Quote:
Originally Posted by Wengr
...As for amps, I have encountered some used Carvin combos that sounded great considering the very reasonable price point, as around here at least, Carvin does not seem to retain value.
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MB12 (the dedicated bass-only version of the AG300) owner here:
I've been familiar with Carvin equipment since the mid-80's - had a former band-bud who owned one of those oak-cab X-100 Boogie-clones (still kicking myself for not buying one back when) and worked with a couple sound guys who used their power amps - and all their stuff is well-engineered and tough as nails, not to mention the extremely reasonable prices even when new; that said, I find their bass gear skewed toward a distinctly "modern" sound. Perhaps it's the fact that mine is a 3-way system (12"/6"/tweeter), but it's definitely pitched to the slap-&-pop/roundwound crowd; even with the tweeter turned off it has a glassy "in-your-face" quality, and in spite of the advertised -3dB@50Hz response (approximately low G#) there's no natural warmth - my flatwound-equipped Gibson SG bass requires extensive EQ tweaking to get a useable tone, whereas every other bass amp I own (including my cheapo '80s Peavey Minx 110) is a plug-&-play affair. It's got a few good things going for it - 30-pound total weight (I'm not getting any younger), compact size (not much bigger than my Minx), 250W power, switchable pre/post DI, the aforementioned EQ flexibility, on-board compressor - and in that light it'll be my grab-&-go rig for a while. Although it's got the 'nads to play a medium-size gig, you're going to need a 15" (or 18", if you can get it) cab to put the rumble back in that lowest half-octave - and forget about using it as a stand-alone if you're a 5- or 6-string player; unfortunately Carvin discontinued their full-size 1x15"/1x18" bass cabs a couple years ago (the current MB15 cab is -3dB@60Hz - useless in this application) - and the extra bottom kinda defeats the purpose of a compact rig anyway...