQ failed, then I sold it to the local landfill. Had it for about 6 months.
Worst Combo - This giant Yamaha 2 15 combo.. had basically one sound called "suck" and it sounded like playing through a tin chimney. Worst part was that I was playing a Fender Precision through it, so at least some tone should have come through..

And I am on the fence with this particular head.. Yamaha B100 bass head. When I play it through any other cabinet, it is just gross. As soon as I use my Ampeg 410 Classic with it, it is almost like night and day, and it even has that "distortion" dial that you can turn on when you are in the mood to play some ol' stoner rock.